I’m sure you’ve all seen variations of the email go around where you’re asked a series of questions about yourself and then are supposed to reply to the person who sent it to you and forward it on to your friends. I admit I’ve done it a few times between friends and have enjoyed reading the replies that came back. Recently, a friend sent me this email again and this time suggested that rather than reply via email, I post the responses to this blog in order to share a little more about me with all of you.

If you’re not interested, go ahead and ignore this. We’ll have more Apple and tech stuff soon. But, if you found this intriguing, consider posting something similar to your blog, feel free to post a link in the comments. Read More...

Okay, so you know that whole blog post I did a few days ago saying how I wasn’t going to buy an iPhone 3G and listing all my reasons? Well, scratch that. I mean, come on people, you knew there was no way I was going to let iPhone day pass without buying a brand new iPhone, right? :)

Ok...so in my defense, I had no intentions of buying an iPhone when I went to bed last night. I had downloaded the iPhone 2.0 software on my original iPhone using the “backdoor” method posted by MacRumors.com and was very pleased with the new functionality and the App Store. So, I set my alarm for a regular wake up time for Friday morning and figured if I happened to get up early, then I’d head down to the local Apple Store ONLY for the purposes of documenting the event for the website and podcast. Of course, I get up early and decide to head on down. My entire day is pretty much documented on Flickr so if you want to see the pictures that go along, I’d suggest you check out our iPhone 3G photos.

I arrive at the local Apple Store a little after 7am an already there are about 100 people in line in front of me. When the doors open at 8:00 we make one big jump in the line as the Apple Store lets in the first 30 people or so, but after that the line pretty much stalls. We knew that the lines would move slower than they did last year because AT&T was mandating that all iPhones be activated and a rate plan selected in store. It wasn’t clear until later in the day the seriousness of the activation problems that were being had in the store. 30 minutes passed, and only the first few people were slowly starting to trickle out of the store and only then were people allowed to go in one for one. We got the sense that this was not the way things were supposed to work and the Apple employees started to get worried. Keep in mind, I’m in Florida and evan at 8am it was already well on it’s way to 90 degrees. I was standing in line in a suit and in the sweltering sun.

Speaking of the Apple employees, I have to stay that they have been a total bright spot to the day. The Apple Store was totally prepared on their end for the crowd. They were giving out water, coffee, umbrellas, and generally doing everything they could to make the wait in line all the more pleasant. There were employees going around the line to give out information on AT&T’s rate plans, verify that customers had the information they needed, and tried to get everyone prepared for the activation process when they went in the store. They were trying to take care of as many problems out side the store as possible to minimize needless waiting and make the activation process as smooth as possible. They also had a few employees out working the line with the new iPhone. They were showing off the new features and allowing people to touch and feel the phone for themselves. I asked one employee if I could compare the speed of my iPhone on EDGE with hers on 3G and she gladly agreed. I typed in cnn.com in both browsers and was blown away. The 3G iPhone loaded significantly faster than my iPhone and it was at this point, about an hour and a half after I got in line, that I was actually sold on the new iPhone.

Time ticked on and it got later and later. Generally I like to get to work between 8 and 8:30 but I’m not really “due in” until 9. Though my first appointment today was at 10:00 so I figured that if I didn’t have my phone in hand by 9:00 then I would be forced to leave the line. at 8:45 I was 26 people away from the door and things were still crawling along. There was no way that I was going to be in the store, musth less with the iPhone activated in time to get to work. So, I had to leave without my iPhone. I planned to try to return to the store around lunch time in hopes the crowds had died down and I could just walk in and pickup an iPhone, but unfortunately my day got hectic and that wasn’t an option. I tried calling the Apple Store several times to get an idea of what type of stock they had but he lines were constantly busy. By now the west coast had come online and we were getting reports via Twitter and the blogosphere that there were major nation wide activation problems. Even if I had managed to leave, there was no way I could have gotten an iPhone and gotten back to work.

