Macworld review

Last week I attended the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. This is reported to be the last conference that Apple will attend. I don't know if this is such a bad thing. Apple really didn't need to be at this conference as a vendor since there was nothing new to announce. I think it was the first time in years that I remember seeing empty slots at the Apple booths, where you could just walk up and play with one of their computers without waiting in line to see the coolest new toys. We'll see if the conference can continue without their namesake as part of the conference. I already received a survey about the 2010 expo asking for input to make the expo better. Apple had posters announcing the new 17" Apple laptops, but nothing special about this other than the size.

I saw a few items worth sharing:

1. I purchased a keyboard cover from KB Covers.. The company has some really great covers, and functional ones such as the Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Aperture, Pro Tools, foreign languages and Final Cut Pro covers. The cover I purchased is a Large Print cover with large white type on a black keyboard. No, I'm not so old that I need this one, but I wanted to show it to our Disabled Students' coordinators so they could see what's available for students. I had a student last semester who could really have used this cover.

2. Another item was the updated Delicious Monster scanning software. I have a bar code scanner for scanning in all of my design books (over 400 and still scanning), but this software uses the built-in iSight camera on Apple computers, and DM's drag and drop function for book covers and other items is great. I think what really sold me on it was the interface design for managing scanned content.

3. The final item that I left Macworld without (only because it doesn't ship until June), is the new 15" Modbook . If you haven't see this Apple laptop Cintiq-esque drawing tablet, then you need to head over to Axiotron and check it out, or look on Youtube and watch a few videos of them in action. I would have purchased one on the spot if they'd had them for sale.

Other than those items, not much more to speak about. I think the Apple iPod and iTouch and i-everything else has put a huge damper on Macworld in the past few years. Everywhere you turn there's someone selling an i-product of some sort, and it gets a little old having vendors ask if you've seen their latest product (yeah, about two vendors back on every isle of the conference). I got to where I was turning my badge around so they'd stop asking me by name how I was doing and if I'd seen their product.

Of course, with the MOMA bookstore just around the corner, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to see what design books they had on their shelves. I picked up a great book on branding: "What is Branding? (Essential Design Handbook)", a graphic design book that I'm thinking of using in our design program at Butte: "Graphic Design (The New Basics)", and a really great postcard design book:"POST CARD". Check out my reading list on LinkedIn for a list of new books I've purchased in the last month.

That's it for tonight. I'll leave you with a couple of links I found this weekend.

The Grid System: The Ultimate Resource in Grid Systems.

and

Booooooom (art, design, music, film)

-Daniel