If this were a wire service, I would open this column with Dateline: Phoenix, as opposed to my usual digs in New York. I, along with about 700 others, have flocked to sunny Arizona for Demo 2006. Here's where a chosen few technology startups -- 68 this year -- strut their promising new products before an audience of venture capitalists, tech mavens, and folks like me who write about tech.
One reason I really like making the annual pilgrimage is that there's usually a Mac-friendly contingent of companies, and this year is no exception. Demo is a good place for a first glance at some of the cutting-edge tech that's likely to fill tech-column inches -- if not retailers' shelves and consumer's shopping lists -- in the coming months and beyond.
The trouble is, being a Mac fan traveling for a not-so-Mac-addicted publication can be a challenge. I lugged two -- count 'em, two -- laptops with me. One is the Dell (DELL) Latitude D610 notebook assigned by my employer when I joined the company. The other is my personal notebook, an Apple (AAPL) Powerbook G4, purchased in early 2005.
COMPLICATED TRIP. The hassles of traveling with both have been many. And they illustrate why I and so many others are asking Apple that the nascent generation of new Macs using chips from Intel (INTC) support a simple method that would allow both the Mac OS and Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows to coexist peaceably on a single machine.
When given the choice, I prefer operating in the Mac environment. I get more accomplished in a shorter time on the Mac because I find it more pliable to my particular needs. And yet so far on this business trip I have found myself gravitating toward the Dell out of practicality. None of that is Apple's fault, but a little flexibility and creativity on Apple's part could alleviate the tension.
First was the security line at the airport. As everyone who flies regularly with a laptop now knows, every machine has to be removed from its carrying case and placed in a separate bin for a trip through the X-ray machine. Between my jacket, which had to be removed and X-rayed, my briefcase, my shoes, and two laptops, my passage through the security checkpoint at JFK International Airport required five of those gray plastic bins, and several awkward minutes to gather everything before proceeding to the gate.
OPEN THE WINDOWS. Once at my destination, I ran headlong into my parent company's refusal to support Macs with a Virtual Private Network connection. Connected via the Dell machine to the hotel's broadband Internet line, I was able to dial up the VPN, get my corporate e-mail, and work more or less as if I was in the office. This I could not do on the Powerbook, because a corporate IT policy allows only Windows machines to connect to the network via VPN.
Again, not Apple's fault, and a change in IT policy would certainly have made that much easier. However it seems to me that with a Windows partition on a Mac notebook I could have rebooted easily into Windows, signed on through VPN, signed out, and then jumped back into the Mac environment all from the same machine without much fuss. I know I'm not the only one in this situation.
Apple's official opinion on the subject is that it won't do anything to prevent someone from installing Windows on a Mac, but so far it doesn't look exactly easy. The first reports I've read by people who've thrown caution to the wind and installed the Microsoft (MS) OS aren't encouraging. At least not yet.
TAG TEAM. But enough of my whining, and on with a sampling of the Demo delights that do mesh with Macs. One that caught my eye right away was Blurb, a book publishing venture. If you've ever wanted to publish a volume containing your own words and pictures, but only wanted a small number of copies, Blurb has created a software application called Booksmart for both Windows and the Mac that will make it easy to create a professional-looking, commercial-quality book. It can even turn your blog entries into a book. Prices start at about $30, and drop as the quantity ordered rises.
Plum.com is a venture started by a pair of former e-mail entrepreneurs. Hans Peter Brondmo is CEO and started the company with Margaret Olson, former CTO of Constant Contact. Brondmo's wife, Julie Hanna Farris, serves as an adviser and presented Plum's demonstration on stage with Brondmo. Brondmo worked at Digital Impact, and Hanna Farris founded Scalix. Plum, still in a closed beta-testing phase, lets you collect information as you surf the Web and other Internet sources, and then store it on your own machine.
The service, compatible with Mac or Windows, lets you group information together by "tagging" it with your own categories. Either that or Plum will perform a contextual analysis called a "Meta-Match," which groups related stuff together for you. I have a bad habit of finding info on the Web after a tricky Google (GOOG) search, and then forgetting how I found it. Usually I just piece together the search terms from memory. It would be a lot easier to just have a huge receptacle into which I can dump things and organize them later.
AXE TO THE MAX. Garageband.com has created an iTunes companion called Gpal that does three things. First, it helps organize your music library by creating playlists of songs that sound similar. Once it knows the kind of music you like, it can automatically download songs from artists who play similar music. It also lets you share your musical likes with others and helps you find new acquaintances with similar taste.
The coolest of the bunch, however, had to be iGuitar.USB, an electric guitar that connects directly to a PC or Mac. CEO Patrick Cummings connected the guitar directly to a Mac running Garageband, Apple's music-creation application, and used it to record a tune with the guitar standing in for several different instruments. He also showed up later at the Demo conference jam session. It's a regular party on the first night of the conference where those attendees with a little music talent take turns playing in a band. The guy can play. A jazz musician might say he could swing.
Here's hoping that when it comes to Windows-friendliness, my next Mac will swing better than my current one does.
Hesseldahl is a writer for BusinessWeek Online in New York
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