Seeing as I worked through lunch I decided to leave about an hour early at 4:00 and headed back to the Apple Store. Ironically, when I arrived in line I was in almost the exact same spot as I was when I left earlier in the morning. There were about 25-30 people standing between me and the door and it took nearly an hour just to get inside the store. Once I was inside the store, we were greeted by more employees who directed us to accessories and again confirmed that we had all the information we needed, and in some cases directed people to AT&T’s website to verify information. It was another 30 minutes or so of waiting in the store before I actually got to an employee to activate my iPhone. The way it was setup they had about 20 employees around the store with handheld units doing activation. You would be “assigned” one who would stay with you one-on-one during the activation process. My guy, Pete, was very friendly and we chit chatted about his day while he was waiting for the first phase of activation. He went into the back and grabbed my 16GB black iPhone and I immediately felt at ease. It wasn’t activated, and it wasn’t bought, but it was in my hands and I wasn’t leaving the store without it. I decided to stick with my current rate plan, and just add the 200 text messages for an extra $5 a month. Although my iPhone activation went off without a hitch, it still took about 15 minutes for the process.

Once this was done, I was directed to another employee who would activate my phone with iTunes. This was the part I was dreading because I heard that this was the major cause for the slow down earlier in the day. Though much to my surprise, within a minute I was activated and ready to go. All in all, I spent more than 4 hours today at the Apple Store, but based on what I’m reading this wasn’t all uncommon. Though again, I can’t stress enough how great the Apple employees were throughout this entire process. While talking to Pete I was pleasantly surprised when he told me that everyone seemed really cool and they hadn’t really had any problem customers. People seemed to understand there was going to be some craziness and it was quite obvious that the Apple folks were working their butts off. Everything that went wrong today was on AT&T’s part and Apple was ready and did everything they could to smooth out the process. It’s just beyond me why Apple agreed to get involved with this iPhone in store activation process in the first place. I understand AT&T’s legitimate concerns with subsidized phones being let into the wild without a contract, but there has got to be a better way. I can’t imagine Apple letting this mess continue next year.

It’s too late and I’m too exhausted to get into my first impressions of the iPhone right now. In a nutshell, I like it and it’s pretty much working as expected. Look for a more in-depth review to follow in the coming days and I’m sure I’ll have a whole lot more to say on our next episode of the Podcast which will likely come out sometime next week. In the mean tine, check out the flickr photos for a walkthrough of my experience at the Apple Store and some comparisons between the iPhone and iPhone 3G.

Posted By: Katie

Ok, let’s get this out of the way up front. We all know that there is a near 100% chance that I will buy a new 3g iPhone in the near future. In fact, I think the chances are very high I’ll buy it on opening day or that weekend. My plan was to be in line with the rest of the crazies (and I mean that in the best possible way!) waiting for the iPhone to go on sale. But as the time draws closer to the July 11th launch date, I’ve been doing some serious thinking about the iPhone 3g and whether it’s something I want to rush right out and buy or whether it’s something that’s best to wait a bit on.

There are three big draws to the iPhone 3g for me.

1. 16GB vs. 8GB - I only have an 8GB model so double the space is a bonus for me.
2. 3G - Faster data speeds are going to be nice, I use the iPhone for data a lot!
3. GPS - I’m probably going to buy a GPS device for my car within the next year and if the iPhone could take care of this for me, that would be a big bonus.
4. Geek Cred - Come on, admit it. Having the latest and the greatest is cool.

But, there are currently a lot of unknowns with he iPhone 3G and some pretty big disadvantages. At the time I write this blog post, we’re still 4 days away from launch, so it’s possible some of these big unknowns will be answered. But as I sit here now, here are the major disadvantages and unknowns that give me pause.

