billpalmer.net

Bill Palmer's Blog has moved to billpalmer.net!

If you haven't heard the news by now, I've moved my blog to its own website. The new site also features the just-launched Searchable Database of Mac-using Businesses as well as other content and my entire blog archives. Hop on over to billpalmer.net to see what you're missing! Also, be sure to change your bookmarks, favorites, and links to reflect the new address, "http://www.billpalmer.net". My content at this address, billpalmer.blogspot.com, will no longer be updated as of today. See you at billpalmer.net!

Take the Macintosh Home Business Survey

Mac-using businesses, Bertie Hall needs your help. The Azusa Pacific University student is conducting a "Macintosh Home Business Survey" in order to gather data for academic purposes. Of the hundreds of businesses to have identified themselves as Mac users this week (keep 'em coming), several of you mentioned that you run your business out of your own home. What better way to show off your new-found collective strength than to give Mr. Hall all the data he needs?

In Bertie's own words:

"Dear Fellow Mac User and Home Business Owner, I really need help with a school project at Azusa Pacific University (http://www.apu.edu). My project involves researching home business operations, especially for entrepreneurs who use computers (hopefully a Mac) in their home businesses. The survey below fulfills my Research Project requirement for my Bachelor's Degree in APU's Accelerated Degree Program. I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to fill out my survey."

The survey can be found in two different formats, on two different websites. The first format, which is an automatic online version of the survey (check the appropriate boxes and click "submit"), can be found by clicking here. The second format, which is meant to be emailed, printed, faxed, or mailed in, can be found by clicking here. Oh, and let's take this seriously -- this isn't one of those surveys where every Mac user votes nine hundred times to get the Mac declared "the bestest platform in the whole wide world". This time it's about actual reasearch, so if you're not a Mac-using home business, this one's not for you. But if you are one, don't pass up the opportunity to assist a fellow Mac user.

Oh any by the way, if you came here today from MacSurfer or another external link, the odds are that you're reading this article at our new digs, www.billpalmer.net. Up until now, "billpalmer.net" was simply a forwarding address for billpalmer.blogspot.com, but as of today, Pinocchio is now a real website. Just so we don't lose anyone in the process, the content of my blog will continue to be posted simultaneously to www.billpalmer.net and billpalmer.blogspot.com. But soon enough, all my content, old and new, will be at the new digs exclusively.

Why make the move, you say? Because it's time for this site to grow beyond just being a blog. There's a detailed, searchable database of Mac-using businesses that's just aching to be created, and this will happen much sooner than you think! I've long wanted to offer a location in which bleeding-edge Mac-using educators can download and exchange resources and ideas, and now I'll be able to, before too long. And my columns need comments areas where readers can post their thoughts for the consumption of other readers. All of this will happen this summer. In the mean time, it is my sincere hope that regular readers will stick around through the upcoming growth spurt. And I hope everyone is wearing a seat belt.

List of Mac-using businesses nears two hundred; directory planned

What a day, what a day indeed. We're about to reach two hundred Macintosh-using businesses. Keep 'em coming! Send your submissions to billpalmer@mac.com. We're going to do a lot more than just list them down the left side of this site. We're going to start by interviewing some of the more intriguing participants, but that's just the beginning. More info will follow in the next day or two. By the time we're done, PC users will think that business world only uses Macs!

In the mean time, why not browse the businesses in the sidebar, and perhaps even send some business their way? After all, they're Mac users. Does anything else matter? ;)

Sixty-nine Mac-using businesses and counting...so much for the myth that businesses only use PC's

Well, that was fast. You want to know how quickly Mac-using businesses are responding to the opportunity to help dispel the myth that the business world only uses PC's? I've had to change the title of this column twice before finishing the first paragraph, as new companies continue to pour into my inbox. I believe there are currently a total of sixty-nine names on the list, in the first eighteen hours of response time. Hey, maybe we're on to something here.

I was expecting the publishers, the artists, the creative types, the designers, the musicians, and so on. I was a bit taken aback by the number of Doctors, Dentists, Attorneys, Churches, Realtors, Travel Agencies, and Insurance Companies. The most unique entries came from a "homemade wine and beer" wholesaler, and a Tipi manufacturing company. Oh, and a company called "Jan Bardi PsychoStunts" -- I think the name says it all. It's no surprise that the publisher of MacNetJournal uses Macs, but it's worth mentioning for those who never made the connection. It's always good to hear from a Mac-celebrity like Patrick Gant, the star of one of the very first of Apple's "Switch" ads. And you've just got to see some of the postcards that are manufactured, using Macs exclusively, right here in South Florida.

Then there are the fun ones. The Inquirer recently unearthed the fact that both Intel and Dell apparently have at least a few Macs in-house. The United States Air Force uses Macs in its graphics departments "all over the world". By now I think we all know that a fourth of Luxology's employees use Macs, but what I never knew was just how many non-profit groups across the nation use Macs exclusively, because "we have no money and the Macs save us a bundle in cost of ownership".

These Mac-using businesses span the globe, from Canada to Iceland to Australia, as well as plenty of them right here in the United States. Whoops, there goes the inbox again. Encore Hollywood, a visual effects company that works on "Charmed" and other TV shows, just chimed in at business number seventy. I'm not going to change the title of the article this time. With such an overwhelming initial response, there's no reason to stop here. Let's keep this going. I'm calling on all Mac-using businesses, around the nation and around the world, to add their name to the list on the left side of this page, by sending email to billpalmer@mac.com.

