SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — Given the explosion of visual art inspired by mobile devices running Mac iOS and apps developed to help artists create work on them, it came as a bit of a surprise to see the way Macworld organizers chose to display digital art at the 2011 Conference and Expo.
The Expo’s art was placed in “digital art galleries” displayed on 27’ Samsung wide-screen TVs housed in unobtrusive kiosks, dispersed in the cavernous hallways of the 2nd and 3rd floors, where only a portion of the conference’s attendees — media personnel and those who purchased something other than Expo Only tickets — was likely to see it.
This is curious in the light of recent attention given to the digital creations of artists producing work on the Mac platform, which in years past could be seen framed, on brightly-lit wall space, in the middle of well-trafficked concourses.
Click on images in the gallery above to see artist and title information, as well as the curious distortion effects rendered in iPhone photographs of art (made, in many cases, ON iPhones) displayed in a digital TV slideshow.
Macworld is still crowded and fun, despite Apple's absence.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — Two years ago, when Apple announced the company would skip the Macworld Conference and Expo after 2009, some took the news like a punch to the gut — and many wondered if the twenty-five year-old event would survive.
But without Apple totally dominating the event, the show has become what it was always supposed to be — a place for the wider Apple community to meet and mingle.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — Dolly Drive, a new cloud-based storage solution specially tailored to Mac specifications, launched Thursday from the Indie Spotlight at Macworld in San Francisco and looks to be one of the smartest plays — and best values — to come out of this year’s show.
Remote storage accessible from anywhere, any time, Dolly Drive is designed to work exclusively and specifically with Apple’s Time Machine, giving Mac users an inexpensive, seamless method for creating secure, redundant (in some cases, perhaps, primary) backups that can be accessed to restore digital files from any location with an Internet connection.
With tri-level security including authentication encryption, data transmission over secure tunnel and multi-leveled, complex authentication protocols for third-party access to data at Dolly data centers, a Mac user can feel confident in the security of data stored for as little as $10 per month for 250GB. Other pricing plans prove Dolly Drive is serious about delivering value for a service that should be attractive to computer users of any sophistication level.
No other remote storage solution we’re aware of is engineered to work directly through Time Machine, nor is any so dedicated to serving Mac users.
This is definitely one of the nicest finds we’ve seen at Macworld 2011 and well worth further exploration.
Your scrawl, captured with digital pen and saved with Evernote.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 – The twin booths for Livescribe and Evernote are mobbed this morning. Though the alliance between the popular virtual notebook and productivity suite and the MP3 pen was announced a few months ago, there’s something about seeing what they can do together that makes for a real-two-great-tastes-that-taste-better-together moment.
Ray Toledo of Evernote is busy fielding questions from teachers — three stop by while I’m there — who are asking questions about how to use the service to keep notes in a cloud system that can be accessed by students. He shows them how Evernote can recognize handwriting so you can take a picture of a whiteboard then search for the term in your database, share it online with groups or send it as an email.
It’s not the first time he’s been asked these questions — Evernote has an ongoing series on how to use the service in education — and he also assures them that the free version is probably sufficient the needs of most for pennywise educators. (As an Evernote aficionado and prolific clipper, I’d tend to agree. I’ve never exceeded even a third of 40 megabytes free space per month.)
They’re also showing the slick looking Echo, but Toledo assures me that if I update the software for my 2GB Pulse model, I can still integrate with the note service.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 — Despite the demise of the xServe, Apple products can be and are a good fit in the enterprise, according to John Welch of the Zimmerman Agency, who spoke on Apple in the Enterprise at the Macworld Industry Forum Wednesday at Macworld 2011.
First of all Apple is not an enterprise company — it is not Microsoft, not Cisco, not IBM.
But Apple doesn’t need to be an enterprise company to be a source of solid products that work well in the Enterprise, said Welch, who spoke from 20 years of experience deploying Apple products in business.
SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2011 –There’s no great secret to understanding what Apple has up its sleeves, according to Jason Snell, editor-in-chief of Macworld magazine, who spoke to attendees about “How Apple Does It” at the Macworld Conference and Expo Industry Forum Wednesday morning.
Anyone who makes a habit of keeping up with technology news understands one of the longest running games in the business involves predicting what Apple will do next.
Despite its reputation as an obsessively secret company that consistently produces products no one ever thought they needed until Steve Jobs invented them, Snell described Apple as a consistent, rational company that doesn’t do anything unexpected — and doesn’t rely on crazy mind control to achieve its success.
From the company’s very founding, the roles Jobs & his cofounder Steve Wozniak played suggested Apple’s future: Jobs understood marketing and Woz was technically brilliant at making complex technology work. One of them understood products and the other understood technology; the way they worked together would become Apple’s greatest strength and one day set their company apart from all others in American business.
Heading to San Francisco to MacWorld? Here are some things to do during your precious free time – between strippers, actors and coffee, we’ve got you covered.
1. Go to a Strip Club
Eleven of the city’s big name strip clubs in North Beach are offering free or discounted admission with your Macworld badge. They include the SF classic hotspots like the Hungry-i, the Condor and the Garden of Eden as well as Centerfolds and the Gold Club.
It begs the question: do they think Macworld is exclusively a man’s world, or that all Macs are horny and lonely? You decide.
Extra tip: if you’re into multitasking — and don’t mind the smell of strawberry body oil while you eat — the Hustler Club reportedly has an excellent happy hour buffet.
If you’re looking for something to do in San Francisco during Macworld, eleven of the city’s strip clubs are offering half off admission with your Macworld badge.
When I first spotted this two-page centerfold ad in SF Weekly I wondered: do they think Macs are more randy or just more lonely than other tech people?
There are tech conferences every day of the week in San Francisco – this is the first time I’ve seen a big ad for a group of strip clubs promoting discounts for tech-conference goers.
Also: don’t they know a lot of the attendees are women? You can see from our last year’s “Faces of Macworld” gallery by Traci Dauphin that Macworld isn’t necessarily a man’s world. Dunno. Maybe I should gather a fistful of dollar bills and some geek girls for an expedition.
Early registration discounts expire Monday for MacTech Boot Camp, the one day immersive event for Mac consultants and uber-geeks held at the start of the MacWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco on January 26.
With seminars covering topics such as:
Marketing in a Community
Client Documentation, Passwords and Records
Troubleshooting Hardware
Networking Basics and Troubleshooting
Printing Setup and Troubleshooting (Wifi, USB, Bluetooth, and Wired)
iOS Support
Windows on the Mac Options
Viruses and Security
and more, MacTech Boot Camp offers a rich vein of resources designed to enhance the credentials of any Mac IT consultant offering services to the home, SOHO (small office home office) and SMB markets.
Those looking to obtain Apple certification may also sign up for a study session and exam prior to the Boot Camp on January 25.
In this highly-entertaining final installment of his series about Steve Jobs, Macworld founder David Bunnell is taken by Jobs to his favorite lunch spot (you’ll never guess where it is). And for once, Jobs changes his parking habits.
![Why Macworld Is Better Without Apple [Macworld 2011]](http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_1619.jpg "IMG_1619.JPG")
Early registration discounts expire Monday for ![Steve’s NeXT Big Thing [Recollections]](http://cultofmac.cultofmaccom.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/jobs_neXT.jpg "jobs_neXT")
