CourtneyP

Whoa, all this Apple-centric stuff lately is making my head spin.

Friday, we have, of course, the Panther release. In addition to the Apple Store event at Valley Fair that night, we also have a group of us meeting at Santana Row (across the street from Valley Fair) prior to the event for the Jazz Fest, food and drink. If you’re in the area and want to go, make sure to contact Jonas.

Also, next week is the Mac OS X Conference in Santa Clara. This was too easy to pass up, since it’s only five minutes away from home. Although I only have an exhibit hall pass, I will still be around. If any of you will be attending, be sure to let me know. I’m trying to plan a dinner or something with Tom Bridge that week, which would be great if we could get other Mac bloggers involved.

How d’ya them apples? *groan*…

In the mad rush of the announcements of this week and the excitement building for the Panther release, I’ve completely forgotten to mention what we did all day this past Tuesday.

Apple presented the Driven by Design seminar at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in SF. It is a free, touring seminar (make sure that you know when the seminar comes to your town here), with presentations by Adobe, Extensis, GretagMacbeth, Quark and HP. The focus seemed to mostly be on the new products by these companies, along with their Panther and G5 optimization. Although the intended audience seemed to be print professionals, there were some web publishing flecks here and there.

What follows is my quick, dirty rundown of the seminar.
» Read the rest of this entry «

This weekend, I was blessed with a lovely giftcard from CompUSA from my friend Chris. I was immediately tempted to pick up a Kensington StudioMouse Wireless, since I had fiddled (fondled?) with one at a SVMUG meeting a few months back and thought it was quite nice.

As cool as I think the new Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse are, I cannot get over the fact that the mouse is still a freakin’ one button for that price. Predictions have it that there will be a boom in Bluetooth peripherals in the coming months, similar to the following months after Apple first utilized USB.

So, alas, upon further research, the reviews of the StudioMouse seemed to be less than stellar. Sigh. But… it’s just so pretty! Oh, the plight of an Apple consumer…

As mentioned above, I expected to see more bluetooth peripherals popping up in the market. My search also resulted in discovering the Logitech MX 900, a optical bluetooth mouse, that seems to be a bit questionable if there will be OS X compatibility (set to be released on 10 October). A cheaper alternative is also the Belkin Bluetooth Optical Mouse, set to release on the 1st.

But do I really need a Bluetooth mouse? Or is it the “gee-whiz” factor? I am tempted to just pick up the Logitech MX 700 wireless mouse, which is tried and true with the Mac crowd (best. mouse. EVAR.).

Any other Mac Heads out there wanna chime in?

So, how many .mac users are out there, and how many are continuing to use the service to its full potential?

I am a .mac user, but I haven’t really used my membership a while lot over the past months. I use the e-mail address, but I already have plenty of addresses. I have used my iDisk a few times, and I’ve iSynced only a couple of times.

Maybe it’s time that I was realistic and iDiscontinue. My membership is up in less than a month. So unless someone can convince me otherwise (it’s gotta be a really good reason), I’m going to let it lapse. I don’t think I’d be missing much… or would I?

With a new laptop pending in my immediate future, it is hard for me to resist any further gagetry when I go to the Apple Store or read the news and rumour sites. I need to stop visiting these places. They’re like crack… or so I’m told.

Tell me a reason not to get an iSight. Sure, it’s a wad o’ cash, but it’s freakin’ awesome. The latest mention of the shiny cylindrical camera as TIME’s Gadget of the Week and my recent discovery of MyiSight.com (where you can meet other iChat AV users) is NOT helping.

And… argh! Everquest for OS X! Argh! I might as well hand over my wallet now.