Readers of billpalmer.net are encouraged to browse through the list and visit some of these businesses, not only to take in the scope of some of the Mac-using businesses that are out there, but perhaps to do business with some of them as well. Look at it this way: a business that uses Macs is undoubtedly saving money on support costs, and those savings are probably passed on to the customer. And, in terms of uptime, a Mac-based business has a better chance of being there for you when you need them.

Mac-using business number seventy-one just popped up from Mallorca, Spain. Keep 'em coming, guys and gals. If you know of a business that uses Macs, feel free to send them in the direction of this site. But more importantly, if any buffoon tries to tell you that "the business world uses PC's", especially if that buffoon is trying to discourage the use of Macs in schools, or trying to take the Mac off your desk at work, you've now got an ever-growing list of Mac-using businesses to throw in his or her face.

And if billpalmer.net isn't about throwing lists in the faces of buffoons, then I don't know what is. Alright, the metaphor escaped me there, but let's keep this list growing. Launch your submissions in the direction of billpalmer@mac.com. Let's add five hundred Mac-using businesses to the list by the end of this month.

Macintosh-using businesses to get free advertising

Here at billpalmer.net, we like to kill off misconceptions about the Macintosh as often as we can. This month's victim will be the misguided notion that the business world uses PC's, and therefore so should schools. Even if the business world were 100% PC-based, there would still be no excuse on earth for putting PC's in schools. But this time around, let's focus on the other half of the misconception: that businesses use PC's. Sure, the majority of them do. But plenty of businesses, especially those that are involved in publishing, graphic design, animation, music, artistry, etc., do in fact use Macs for some or all of their business needs.

In order to emphasize that fact, and to kill off yet another misconception in the process, I'm going to build a list down the left side of this site that includes every Mac-using business that wishes to have its name included, world-wide. Included will be a link to your company's website, which means free advertising for you. If you'd like to see your company's name listed, or if you know of a Macintosh-using business that you think deserves recognition, just write to me at billpalmer@mac.com.

Your company doesn't need to be 100% Macintosh-based to qualify for the list. The point being made here is that if someone goes to work for your company, there's at least a chance that he or she will be using a Macintosh (businesses who can claim to be "100% Macintosh" will receive a special designation). This way, the next time some pinhead tries to discourage the use of Macs in schools under the mantra, "the business world uses PC's"...you'll need to look no further than billpalmer.net to disprove such nonsense.

Apple to open store in Miami-Dade County's Aventura Mall in November

No sooner did I go and wonder where the next South Florida Apple Store would be, than I happened to trip across this gem on the splash page of the website for Aventura Mall:

Aldo Shoes
opening 2003

Anika
now open

Apple Computers
november 2003

Bag N Baggage
now open

Bamboo Club
now open

Well, that answers that question. Thanks to the reader who pointed me in the right direction on this one. So within six months, South Florida will have four Apple Stores. I sure hope this new one has a theater, so that I no longer need to drive to Timbuktu, er The Falls, just to see Steve Jobs give a speech.

What's with the iTunes Music Store and the Red Hot Chili Peppers?

One thing that totally confused me today was that I read this article stating the the Red Hot Chili Peppers are refusing to allow their music to be sold in the iTunes Music Store, and then saw the album cover for one of the Chili Peppers' most popular albums dangling in the front window of the Boca Raton Apple Store as I was waiting in line for the Grand Opening. Is this an oversight, or is it Apple's sly way of trying to convince the Chili Peppers to join the Music Store party? What's ironic is that the band's bassist, Flea, has written of his iPod in his road diary: One thing that totally confused me was that I read this article stating the the Red Hot Chili Peppers are refusing to allow their music to be sold in the iTunes Music Store, and then saw the album cover for one of the Chili Peppers' most popular albums dangling in the front window of the Apple Store. Is this an oversight, or is it Apple's sly way of trying to convince the Chili Peppers to join the party? What's ironic is that according to the road diary of the band's bassist, Flea, the Chili Peppers are all about digital music these days: " Listening to Lee Perry. Got this ipod thing going on with lots of jams i dig it. Anthony and John got 'em too."

So why would someone as cool as Flea want to deny us the opportunity to enjoy his band's music in the same way that he enjoys other people's music? The answer would seem to lie with the band's management outfit, Q-Prime, which also happens to represent Metallica. Yes, this is the same Metallica that went so far as to subpoena the names of every fab who had ever downloaded a Metallica track via Napster. It looks like good old Lars Ulrich, the band's drummer, is at it again. He's well within his rights to declare war on his fans if he wants to, but doing so twice in the span of three years seems a bit excessive. I have tremendous respect for Metallica's musicianship, but the ability to think rationally just doesn't seem to be there. If Lars can't figure out that by preventing fans from being able to pay to download his band's music from the iTunes Music Store he's just encouraging people to go and download it for free from the pirate networks, then perhaps he deserves to lose the sales after all. Here's calling for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, seemingly some of the coolest guys in the music industry, to distance themselves from Metallica's increasingly self-defeating stances, and if necessary, ditch the management company entirely.

Well, it's late and it's been a crazy week. I'm going to sit back and eat some potato chips and watch some fireworks all day tomorrow, and I hope all of you get to do the same. Except, that is, for the people who are still waiting in line to get into the Boca Raton Apple Store.

