Macworld Expo ramblings: the rest of the day
Macworld Expo ramblings: the rest of the day
QuickTime 3.0b11c2 is out. There is a QuickTime Pavilion at the Expo that features more than a dozen applications with a QuickTime focus. One interesting one is the latest update (4.0.2) to Interactive Solutions' MovieWorks, a program that allows you to create still picture transitions or movies withvarious special effects, all in QuickTime format, and all with surprisingly little effort. Coincidentally, the show issue of Macworld had a fairly negative review of the product and the President of Interactive Solutions had prepared a letter of rebuttal to Macworld. He was handing out copies of the letter if the subject came up. Frankly, I don't know enough about the product to take sides here. VideoNow 3.0 (not yet released) allows you to add streaming video and audio to your web site, again with what appears to be a minimum of effort.
Casady & Greene was showing Grammarian, its new grammar checker utility. I did not get to look at it closely, but it did not seem remarkably different from previous grammar checking programs, none of which have ever been a great success.
I got a peek at Gemulator 98, the PC card that allows you to run a Mac 68000 on a PC. It really works! An advanced version is coming soon that will add 68030 and 68040 emulation.
Bob LeVitus and I gave our "Soup up your Mac" session today. I had fun (thanks, Bob). Those attendees who have come here to download a copy of the slide show presentation from the talk, it will be here by Monday.
Despite what you may have heard, it is not true that I attacked the Iomega employee responsible for handing out those clickers. Speaking of Iomega, those models at the Iomega booth, the ones in the plastic suits that posed as manikins, were great. They had me fooled at first.
Finally, I return to the Mac the Knife party matter. The invitation said 683 Clementina as the location. This is not a well known address. Two cab drivers and several nearby store-owners had no idea where this was. We found the street but it appeared to end at around 500. After almost giving up on any chance of finding the place, I called the restaurant. A tape recorded message gave us more familiar cross streets (Folsom and 8th). Why couldn't the invitation say that? I guess it is all part of the "secret." Anyway, it turned out this was just one block from where we had started our search (which meantime had consumed many more blocks of walking and over an hour of time). Others apparently did not have this problem. The party was packed when we arrived. Next time, I'll ask for directions.