Emerging From the Reality Distortion Field

A long time ago, this domain used to be a site for Mac enthusiasts. It was so long ago, some people called it a webzine -- and who uses that term anymore?

Though the site is no longer, my Mac adoration lives on.

This year, I've come to Macworld to commune with fans, artists and geeks of all stripes to see what's new, improved and cool for the faithful. Lots of other sites are covering the heck out of the show. Though I haven't had a chance to dig through the discussions at the Macworld Expo Ning site, I've been reading Macrumors and TUAW.

Some years, Steve Jobs blows people away with his keynote, affectionately dubbed the Stevenote, and his trademark "Oh, and one more thing." The Mac faithful come away floating on a cloud but they're not dazed enough to rain a little acid on the parade: This was cool, but it could have been cooler, etc., etc.

This year, there was plenty of ohhhing and ahhing, but the euphoria wore off within minutes.

Not only were there dead-on leaks, there was no "Oh, and one more thing." Immediate sniping came from all corners: The MacBookAir is too expensive. There's no swappable battery. There's not enough ports. The hard drive's too small and too slow. The Apple TV Take 2 offers nothing we don't already get through Comcast VOD. The iPod Touch software pack's a ripoff (though new buyers get it for free). The Time Capsule is sort of interesting but we wanted a 3G iPhone.

I shrug and say whatever. Having had the chance to play with the MacBook Air, my impression is it's cool but not meant to be a replacement for a full-sized laptop. That dream is at least another six to 12 months off. But it is light, extremely thin and as far as I can tell, durable. And it's a good fit for people who won't be doing processor-heavy work.

Meanwhile, there are some other neat things:

• MacHeist has a truly useful shareware bundle for $49.
  
• Frogpad was giving demos of its Bluetooth-enabled one-handed keyboard.
  
• People were going nuts for the new Solio Magnesium solar charger. It's not on their site yet.
  
• TechSmith showed off Jing Project, a free app that allows people to post screen captures (still and movies) to Screencast (which is hosted by TechSmith) and Flickr. A clever way to grow their Screencast user base, IMHO.
  
• TheBrain Technologies was giving away copies of PersonalBrain4.1, thought-mapping software similar to Inspiration, iMindMap and others. I was not impressed, but PersonalBrain did have potential for making it easy to visualize complex relationships. Network managers, in particular, might want to check it out.
  

Today I'll be scouting what I missed at the South Hall, seeing what the Google and Garmin guys are up to, and maybe picking up a portable hard drive.

Which reminds me: If you can't be at Macworld but want to shop as though you were, check out the growing list of Expo deals at Dealmac.com.