Got something to say about Apple's Music Store strategy, or Metallica's ignorance strategy? Know how I can reach Flea to ask him what the heck's going on here? Now's the time.

Reporting from the Apple Store Boca Raton Grand Opening

No, I'm not posting this from one of the display machines inside Apple's new store in Boca Raton, Florida. And no, I'm not posting this from my own laptop while sitting out front of the Apple Store, borrowing its wireless signal. For that matter, I'm not even in South Florida right now -- but that's another story altogether. Suffice it so say that I've lost all grip on reality when I delayed my Fourth of July plans just so I could attend the Grand Opening. But despite having been on the road for the past three hours and having had plenty of time to take in what I witnessed this evening at Town Center Mall, I still don't believe what I saw while I was there. There's just no way that there could be that many people interested in a computer store, especially on a holiday weekend. Or perhaps South Florida has more Mac fanatics that I could ever have imagined -- in which case, I need to print up some more business cards.

I arrived at 4:30 this evening for the 6:00 opening, and found a dozen Mac users sitting in the relaxation area nearest to the Apple storefront. How did I know that they were Mac users? Most of them had Mac laptops with them and were tapping into Apple's wireless stream to kill the time. Why didn't I think of that? At around 5:00, employees placed ropes out front of the store, telling us that it was time to act like sheep and form a line. In a smug display of "we're Mac users, we own this mall now" antics, many of those who had been sitting in chairs simply dragged their chairs into line with them and continued to sit down for the rest of the waiting period. At around 5:15, two suits from the Mayor's Jewelers came out to ensure that the suddenly growing line snaked away from their storefont and not in front of it. I found this ironic, because there were literally no customers in their jewelry store at the time. They could have taken the opportunity to pass out flyers, or bring out some fancy necklace and show it off, but instead they simply wanted to make sure that their (total lack of) customers had access to their (completely empty) store. But I digress.

At 5:30, a companion arrived, allowing me to sneak out of line and take a really rough head-count of the line, and I came up with 120 people. I noted for the record that this was already more people than had been in line at both of the other South Florida Apple Stores, The Falls and Wellington Green, at the time the doors opened (more on this later). Just before 6:00, I took anouther, even rougher headcount, and came up with 250 warm bodies in line. I jumped back in line just in time to enter the store and be greeted by the customary high-fives from the employees, and step into a store that was about to test every fire code in the State of Florida. The people just kept pouring in, like a moshpit at Lollapalooza. Yet somehow, in all the chaos, the employees actually managed to do their jobs. Standing in the middle of the store, I could hear bits and pieces of dozens of simultaneous Mac-related conversations among employees and customers that ranged from the merits of Dreamweaver MX to burning speeds under Toast Titanium. Clearly, it wasn't just about Apple products; it was about servicing the entire Macintosh experience, from top to bottom.

T-shirts were distributed to customers as they left, which should have served as an enticement for customers to, you know, get the heck out of the store. But at 7:00, an hour after the doors opened, officials were still rationing who could get in, and there were still at least fifty people waiting behind the ropes. Some of those in line didn't even appear to know what they were in line for. They just saw a huge line and decided to join in. But then, this was the whole idea, was it not? Put stores in high-traffic malls so that passers-by will unwittingly expose themselves to the Apple bug, and hopefully get so severely infected that they end up buying the cure, in the form of a Macintosh. Which leads me to my big question: why on earth did it take Apple two years to put a store in this mall, first opting for two lesser-traveled malls in the process?

South Florida is a patch of urbania on the Atlantic Ocean that runs a good seventy-five miles north to south, but never more than ten or twenty miles east to west (due to a small hindrance out west called the Everglades). Apple's first store in South Florida "missed" the urban patch rather severely. Miami is generally considered the south end of the metropolitan area, yet The Falls is a good half-hour further south! Not that there isn't a good deal of foot traffic down there, it's just that you don't generally try to service an area by placing your location at one extreme end of that area. Apple tried again a year later, but essentially missed again, this time to the north. Wellington Green is a very nice mall, and (despite being a smaller store) had a lot more people in line at its Grand Opening than The Falls did. But Apple left such an obvious glaring hole in its South Florida retail strategy that even an old pal of mine who lives 1500 miles away from here was writing to me from time to time, saying "when is Apple finally going to put a store in Town Center?".

Well, he finally got his wish today. So why did it take so long? The obvious assumption would be that Apple simply misjudged the South Florida landscape, not realizing that it had ignored a full two hours' worth of urban terrian between its first two locations. But Apple's usually a lot smarter than this, so let's look at what the long-term strategy might have been from the start. The Falls was slammed rather mercilessly by Hurricane Andrew eleven years ago, and took quite a long time to gradually rebuild its base of stores. Is it possible that Apple simply got a fantasic deal on the rent that it couldn't pass up? Wellington Green, on the other hand, was a brand new mall, so there was obviously no trouble finding retail space there. Maybe Apple just decided to plop into this mall because it was, you know, there.

