Macworld

So I went up to Macworld in SF on Friday, to see what was going on and well, saw a lot of stuff.

• iPod cases/covers - these were everywhere! You'd think it was iPodWorld or something
• The coolest covers, by far IMO, were the ones from iFace, who have hit on the brilliant (brilliant I tell you!) idea of making removable covers for the iPod. The covers appear to attach to an inner cover with a velcro fastener and are made of a leather-like substance. Even more brilliant, they have some really cool artwork in their Hotwave collection. Check those out! I got some stickers from them, so I was extra jazzed. I hope they do well.
• ETCHamac was doing some nice engraving work on the back of iPods.
• One booth went a step farther and was doing mac case mods. The Necromac (think army of darkness Necronomicon) G4 case was really sweet.
• Freeverse had a cool looking product called Comic Life that lets you make comics out of your photos. Could be fun. The demo they were showing of Wingnuts 2 (which looks suspiciously like Time Pilot to my eye) also looked very fun. Grabbed some games from them.
• Chatted with a guy at the Panic software booth. They make a very good usenet client called Unison.
• A company called Solio had a snazzy little solar charger for your gps, iPod, PDA, cell phone, etc. Too bad they can't charge a laptop.
• Dropped in on the Epson folks so I could finally find out what the difference is between the R1800 and the R2400, which are roughly equivalent on paper, but the latter costs $300 more. It turns out that the R2400 is designed to do a better job at making black and white prints. The R1800 supposedly makes better glossy color prints. So if you need both, you're kind of screwed. Neither, it turns out, has a roll paper cutter (like my 2200). So much for progress.
• Yes, I looked at a Macbook (man I hate that name). It looks pretty much like a powerbook. They didn't have anything beefy loaded on it so that I could test it out. Nevertheless, I think I shall be getting one of these next month.
• Watched a demo of iWeb, which looked pretty neat. Not sure how quickly one runs up against a wall with it, but kind of a cool idea nonetheless.
• The guy at OWC was showing how easy it is to install a replacement iPod battery, that he did a demo of the process with his eyes blindfolded. Color me impressed.
• Oh, and I finally broke down and got a squeezebox from Slim Devices. I am currently listening to tunes streamed from my laptop to my stereo. I forgot that the Phono jack on my stereo has a different impedence than the other inputs, so that was momentarily unpleasant. But now things are going nicely. Thinking I might turn the tower machine in the office into a music server.