a(HUGE)company

I figured I would try something new so here ya go…

Audio Post One (mp3 716 KB)

Microsoft Office Word 2007 may just be the runner up for “Swiss Army knife of the year,” next to the iPhone.

Ever since I started testing the early beta versions of Office 2007, I must say I’m very impressed by the new ribbon design and a few new features it incorporates. I’ve always been a big fan of using styles to keep things clean so it’s perfect. I have tried all the open source “word” replacements too and none can compare to this. The new font package is very nice too, Calibri is my favorite, now everyone needs to upgrade so they can enjoy the documents I write with Calibri.

One of its new, little known, features is a blog publisher. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, bloat. But no, it’s actually really great. I draft all my blog posts in Word anyway; it’s just a quick easy way to check spelling and such. So now all I have to do is click the “Office Button” and then Publish and Blog. It couldn’t be any simpler, and it works great with WordPress blogs too.

Every post on this brand new blog has been posted using Word, can you tell a difference? It publishes very clean html, unlike what you would normally expect coming out of Word; <FONT><FONT><FONT>a</FONT></FONT></FONT>^h^h^h. Uploads pictures, this feature is priceless. I like putting pictures in my post most of the time so it’s just a real time saver. The only buggy thing about it is image placement.

Before I publish a post, I usually post it as a draft from Word. Then add the categories from the WordPress admin since there appears to be a problem with adding new categories from Word. Then I check image placement, linkify (sucks from Word–I’ll admit), finalize it, and publish directly from WordPress. Let’s review: Office Button->Publish->Blog. Easy as pie.

Being a Mac evangelist I’m all over these new products. I don’t know how to describe it but Mac users are just different from the rest of the world. It should be made know though that I don’t use a Mac full time, simply because I don’t have one powerful enough at present to do everything at once. My G4 Mac Mini handles GarageBand just fine though and that’s about it; makes a good guest machine also.

Apple TV

The only factor that disappointed me about the iTV Apple TV is 720p. Even though most consumers probably won’t notice the difference between that and 1080i, Apple normally goes above and beyond expectations. The price could have been ~$50 less, or at least maybe they should have included a component cable. There aren’t many details about what video it really will play back, as far as I can see H.264 and MPEG-4 is it. DivX would be nice—maybe it will offer add-ins. Plus, what is the USB port for? Bringing content to the living room has always been one of the challenges I’ve faced. Either you buy a big clunky computer and hook it up, or an “embedded” one like the Apple TV. Why no SuperDrive … just a thought.

iPhone

I wasn’t overly impressed with the iPhone; I think it’s a little overpriced. Apple didn’t balance the feature to price ratio this year. The Apple TV should have been given more features for its price point and the iPhone less. I don’t think I’d ever pay $500 for a phone with a two year contract. Only 4 gigs of space, yeah that’s ok but what do I do when I run out? No expansion slot.

The Cingular CEO looked dumbfounded; he had notes with him and had no idea what he was saying. I’ve seen this somewhere before… Bush maybe?

Other

AirPort Extreme Base Station wasn’t even mentioned at the keynote and clearly it would have been a nice segue when Steve talked about Apple TV. Looks fancy, 802.11a/b/g/n. I wouldn’t buy it though, they are using the draft-n spec, which as far as I know could change and render all these products useless.

John Mayer is cool and all; just what the hell was his analogy “Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. just kinda makes life more fun. It’s like the exact opposite of terrorism, it’s amazing.” Whoa, stop the press, terrorism? How is Apple the exact opposite of terrorism? Looking at the antonym for terror, it is peace. Apple is peaceful then? I doubt John even knew what he was saying, it sounded like it just spilled out as he was trying to make a corny joke to get an iPhone early from Steve.

Bottom Line

I’m going to probably buy the Apple TV, but chances are a month or so after I do a new revision will come out and I’ll be pissed. I won’t be purchasing an iPhone because 1) I’m in contract for a long time with CellularOne anyways, and 2) nobody in their right mind would ever pay $500 for a phone with a two year contract.