But that all seems fishy. It's just not Apple's style to settle for less desirable locations to save a buck. My scooby sense tells me that this was all part of a plan to give Apple Retail enough time to figure out what it was doing, and enough time to become en vogue, before it opened the locations it really wanted to be in. At this evening's opening, there was a rather masterful fluidity to how the employees were going about their business, one that was difficult to describe but unmistakably different from the opening days at the two older stores. And the display machines seemed to be set up in ways that kept customers glued to them, oohing and ahing all too often for their own good. Every display machine had hundreds of photos pre-loaded into it, for instance, which allowed employees to show off, let's say an iPhoto book or the iMovie Ken Burns Effect. Back on the opening day of the store at The Falls, I vividly remember snapping a photo of myself using the digital camera that was attached to one of the Macs, just so that I could actually have a digital photo to play with. In fact, back then, iPhoto didn't even exist yet. But this evening, all I had to do to show the Ken Burns Effect to my companion was to launch iMovie, click on the "photos" tab, and choose a photo from among the ones that were already in place. It's a subtle difference, but when trying to wow someone into understanding the great advantages of the Mac platform, it could quite possibly make all the difference.

"OK, South Florida. Hmm, let's put two stores in the periphery, one up at the north end and one way down on the south end, and then we'll work on moving into the prime targets. By then, we'll be a hot commodity and we can get any location we want at any mall we want." Is this what Apple Retail was thinking from the start? Acoording to this article in the Pioneer Press, Apple is now getting exactly that kind of treatment when it approaches shopping malls about wanting to move in. Boca's Town Center is one hopping-mad mall overall, but there's one end of the mall that seems to be about fourteen times more popular than the other. When I heard about Apple's Town Center plans, I was worried that Apple would end up settling for any floor space it could get. For the life of me, I can't remember what store moved out of the location that Apple moved into, but it's what I would consider one of the prime locations in the whole mall. It's just around the corner from the food court, comfortably in between two popular anchors. That's not bad, considering that this mall is in a suburban area that's more densely packed than most metropolises (is that really how you pluralize that word?). I'd bet this store will do more annual sales than the other two South Florida Apple Stores combined, just based on incidental traffic and proximity to, you know, people.

Apple Stores are getting smarter in other ways as well. On the Genius Bar was a stack of flyers promoting a local Apple User Group. And on the wall was a giant sign that read something along the lines of "The State of Maine put an iBook in the hands of every one of its seventh graders. Shouldn't you do the same?" You go, Apple. Let the world know what other, more clued-in State governments are doing in education. Make it easier for the rest of us educators to keep our Macs when the clueless come knocking. Come to think of it, the exact same sign was on the wall when I was at The Falls to watch the WWDC Keynote last week. It would appear that Apple's not content to merely make the newer stores better; it's improving the older ones along the way as well.

And here, you thought this column was just going to be a short little column about a Grand Opening. I guess those three hours on the road gave me more time to think about the whole retail thing than I had originally realized. Am I reading more into it than what's really there? Quite possibly. But based on the pattern I've seen in the past two years, I'm already taking bets on where the next South Florida Apple Store might be. To paraphrase Denzel Washington's character in Training Day, "King Kong ain't got nothing on Apple Retail".

Got something to say about Apple's retail strategy, or your own Fourth of July barbecuing strategy? Throw me a bone.

Boca Raton Apple Store opens today at 6:00 pm

See y'all there!*



* this, I believe, has been my shortest blog entry ever.

Do I look like I'm talking about Chek soft drinks?

Search engines have lost their minds. If you don't believe me, go to alltheweb.com and run a search for "Chek soft drinks" (without the quote marks). Which site is at the top of the list? Good old billpalmer.net!

While I'm flattered, I just don't get it. Chek is the in-house brand of soft drink for Winn-Dixie grocery stores. My site focuses on Apple Macintosh computers. Doesn't anyone on the entire Internet have anything more useful to say about Chek soft drinks than I do? For that matter, I think Chek tastes like crap. So much for the endorsement deal.

At this point, I'm almost ready to say that I agree with the idea of filtering blogs from search engine results. It's not that I don't want the extra traffic, it's just that I don't want to see search engines fade from usefulness. I've made light of unintentional traffic I've received from search engines in the past, but this time I'm actually worried for the future of the web. While most "real" websites have a unified focus, a blog tends to span many disconnected aspects of the blogger's life, meaning that the mention of a certain word or phrase doesn't neceassrily imply that useful content regarding that word or phrase will follow. My blog, which largely maintains a singular focus, is the exception, not the rule.

Chek soft drinks? Come on. :)

Apple advances: Macintosh users, you've still never had it so good.

"Your site isn't so much about educating or helping people as it is about providing a digital standing ovation every time Apple releases a new product or gets good press."

Ouch. Nearly every morning, I awake to find an inbox full of pleasant electronic communication directed my way. In fact, regularly getting to hear from Mac users around the world makes doing this blog worthwhile all by itself. But finding the above quote addressed to me this morning was a little disturbing. I could write a whole column detailing every instance in which I've written columns whose sole purpose was to help people (for instance, my home networking column two days ago), recommended that people buy a product other than the Apple-branded one (CompUSA brand wireless router, in that same column), or criticized a particular Apple move with which I've disagreed (cutting off iChat AV below 600 Mhz, three days ago)...but I don't think anyone wants to read such a column.

So I'll let regular readers judge the validity of the above quote. Most of what I write about Apple and the Mac is indeed positive, but that's because most of what's going on with Apple and the Mac is positive. I don't feel the need, in the name of a 'balanced point of view', to end a positive Mac-related article with some randomized negativity such as "in other news, it's entirely possible that Steve Jobs has rabies".

