If there’s one way to summarize one of my biggest questions about what was announced at Steve Jobs’ keynote on Tuesday, this has to be the best way. Overall, this year, I was never really excited about this year’s keynote, and there’s not much there to excite me. Time Capsule definitely looks interesting, and (when I can afford it) may actually improve my recent 1.5 Larry-head rating on Time Machine, although I’m not in a position to get it for the time being. I have a number of qualms about the MacBook Air, and as for the Apple TV, iTunes rentals, and iPod touch/iPhone updates, I’m maintaining a solidly neutral stance on those.

Now, hold on Douglas, you’re thinking, why aren’t you coming out and either praising or bashing Apple the way you normally do? Well, for most of these, I can see pros and cons on both sides, so for me, the jury’s still out on my opinions of these. I’m holding off until I get a chance to play around with things before I start to come to conclusions, and I will be sharing these conclusions on this weekend’s “Macworld in review” episode of PreviewCast, and later elaborating here on my blog.

As for trying them out, that’s what I’m going to be doing tomorrow! Indeed, tomorrow, I’ll be going with the Aragon group (about six of us in total, plus chaperones) to Macworld to tour the exhibit hall for the day. This will be my third consecutive excursion to Macworld’s Expo floor, and according to what all the websites are saying, we’ll actually be able to play around with the new stuff, rather than just looking at a rotating object in a bullet-proof* glass case. Which actually sounds exciting.
* I have no idea if the case was bullet-proof or not, and am just making this up.

However, this year, I hope to spend some more time talking to the people whom I really think should be the stars of the show: all of the little developers. (Merlin Mann likes to call the “little devs” section of the show floor Tiny Town.) It’s THEM that make the show possible, because it’s their contributions of their applications that helps the Mac platform succeed. So, I’m hoping to spend more time there this year.

I have one class tomorrow–Calculus, my first period class. After that, the group of us are carpooling up to the Millbrae BART station and taking BART to Powell Street, a block away from Moscone Center (and right next to the SF Apple Store). Last year, we tried to drive to Macworld and had the worst nightmare with parking. We’ll get there shortly after the 10 AM exhibit hall opening, get all checked in, and then have just under four hours to do stuff to our heart’s content. We’ll gather up around 2:15 to head back to BART and catch a 2:30 train back to Millbrae, and then we’ll drive back to school and get back there around 3:30.

I have not yet exactly decided what I’m going to do there. (Well, actually, I have, but I want to save some stuff to talk about in an “after Macworld” blog post!) However, I definitely intend to visit a number of booths. I plan to definitely check out Office 2008; after all, I don’t feel right truly making fun of something until I’ve had the chance to play around with it with my own hands, and I also want to find out, in plain English, what “Special Media Edition” means. I also want to find out if the Omni Group is offering any nice discounts on their new OmniFocus, which sounds like a really exciting app (and did you hear that it won a Best of Show award), and of course come home stuffed with a Macworld 2008 shirt. (I outgrew my Macworld 2006 shirt. As for my Macworld 2007 shirt, in February, it got a huge red stain after an alcohol thermometer broke in Chemistry class and splattered all over my shirt. Yeah, Macworld 2007 was just NOT a good one for me.) Oh, and I intend to gather up as many freebies and handouts as possible! There was some great stuff last year, so I wonder what I can scrounge up this year.

There’s also been lots of other things happening in my life recently, which I’ll try to catch up on in other blog posts, as it is time for me to hit the hay.

However, I will close by mentioning that this is my 300th blog post since I resalvaged this blog back in October 2006. My blog has had a number of incarnations before that, but I’ve never been able to keep a blog steady enough to keep going continuously for 300 full blog posts, which have been put together in 15 months. (You math whizzes can figure out that I’ve averaged out at 20 posts per month, or about 2 posts every 3 days. It’s not quite at one-post-per-day, blog365ers, but it’s pretty doggone close.) Thanks to the many of you who have been subscribing and sticking with my various ramblings. I do this blog mostly for myself, but it’s great to be able to bring you along for the ride and be able to share things that may interest or entertain you.

Tags: Apple, Aragon, BART, blog, exhibit hall, expo, itinerary, Keynote, Mac, MacBook Air, Macworld, News, opinion, plans, School, Time Capsule, Webmacster87.info

2008 is going to be a year of travel for me, without a doubt. In fact (subject to change), I will be traveling away from home for at least one day, usually more, out of each the months of January, February, March, April, May, June, July, and October. January’s trip happens this week (January 10-12) at my next State PTA Board Meeting in Riverside, California. Hopefully, it will be better than my last board meeting in Long Beach. The good thing is that there haven’t been any recent fires, and my allergic symptoms have been moot for a few weeks now (although I’ll bring some allergy meds JUST IN CASE). Also, given Riverside’s great distance from LAX, I will not be taking Virgin America this time; instead I will by flying with Southwest Airlines (Skoker’s favorite) to Los Angeles/Ontario Airport. As I have posted before, here’s my itinerary.
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Tags: AirPort, BART, Board of Managers, California State PTA, flight, itinerary, meeting, Oakland, Riverside, schedule, School, Southwest

BART, standing for Bay Area Rapid Transit, is celebrating 50 years since it was founded, and 35 years since it carried its first passenger on September 11, 1972. The idea of an electric people mover for the Bay Area to help relieve growing traffic congestion on the Bay Bridge was first conceived in 1946, a time when most people would choose cars over public transit and before the concept of global warming was coined.

The BART system is now a tremendous system, including a subway that runs underneath Market Street in San Francisco, and the San Francisco Transbay Tube, an underwater tube which is 3.6 miles long and has a maximum depth of 135 feet below the surface, making it the longest and one of the deepest vehicular tubes in the world. It is a now a major transit system for the Bay Area, with hundreds of thousands of daily riders, and also featuring connections to SFO and OAK airports, UC Berkeley, downtown San Francisco, Oakland Coliseum, and many other parts of the Bay Area.

When the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake struck the Bay Area, a portion of the Bay Bridge collapsed on itself, causing it to be closed down for a long period of time. However, the BART Transbay Tube suffered no damage, and within hours BART was running at full speed, and really became an essential connection between the San Francisco Peninsula and the East Bay. Similarly, when the MacArthur Maze, one of the most heavily used freeway junctions in the country, burned in April 2007, BART was there to relieve the excess traffic.

So congratulations to BART for 35 years of service. If you’re in the Bay Area and you’ve never had a chance to ride BART, it’s a great experience and you oughta check it out. Also, check out BART’s 35th Anniversary Video, where they recap the last 35 years and talk about some of their ongoing projects.

Tags: anniversary, BART, Bay Area, earthquake, trains, transit, Video