It is easier to take the Ferry to downtown San Francisco than to park your car down there. The Ferry was cool. It is one of those high-speed catamaran types. It was rough out on the bay today so there was quite a bit of motion. I think the waves were about 6’ to 8’ high. The motion was easy until we slowed down. Then we bounced up and down. It wasn’t too much as my coke never sloshed out of the cup. I enjoyed the ride.

They have a couple of cool new machines that I will not be able to afford in this
lifetime. They always do have the sexiest equipment. iMacs are so passé now. The first sexy new piece of equipment is the G4 notebook.

The G4 notebook is one inch thick, 5.4 pounds, a 15.2 Mega-Wide screen and has a DVD drive built in. They claim (as they always do) that this is the fastest notebook in the world. The outputs in the back are USB, Firewire, Ethernet, 15 pin sub D VGA out, headphones, mic and that’s it. I might take one of these but I think I would run in to some problems. Most Techs who use laptops use them to connect with equipment using the serial port, which is the 9 pin, right? The other thing is that most people write programs for windows machines. The other potential problem is that it has no video out port. I feel that a notebook with a DVD drive is also part of the entertainment system. So I think it should have Video and Audio out. I am sure that third party providers could provide an aftermarket system.

The next thing I went to Mac World to see was the 22” Cinema display.

I had heard that this is the best computer display available. It is wonderful. They were littered about the convention hall like party favors. But it costs $3,999.00. For Christ sake! My car cost that much. I would love to have a display like this but not at this price. I might pay for it if it cost $1,000 but my price limit is actually less than that. The other problem is that it only works with new Macs. It only works with new G4 Cubes or Desktops.

The last thing I wanted to see was the G4 Cube. This is the latest, sexiest Mac desktop.

It is cool but it lacks some things that new PCs are coming with. Most wanted new thing seems to be a CD burner. Apple has decided that all new desktop Macs will come with CD burners. This will not apply to the cube, however. It’s less sexy but you should get the bigger box and the burner.

I checked OS-X wich is Macs new operating system. I am no expert but I like the way it looks. Time will tell. I am used to Windows 98, but I am always looking for something better.

The only other things I was interested in were the Microsoft Office 2001 for the Mac. There are many improvements but the program is huge. It is larger than the operating system. I am interested in lower cost office systems that can read Office files, Word and Excel.

I also stopped by the Macromedia booth. They make the software that I use to manage my web page. I want to know what improvements are in Fireworks4 and Dreamweaver4. I use version 3 of those programs. I am sure that I use 1/10th of the capabilities of those programs. I didn’t learn what I wanted in the chaos of the show floor. They did have demos all day but I couldn’t stay.

I headed off to catch the ferry back to my car. I didn't enjoy jumping off of the MUNI bus in to an ankle deep pool of water. Pay no attention to the squishing sound. Now I have seen these cool new machines, I wish I could afford them. But for our office needs we don’t need them. We got three PC to act as ticketing machines for free. The requirements for these machines are so small that I couldn’t specify a new machine that minimal. I haven’t filled up two Gigs of my 4 gig hard drive yet so I don’t need a 40 gig hard drive.

Well, I can dream, can’t I?

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I just downloaded iTunes, however and it's pretty damn cool. Much better than Sound Jam that I used before. It doesn't have a limit on how many mp3's you can "rip" like Sound Jam!

If you don't have iTunes you can get it off your iDisk. Apple puts it there and you can just copy it to your HD. It's free!

The "Cinema Display" is just not worth the $4000 price tag, in my opinion. It's worth half that maybe, but not the full four G's. One of those displays is sitting in a lab down the hall, and after using it for long periods of time, I just can't say it's that much better than a really good CRT. The 17" CRT that we sell has almost as good an image (with a major reduction in screen real estate, though), but it's nearly a full order of magnitude lower in price! Plus, CRTs do not have all the inherent problems of LCDs, such as a highly visible pixel structure (I find that annoying), and a back light that tends to lose brightness and color accuracy over time.

The Cinema Display is a toy for rich people, like our CEO.

I have just about all the software I need. The only thing I might want to get is Office 2001 (AKA: Office Mac)
The reason I haven't already is that the thing is so damn expensive.

Everyonce in a while I go to the stores and look at software. Most of it is crap. 90% of it is games and I don't like playing computer games. (Real-life Pinball is what I play!)