In fact, since I'm being accused of being a full-time Apple cheerleader, I think I'll go ahead and grab the pom-poms for a moment. I've dusted off my original April 16th "Macintosh users, you've never had it so good" column and updated it for the major advances the platform has undertaken in just the short time since I wrote it. I'm going to keep the identity of this morning's detractor private, even though he didn't ask me to. But I will point out that he wrote to me from a mac.com address, which means that he is, astonishingly, a Mac user. In fact he's precisely the kind of lost-sight-of-how-fantastic-we-have-it Mac user that I started this blog for in the first place. So, here it is, and I hope my friend sticks around long enough to realize just how good he does have it:

(originally published 4/16/03, updated 7/2/03)

When a Mac user like me looks at the user experience that's available on the other side of the fence, I wonder how Windows users can even stand to use their computer. What possesses them to hang on to such a profoundly inferior experience? Most of it is because they just don't yet know what all they're missing. Another part is that they've wasted so many years learning the oddities of their platform that they hesitate to jump the fence, for fear that they'll have to spend several more years learning what they expect will amount to the same crap, only different. But when you break down the user experience feature by feature, app by app, the size of the disparity between platforms spells itself out all too clearly for anyone willing to listen. Every Mac user knows about goodness of this application, or the coolness of that one, but take a look at the full scope of what all is going on here:

Internet: Up until a year or two ago, the Internet advantage of the Mac was limited to the fact that you could get up and running on the net more quickly and easily than on a PC. But with the release of OS 9's Sherlock 2, which allowed you to perform certain Internet tasks without first having to hunt down a website that would let you do it, that all began to change. With the onset of Jaguar's Sherlock 3, a host of previously tedious Internet procedures had been reduced to a click or two. Planning a movie theater trip, for example, used to require visiting four or five different websites: one to find out what movies are available and find info on them, another to see the times that the movie was playing at your local theater, a third to watch the movie trailer, a fourth to check the times at an alternate theater, perhaps a fifth to buy tickets online, and so on. Now, thanks to Sherlock 3, all of the above information and more can be gathered with all the effort it takes to click on the Movies button in the toolbar. What gets me, though, is the fact that Windows users still have to do this the old tedious way! Consequently, many Windows users just don't do it at all. They grab a newspaper, call the theater, and wait in line to buy tickets because their user experience isn't sufficient enough to convince them to do things digitally.

Sherlock aside, standard web browsing was long one of the few areas in which the Mac had no clear advantage over the PC: you were stuck with mediocre browsers like Internet Explorer and Netscape, regardless your platform. But when MacOS X came along, nimble third-party browsers from small companies like OmniWeb, and developer communities like Chimera, started to spring up specifically for OS X. And if these small-time groups could produce browsers that in some ways outclassed Explorer, then it was surely only a matter of time before Apple released a browser that blew it away completely. When you show PC users some of Safari's innovations such as SnapBack, streamlined bookmark management, and now tabbed browsing, they begin to question why their platform has no such equivalent. The answer that they don't want to hear is that they're simply on the wrong platform. In the past six months, web browsing on the Mac has evolved so far beyond browsing on the PC that the gap between the two platforms makes for two entirely different user experiences. Internet Explorer had to reach version 5.0 before it finally passed up Netscape. Safari, at 1.0, has already blown IE away entirely. The fact that iTunes 4 has a 'unique' form of web browsing of its own built in, well that's another category entirely.

Instant Messaging: Chatting used to be a simple proposition: you either had America Online or you didn't. But somewhere along the line, AOL decided to give Instant Messaging away to everyone, and as a result we all became familiar with the lingo of "BRB" and "LOL". It didn't matter whether you were on a Mac or a PC, chatting was the same experience, although many PC users were convinced that we Mac users were on some kind of alternative ghetto network which only allowed us to chat with each other (this was never, ever true). Along came messaging systems from Yahoo and MSN, and again, it didn't matter what kind of computer you were using. But last year, Apple, who back in the early nineties gave America Online its startup money (believe it or not), decided to partner with its old chum and create an enhanced version of Instant Messenger, called iChat, just for Jaguar users. You only have to use iChat once to realize how much you like it, and yes, you can still talk to everyone on the Instant Messenger network on both platforms, because iChat is Instant Messenger, just a cooler, more intuitive version -- with a few tricks up its sleeve you couldn't have expected.

If you're on a closed network, at work for example, iChat allows you to use something called Rendezvous to chat with directly with other iChatters on your network simply by signing on; you don't even have to be on the Internet. You don't configure anything, you just sign on. It's weird. It's cool. It's easy. It expands the possibilities of workplace communication. But merely having the best instant text messaging app on the planet isn't enough to satisfy Mac users for long. So the new iChat AV brings audio and even video chats to the table with literally zero setup. Sure, it's only Mac-to-Mac right now, but as Steve Jobs said, "We've used open standards, so as others copy what we do..."

But for those Jaguar users who prefer the standard version of Instant Messenger, it's still around and still being developed. In other words, you can do things the way PC users do it, or you can use enhanced stuff that's just for Mac users, or both. You have the best of both worlds, which means you've got twice the user experience that your neighbor on the PC does. And if you still prefer to use America Online as your overall internet provider, there exists what one of my former students tells me is an "awesome" version of AOL specifically for Jaguar. For what it's worth, I don't ever intend to find out first-hand. But the option is there for those who want it.

