Today MacWorld keynote was quite likely the worst in apple history.  It is now obvious why Steve Jobs didn’t bother showing up, he was afraid he would fall asleep giving the presentation.

I will give Phil some credit, he is a great speaker, and he did manage to get the crowd worked up over several of the features in the newest versions of iLife and the new threat to Google, iWork.  Really, though, neither of these products are worthy of headlining what was the most prominent of Mac days in the year.

Phil spent over an hour discussing these two pieces of software, which is more time then the original release of OS X got, and there are some really cool features which we will cover in detail later.

The new MacBook Pros, which I don’t think should be considered as new since they are just upgrades to an existing line of laptops. While these are obviously awesome machines, they’re are some glaring issues.

One major problem, no removeable battery.  Seriously?!?  I realize they are touting an eight hour battery life, but I still want to have the ability to carry an extra battery with me and switch them out.  It also lasts 1000 charges, which is about 3 years.  Now, the laptop I am writing this post on is 4.5 years old and on it’s second battery … so I guess I will a process to go through to replace the battery in a few years.

Also an issue is the lack of a glare free screen …  These high end MacBooks are not going to be used by people who want to watch DVD’s, some of us want to do real work on them, in coffee shops, and offices with windows during the day … I guess that will be a thing of the past.

The “one last thing”, was iTunes.  iTunes finally adopts a DRM free platform, and bring iTunes to 3G instead of forcing wifi.  Both of these things are very very cool, but also very very late.  This all should have been a part of the iPhone 3G release last year.  DRM Free had to come, but I am not sure it came in time to salvage iTunes place as leader in music sales, from competitors like Amazon and Walmart that have been selling DRM Free for some time now.

In the end, todays keynote seemed to be a waste of two hours, and dissapointed many.  Since this is the last MacWorld that Apple will attend, I was really hoping that they would have made more of an event rather then pushing out a random marketing exec, and leaving us with little more then a software update.

If you look longingly at the MacBook Air, for no other reason then the super cool SSD (Solid State Drive), then you need not be green any longer …

[ ExperCom ] has released, for immediate purchase, SSD upgrades for the MacBook and the MacBook Pro.  They will even handle installation and data transfer for you.

Prices :

60GB  - $599
120GB - $899

If you’re looking to make a MacBook purchase, you can also buy directly from them with the drives pre-installed.

I recently attended MacWorld in San Francisco.  When people would ask me what that was, I would stare at them blankly, and just shake my head… Thanks to the iMac, iPod, and now the iPhone, I get a lot fewer of those types of questions then I did in years past when I attended.

MacWorld is Disneyland for geeks… or at least it always has been.  This year was little disappointing.   Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast, met some cool new vendors and got to play with the new MacBook Air.  However. You knew there was a however coming.  This year, they should have renamed the show “iPhoneWorld”.  Now, bear in mind that I am a proud iPhone owner, and my friends are endlessly annoyed by how I can take any topic and swing it around to talking about how great my iPhone is.  The show, though, is supposed to be about MACs.. all macs, not just the iPhone.  I swear there were probably about 70 vendors doing nothing but showcasing iPhone accessories.  Now at first I thought this was great, since I wanted to get a few accessories for my iPhone (have I mentioned how great it is?).  This brings me to my next problem with the show.  No one was selling anything… NO ONE.  On the last day a new booth magically appeared and they were selling a smattering of supplies, but for the majority of the show, no one was selling, only showing.  Everyone of them told me that I could purchase online.  ONLINE!?!?! REALLY?!?!? I am standing 2 feet from the product and you want me to go online, and pay for shipping … WOW!..  it was really really frustrating.

Also odd to me, was the lack of love for the iMac.  In every show I have attended, since the iMac was released, there have always been an area where they showed off the iMac…  not this year..  Other then the iMacs in use by the vendors, there were none to be found.

Now, the MacBook Air is very cool… Let me state that up front.  It feels great, and has a geek cool factor that tops the charts… BUT!! You knew there was a but coming…

$1799.00 for the low end.. are you kidding me ?  There is no optical drive, no expansion whatsoever, no access to the RAM, and the battery is safely locked away from access as well.  HMMM… Mr. Jobs, while I realize you believe that you can ween us off the Optical drives, a concept I am not on board with, you can not possibly imagine that people are going to want to spend as much on a sub-notebook computer as  they will on the MacBook Pro..

This really should have been a computer to compete with the lower priced PC’s on the market.

Anyway, Steve Jobs does not care what I think… Heck, you probably don’t care what I think, but there it is … what I think for all to see.

The last complaint I have is why was the show so small ?  Where have all the vendors gone? COME BACK!  and next year, sell me something.. I bring a WAD of cash with me to MacWorld, and my wife doesn’t come.. you do the math..

A few months or so ago, I decided to completely re-embrace my geekness.. I have spent awhile hiding it in the shadows, forcing back shouts of glee when a really cool sci-fi show was advertised, or when a really sexy looking computer was in use at a coffee shop, but those days have come to a close.

I sit here now, with a geek card in my wallet (even though it is not laminated… ), a “work shirt” that has a patch on it that reads geek, and license plates that say ‘geek 2 u’ on them… Overkill, maybe, but I have a lot of geek love to make up for.

What is geek love you ask? Well, if you’re asking, I am not sure why or how you found this site, but in the interest of spreading the news I will explain. A geek, in the past, was considered a person who is odd or peculiar, and especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual. Technically I would say that this is still true. Most geeks I knew are odd, but in a good way, and society is finally beginning to see that. Not that societies opinion is important, or even relevant for that matter, but is nice to know that we are not subjugated to the computer lab and forever deemed unlovable by the opposite sex anymore.

As a whole, no matter how hard I tried to hide it, most of my friends saw and referred to me as a geek. I am on the speed dial anytime their computer does anything they don’t like, I am the one who knows the date and time when they can watch some particular sci-fi show, and if you need someone who can name the title and season for any Star Trek episode (any spin-off), then yep, I am the one you call.

Now, I can almost hear some of you out there saying… “How did I get on this dorks website?” Well, remember its geek to you… You should also remember that times are a changing… Geeks are the new jocks… women love us.. men want to be us .. and don’t even pretend your not jealous when I am sitting in the coffee bar next to you writing a new blog entry on my decked out MacBook Pro, listening to my 80 Gig iPod, and taking calls on my iPhone…

As proof of this change, I refer you to wiki :

The definition of geek has changed considerably over time, and there is no longer a definitive modern meaning. Here are some of the many definitions:

• A person who is interested in technology, especially computing and new media. Most geeks are adept with computers, and treat the term hacker as a term of respect, but not all are hackers themselves.
• A person who relates academic subjects to the real world outside of academic studies; for example, using multivariate calculus to determine how they should correctly optimize the dimensions of a pan to bake a cake.
• A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance.
• A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest. This definition is very broad but because many of these interests have mainstream endorsement and acceptance, the inclusion of some genres as “geeky” is heavily debated. Persons have been labelled as or chosen to identify as mathematics geeks, engineering geeks, sci-fi geeks, computer geeks, various science geeks, movie and film geeks (cinephile), comic book geeks, theatre geeks, history geeks, gamer geeks, music geeks, art geeks, philosophy geeks, and literature/rp geeks

Personally, I lump all us geeks together for the most part… except you band geeks… you have, over time become dweebs, and well, none of us want dweebs around.

Realize that for the most part, I’m being a bit tongue in cheek, but the point is made.

Geeks are here, Geeks are cool, and Geeks aren’t going anywhere… (although we will be unavailable during episodes of Battlestar Galactica, new season starting in March )

So, knowing all of this, start showing your geek love !