Day two of Macworld Expo started off with the MyMac.com team feeling a tad left out with the media pass situation, but that’s been reported sufficiently by others and we’re not here for sour grapes…we’re here to report on all the neat and wonderful things the Macworld show has to offer.
After breakfast at Mel’s Drive-In, which has turned into MyMac.com Central, we went to the Moscone Center, waited until 10AM to get our media credentials, and headed straight for the Press Room so we could gather and plan our day’s activities. Once that was accomplished, I think I got about 45 minutes on my own to scope out the show floor, and got a chance to see maybe .00000003% of it.
I reconnected with the folks at Seefile, makers of a file sharing/digital media asset manager/online approvals and collaboration system that’s really terrific for small to medium sized businesses. The server piece installs on any Mac running Tiger or newer, and runs with
Nova Media, a German company (lots of really neat Mac applications are coming from of Germany these days), makes a cellphone synchronization tool that Windows users would kill to have. Their main product, Fone2Phone (12.52 Euros), is the only tool you need to transfer contacts, ringtones, and media files from pretty much any cellphone on the planet to an iPhone. They have worked closely with all the big phone manufacturers to understand how their internal data structures work. They do so with Bluetooth technology where possible, but also wired connections. Just copy the information to your Mac, disconnect your old phone, pair up to your iPhone, and upload the data to it. That’s just a brief taste of the capabilities. Nova Media makes a wide variety of software to work with your iPhone, and many other brands, to make them more Mac-friendly.
Later in the day, I walked the show floor with MyMac.com’s own Owen Rubin, an amazing fellow whose life has paralleled the best days of personal computing and gaming with stints at Apple, Atari, and elsewhere. We started off at Intuit, where he seemed to know everyone pretty well, as he has been a product tester and reviewer for many years. We spoke to one of the key product developers of the new Mac version of TurboTax, which has been completely rewritten for all the best things OS X brings to the party, and has many Mac OS X-only features. Much of the discussion was off the record, and fascinating, but if I told you any of it, I’d have to kill you. Owen will be reporting more extensively in the coming days/weeks ahead, so I’ll leave the details to him.
We then went to the next booth, Intego, who make one of the best Mac-based anti-virus solutions out there, as well as other utilities. I reviewed their cross-platform anti-virus product earlier in 2007 and found it very good. The new version looks better still. It’s fully Intel-Mac aware, makes use of both CPUs in dual-core machines, and has a real neat user interface.
Finally, we went over to the Equinux (another German software developer) booth to look at some of their new products, among which are iSale5, a tool for building eBay auction pages. They also make Media Central, a home media server application about which I hope to perform a more detailed review in the near future. We waited at the booth for 15-20 minutes waiting to speak to one of the marketing folks, who was tied up with another customer, and when he was finally ready, he had to run off to a meeting. We told him we’s see him later because we had to go off to a press conference ourselves. When we got to the press conference, we realized it was for Equinux! They had some problems with power cords. I was able to step in with a power strip for their projector, and saved the day (you guys owe me big time!). The conference was set up to announce their new TubeStick product–a TV tuner in a USB 2.0 stick-sized device. What makes this product so great is the accompanying software, The Tube, a social networking application that analyzes what other TubeStick viewers are watching, and lets you chat with them, among other things. Owen (or someone) will be doing a review on this product at a later date.
I helped out Tim, Guy, and company at the Prosoft Engineering booth. Prosoft is a major MyMac.com sponsor, so we did a little singing for our supper, by hosting and videotaping a Mac history game show. I’m sure Tim will be posting excerpts on the site in the coming days. Prosoft Engineering makes great Mac software. I reviewed their Data Backup 3.0 product a few months ago, and like it about as much as one can like any backup utility. As good as many of them are, they’re still a bit hard to warm up to, curl up with next to the fire, talk a little baby talk into the vent holes…er…ummm…okay, that was creepy!
As a minor digression (you ought to know by now that no digression of mine is ever minor…), we are finding that with more and more folks bringing wi-fi devices with them to these shows, bandwidth, even in the pressroom, is awful. There’s not much opportunity for Tim to upload all the great video he has shot, because it would take until next Tuesday to get the files to his server. I don’t know what the solution is, except maybe getting the 802.11n standards officially ratified. Ho hum.
I’m back now… Exhausted from the day on the show floor, many of us returned to MyMac.com Central (Mel’s Drive-In), where we chatted for a bit, and said our goodbyes to the real David Cohen, who was on his way to a conference in Palm Springs, California. He promises to come back next year.
Tired as we were, Guy and I went to the Macworld Blast party. While no free food, there were free drinks (two), lots and lots of giveaways, including an iMac, and the band…drumroll please…DEVO! I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a sound system quite as loud, or as pleasurable as that sound system. I’m telling you, that sound system gave me a full body massage, and I mean a Full Body Massage. Oops, that probably pegged the creepy meter. All in all, a great show, even for non-fans. They were on for about 90 minutes with only a tiny break after about an hour. They worked their tails off, I can assure you. They’re not exactly spring chickens anymore, either. My ears are still ringing.
Well, that’s all for Tuesday’s activities. Don’t know what today will hold, but please stay tuned.
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