Word processing: This involves typing words, seeing them appear on-screen, and letting a printer put them on paper. It should be the simplest, most straight-forward task you can do on a computer. Unfortunately, Microsoft Word is one of the most cumbersome, difficult, complex, annoying, self-righteous, arrogant, foolish, and pointless applications ever created, leaving users scratching their heads and wondering how it all can be so painful. More unfortunately, Microsoft used a variety of shady tactics to wipe out nearly every other word processor in existence, except for one: AppleWorks. So unlike their PC brethren, Mac users don't have to suffer through World War III when all they want to do is type up a document. Launch AppleWorks 6, type, print, smile. Several advanced features are there behind the scenes if you need them, but often many of us don't, and AppleWorks doesn't throw nineteen toolbars worth of confusing features at you unless you really want it to.

However, if you're a Mac user and you prefer to suffer along with Windows users and brave the morass that is Microsoft Word, you'll have no trouble doing so at all. Microsoft makes versions of Word native to both OS 9 and OS X, and often brags of features that the OS X version has and the Windows version doesn't. There's nothing more humorous than listening to a speech by a Microsoft General Manager in which he shows off feature after feature that he claims makes Microsoft Word a better product on the Mac than on the PC, while he nervously jokes that he's not very popular with his co-workers in Microsoft's Windows division. So, if you're a Mac user, you can either choose to take advantage of the ease of AppleWorks, or you can use what Microsoft says is a better version of Word. Again, it's the best of both worlds. The Windows user isn't nearly so fortunate.

Slide Show Presentations: This was always about PowerPoint and nothing else until Apple decided to release Keynote for Jaguar users. PowerPoint is already better on the Mac than on the PC (just take a look at those Mac-only QuickTime transitions), so Mac users had the advantage even before Apple released the breathtaking Keynote software, which embarrasses PowerPoint in ease of use, interface, and graphical quality. PowerPoint still trumps Keynote on some features, so Mac users have their choice of tools, depending on what type of presentation they wish to make. In addition, Mac users can create photo-only slide shows by literally only clicking one button in iPhoto, eliminating the need to move their photos into Keynote or PowerPoint just to show them off in a slide show. And for those who prefer to make a quick and easy presentation, AppleWorks even has a simple slide show tool built-in for good measure. So Mac users can have at least four viable slide show tools at their fingertips, all with different strengths, if they want to. Windows users have PowerPoint and, well, PowerPoint. So much for the notion that the Windows platform has all the software.

Digital music: While iTunes deals with perhaps the simplest of the multimedia aspects, it stays ahead of the competition with innovations such as smart playlists, and a rating system. But you couldn't expect Apple to allow iTunes to stay only slightly ahead of the competition for very long. Recently, Apple merely undertook the task of getting all five major record labels and nearly all the artists signed to those labels to allow Apple to sell their songs for a dollar apiece. Nevermind that these same labels had been, up until that point, and still are, carrying out a holy war against anyone who even tried to exchange music over the Internet. So Mac users are currently the only people in the nation who can legally purchase their music digitally. Sure, Apple will bring out iTunes for Windows by the end of this year, so Mac users won't have the sole advantage anymore. But look at it this way: if Apple is the only company who can bring this functionality to Windows users, it shows that no one in the Windows world is capable of making this happen for its own users. Same goes for digital music players: PC users lacked the opportunity to own a realistic hard-drive-based mp3 player until Apple brought the iPod to them. Why would anyone want to use a platform that lags so far behind, that the maker of the other platform has to throw them a breadcrumb every now and them just to keep them from falling off the map entirely?

Multimedia: Here's where we Mac users really get to show off how smart we were for choosing the Mac platform. We've already had iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, and iDVD for awhile, and now they're all rolled into one interactive suite called iLife. There's nothing even close on the Windows side -- it even took copycats a year or more just to bring bad imitations to market. By the time Adobe PS Album and Picassa were released for Windows, both of which are lousy imitations of iPhoto 1.1, Apple had already released iPhoto 2.0, which put version 1.1 to shame. iPhoto is so intuitive, so empowering, it can turn even the most novice Mac user into a photo-editing maven. My mother taught me how to use it, after she taught herself.

iMovie has gotten so good that Ken Burns, the premier documentary maker in America, was even willing to put his name on one of its innovations. iMovie's "Ken Burns Effect" allows you to not only grab your pictures from iPhoto (without even launching iPhoto) and drop them into your movie, but employ a pan-and-scan feature that lets you do in one click what poor old Ken probably had to have his professionals spend hours working on for his Civil War documentary. iMovie has become so recognized as the consumer tool for video editing, that it was recently the answer, er question, on Jeopardy. And it doesn't stop there: if you want one of your songs stored in iTunes as background music, it's also one click, also without launching iTunes. The same goes for using your music with your iPhoto slide shows.

iDVD is so off-the-handle that I try to avoid using it at all costs on other people's Macs, because I'm so afraid it's going to cause me to go out and buy a new DVD-burning Mac just so I can make my own creations. If you create a DVD of your iMovies with iDVD, your Windows-using friends will scold you for stealing it from Blockbuster, because they will outright refuse to believe that you made it yourself. What's the learning curve for iDVD? From my one experience of creating my own DVD, I'd say there is none. It's fitting that the most potentially complex iLife task is the one that you can perhaps learn how to do the quickest. The more potentially complicated a task, the more Apple manages to simplify it.

So what do Windows users do when they see iLife? At first, they dismiss it as probably being too difficult to learn, until they see it in action. Then they proclaim that they're not interested in multimedia anyway, they just want to use their computer for the basics. But then they see a good deal on a digital camera and buy it on a whim, only to soon realize that they're clearly on the wrong platform. Find a Windows user with a digital camera, force them to plug their camera into your Mac, force them to upload, organize, and edit their pictures using iPhoto, and you've either got an instant Mac convert or one ticked-off Windows user, mad at the world for having unknowingly dropped a thousand dollars or more on a computer that won't let them do anything even close to what they just did on yours.

And that's part of the problem. In order to bail out of their PC and switch to the Mac, the Windows user often feels he or she must first admit to some degree of having made a mistake in buying the PC in the first place. Some would relate this to becoming Miami Dolphins fan suddenly becoming a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan just because Tampa went and won the Superbowl this year. But what Windows users will want to consider is that the gap between platforms wasn't always this wide; the PC wasn't always this ridiculously far behind the Mac. I made the right choice when I first bought my iMac in 1998 because the Mac indeed offered the better user experience, but not by nearly so much back then. Personal computing hadn't yet expanded to the point where all these new functions were even imaginable on a consumer level. You could still get away with a PC for most computing tasks, if less productively or enjoyably. But just as sure as former San Diego Charger Junior Seau put on a Miami Dolphins uniform this spring, things inevitably change, and as a result you have to make your own changes to make sure you're still in the position you want to be in. Junior says he came to Miami because he's tired of putting out his best effort in a losing cause. Windows users should consider the wisdom of his words.

To Windows users, I can only say this: there's never been a better time to upgrade to the Mac platform. Everything you can do on a PC, you can do it just as well on a Mac, usually better. And there are things you can do on a Mac that are either impossible on a PC or just not worth the aggravation. Switching to a Mac will turn you into a more authoritative and comfortable computer user, complete with more talents, skills, ambition, and bravery. You'll end up using your computer more, and enjoying it more, because you'll get more out of it. You'll realize that despite what you always thought, you really are a "computer person" after all -- you just didn't know it because you were stuck a self-sabotaging platform all this time.

To Mac users, I'll say this: you've never had it so good. The Mac platform gets better seemingly every day, whether it's the recent release of Safari 1.0 that boosts web surfing to a whole new level, the announcement of the numbingly-fast G5 Power Macintosh, or the preview of Panther that shows that Apple has no intention of slowing down on MacOS X innovation any time soon. Next week or next month, Apple will release yet another innovative product that you never saw coming, but you will immediately know that you must have, because it just might change your life...again. Each and every time this happens, pinch yourself. Remind yourself that there's no question you're on the right platform -- and that you've never had it so good.

Recent switcher? Prospective one? Forgot how good you have it as a Mac user? Can't wait to see how it gets even better? Having way too much fun showing off the superiority of the Mac platform to your friends, in the hopes of bringing them on board, or perhaps just to taunt them? Are you wondering, as I am, what a 'digital standing ovation' looks like? There's never been a better time to write me.

Top ten Apple headlines you don't want to read

If you're suffering from the post-WWDC blues, just be glad that these weren't the headlines coming out of Cupertino last week:

1. "Impressed by Mozilla Firebird, Apple cancels Safari"

2. "MacOS X 10.4 to be marketed under the name 'Kitty-cat'"

3. "Jobs admits he bribed Adobe, Luxology reps with free iPod engraving"

4. "New Apple Board Member: Martha Stewart"

5. "Steve changes mind, wants Keynote presentation software all to himself again"

6. "Red phone at Apple Store Genius Bar now to be answered by former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev"

7. "Just like real movie theaters, Apple Store theaters to sell $5 sodas and $8 popcorn"

8. "iMovie 4.0 to automatically create 'This is Your Life' segment in background while iSight is connected"

9. "New Apple 'Store Within a Store' retail partner: Dairy Queen"

10. "G6 already delayed"

Rob Pegoraro's Safari 1.0 review in the Washington Post

The Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro writes a review of Safari 1.0 that echoes many of the sentiments I posted last night. Actually, looking at our posting dates, it appears as if my sentiments were actually echoing his. It's definitely worth reading, and more or less saves me from needing to write a full review of Safari 1.0 myself. It's ironic how Pegoraro and I both recognized the irony of how Apple is fulfulling Microsoft's claim that an embedded browser could be beneficial for an operating system. He points out, though, that unlike with Windows and IE, separating Safari from OS X is as simple as dragging Safari to the trash -- not that any Mac user in their right mind would ever want to. Check out the review.

Luxology, The Daily Show, Chicago, and coffee: the Macintosh round trip

My uncle, the man who first exposed me to the Macintosh many years ago, is undergoing open-heart surgery tomorrow. If that doesn't put things into perspective, nothing else will. In the mean time, here are the suddenly seemingly less important Mac-related thoughts that are currently swimming through my head:

- How stable is Safari 1.0? During a recent reckless bout of websurfing, I paused to realize that I had not five, not ten, but twenty-eight separate web pages open. The beauty of tabbed browsing is that if you have too many tabs open in one browser window, you can always open another window and fill that one with more tabs. It's like expanding your browsing experience exponentially. I'd like to see how Internet Explorer runs with twenty-eight browsing windows open. No, on second thought, I wouldn't. In fact, I could care less about the fact that Microsoft cancelled IE for OS X. The browsing experience on the Mac has evolved so far beyond the PC that IE is no longer relevant. Going forward, web browsing is something that we'll be doing more and more from within other applications (iTunes, Sherlock), and less and less from a stand-alone browser. Turns out Microsoft might have been right about the potential for embedding a web browser within an operating system after all -- but who knew they were referrring to Apple's future plans, and not their own?

- I completely understand the three-computer limit for songs you've purchased through the iTunes Music Store, but when they said "unlimited iPods", I figured this would include when you plug your iPod into someone else's Mac simply to take advantage of its speakers or demonstrate your iPod to another user. I was wrong. Even though I was simply trying to play the music that was on my iPod while my iPod was connected to a computer, iTunes dutifully asked me if I wanted to authorize the computer to play my music. Making things worse, the Mac I was plugging into was behind a legendarily powerful firewall that prevented me from even being able to authorize the computer as one of my anointed three. I was waiting to see at what point the iTunes Music Store protection scheme would break down and prevent me from getting to my own music, and I've finally found it. This wasn't part of the bargain, and needs to be corrected -- soon. Don't get me wrong; every other aspect of digital music on the Mac, I'm ecstatic about.

- I've become so accustomed to buying my music digitally and dropping it into my iPod that when I recently bought a physical CD that wasn't available from the iTunes Music Store, it totally threw me for a loop. Not only did I have import the music from the CD into the computer (a several-minute process), I had to get that awful plastic wrap off the jewel case first. What a waste of time. In fact, I have such little use these days for physical CD's that the moment I finished importing the music and got it safely into my iPod, I actually gave the CD away to someone. OK, so it was a heat-of-the-moment thing, and it wasn't until afterwards that I realized that legally you're not really supposed to do what I did. But I just don't have room in my life (or my apartment) for CD's anymore, which is ironic considering how many hundreds of CD's I've bought over the years. What a difference a few months can make.

- Luxology, the company whose President showed how much faster his company's 3D animation software during last week's WWDC conference, is apparently being considered part of the "great conspiracy" that all of the presenters are accused of having participated in when they showed how much faster the G5 Mac is than the fastest PC. In a response posted to his company's website, Luxology President Brad Peebler points out that two-thirds of his company's customers are PC users, and for that matter, three-fourths of his company's employees have PC's on their desks. How anyone could stretch their imagination to believe that this company is just a mouthpiece for Apple, is beyond me. On the other hand, these are usually the kinds of innovative companies that Apple ends up buying outright. Thanks to the reader who pointed out the posting on luxology.net.

- A Chicago-area reader writes in about the "artistic layout and spaciousness" of the newest Apple Store, and also points out that the Internet Cafe is in fact not a coffee bar after all. Turns out it's simply a series of Internet stations, apparently designed to keep surfers from tying up all the demo machines. I was wondering how Apple was going to handle things when customers started spilling coffee on iMacs every fifteen minutes. All this talk of new Apple Stores has me really juiced for this week's Grand Opening in Boca Raton. If you're going to be there, let's meet up. The 6:00 pm opening, the day before a national holiday, makes me wonder whether circumstances will produce a smaller crowd, or a larger one. That portion of Town Center Mall typically has so much foot traffic that time of day as it is, that I'm leaning toward the latter.

- Did anyone else catch the rerun of The Daily Show this evening, that featured a skit that mocked digital cameras? Everything that was said about battery life, the cost of printing, etc., was right on target. But the joke about needing to install camera software and then still getting a "camera recogntion error"? The computer being used in the skit was an iBook. Come on guys, there is no software needed, and there are no camera recognition errors -- not on a Mac, anyway, It's difficult enough to get the PC-using public to understand that on a Mac, iPhoto takes care of all your digital photography needs, with no software installs needed, and doesn't have the kinds of problems that PC users have with their digital cameras, without these kinds of skits making the pisperceptions even worse. Digital photography may suck on a PC, but it most certainly does not suck on a Mac. Perhaps you're thinking, "Bill, lighten up, it's a parody show". But if they're going to make fun of a crappy digital camera experience, at least do it with the kind of computer that actually provides a crappy digital camera experience. If the guy had been using a Dell laptop for his skit, it would have been funny, because it would have been accurate. Technically, The Daily Show slandered an Apple product when it claimed that you needed to install software on an iBook in order to interface with a digital camera. Not that I'm looking for Apple Legal to rev up its mighty engines by any means, but Apple might want to think twice about loaning products to The Daily Show for future skits. Or even worse, if instead of being a loaner, that iBook actually belonged to someone involved with the show, and that person actually allowed that skit to take place unchecked, big-time shame on him or her for allowing it to happen. Alright, let me step down off this soapbox before it collapses. The Daily Show is, most of the time, one of the dead-on funniest shows on TV, so I guess I should just look past the occasional lapse in judgment or brainpower.

- One reader pointed out that Jaguar, with its $129 price tag and approximate twelve-month shelf life, will have ended up costing him a diminutive 35 cents per day. Or, as he puts it, for that price "you might be able to get a cup of bad joe". Maybe Apple should start giving the OS away for free, and charging for coffee instead? It would take a full fifteen minutes for a Best Buy salesman to proclaim that Apple's coffee was a special "Mac coffee" that wasn't compatible with PC users' stomachs.