1. New AT&T price plans - I’m okay with paying $30 a month more for 3G data. But the $5 extra you’ll have to pay for the 200 SMS messages that use to come free and the $18 “activation fee” really leave a sour taste in my mouth. At a minimum, I’ll be paying $15 a month more for phone service than I currently am. Now, I do understand that the iPhone is significantly cheaper than the previous model, and that does mean a lot.
2. Exchange Support - This falls into the “unknown” category, there’s lots of speculation out there. My law firm uses Exchange for email and has not enabled IMAP access so I cannot get my work email on my iPhone. In the beginning, this wasn’t that big of an issue, but as I’ve taken on more cases and more responsibility, this will be come a bigger deal. (Now, we’re only talking about 20 - 25 emails a day, but they’re typically fairly important emails.) The guy at the Apple store tells me that in order to get Exchange to work on my iPhone 3G I’ll have to be on a $45 “business plan” from AT&T. Though after some questioning he admitted he was only speculating. If I have to pay for a $45 data plan plus $5 for SMS messages, I’m looking at raising my current bill by over $30 a month or $720 over a two year contract. The only “official” word we have is a blurb on the AT&T website that mentions Exchange being a “business” feature.” So the big question still remains, if all I want is Exchange support for my work email on my iPhone, am I going to have to move over to a more expensive business data plan? Will Exchange work on my current $20 a month data plan with my 1st Gen iPhone and software version 2.0? Will AT&T even know that I’m running exchange? Considering Steve Jobs has touted one of the biggest features of iPhone 2.0 firmware as being Exchange support, my personal guess, is that it will work without a business plan on either the 1st Gen or 3G iPhone. I hope that AT&T will have no way of knowing or caring what type of traffic is coming in and out of the iPhone. But, this is a big enough issue that it makes me want to hold off and see.
3. 16GB Only - I was shocked when the new iPhones came out and there wasn’t a 32GB version. I wouldn’t mind paying $499 for a 32GB model. A 16GB iPhone is better, but I still have to carry around my 60GB iPod to use in my car and to carry all my tunes. If that iPod were to die tomorrow, I’d have to go out and replace it with an iPod Classic. Apple is notorious for having an iPod event in September, so my guess is that we’ll see a 32GB version of the iPhone within 3-4 months.
4. Is 3G That Much Faster?- I’ll admit, I really want faster data, but there is a question really as to how much faster in real world situations 3G will be over EDGE. My guess is it’s not going to be as fast as we think and certainly not as fast as we hope. It might be a good idea to spend an hour or so in my local Apple store playing with an iPhone 3G and comparing it to my current iPhone in terms of speed.
5. Will the GPS Be That Useful- GPS is cool, but I just took a trip up to Atlanta and borrowed my brother’s Garmin Nuvi for the trip. It cost less than $200 on Amazon and had audible turn-by-turn directions and interactive maps. GPS on the iPhone doesn’t look like it’s going to offer near these features and in the car for navigation purposes is probably where I’d want to use the GPS features a majority of the time. Should Garmin or another big brand come out with an iPhone App that turns the 3G iPhone into a full fledged GPS product, I’d be all for that. But based on what I’ve seen of the demos, it just looks like Google Maps with a blinking dot. Again, something probably better to hold off and wait and read the reviews on.
6. Firmware 2.0 Does Most of What I Want- Yes I’m interested in faster data speeds, I’d like the extra storage, and the GPS looks cool. But besides from those hardware improvements, of which I’ve already raised questions/concerns about before, everything else is in the software. Firmware 2.0 is going to be available free on my current iPhone and will probably serve me just fine for the time being. I’m looking forward to the App store and am sure a handful of applications alone will bring a lot more functionality to my iPhone. Assuming Exchange support works as I hope it will, my current iPhone will probably serve me just fine. I absolutely love my current iPhone, it’s changed the way I use a mobile phone and the computer in such a positive way, do the extra hardware features really matter that much? How often is EDGE really “too slow” and how often would true GPS be needed?
7. AT&T- I’ll admit most of my issues with the new iPhone are not Apple issues. I’m less than thrilled with the new AT&T pricing plan and really like the plan and features I already have. I’ve been overall pleased with AT&T as a carrier but my loyalty to AT&T ends at the iPhone. Since the new iPhone will be subsidized through AT&T I have concerns that next year when the next version of the iPhone rolls around we’re going to be “ineligible for upgrade” and end up trowing out a few hundred extra bucks to upgrade. Apple tends to be on a yearly upgrade cycle and AT&T’s contracts run for two years. Now, I love the new lower price of the 3G iPhone and I think they’re going to fly off the shelves. But, I’m not so sure this particular version of the iPhone has significant enough advances from the 1st generation product to make that substantial a difference that I need to run out and upgrade. Sure, we’d all like to have the latest and greatest, but I don’t upgrade my computer every year just because Apple comes out with a new model, why should I upgrade my phone?

So, there you have it, only time will tell what happens. My hope is that in the coming days before the iPhone 3G launch we’ll have more information and a lot of these unknowns will be come non-issues. But my advice (and I’m not so sure I’m going to follow it) is to hold off for a bit. Wait and see as the reviews come in and make a decision at that point. The 1st Gen iPhone is a revolutionary product, second only to the 3G iPhone. Maybe having the second best mobile phone in the world is good enough for the time being.

Meet Kacey, she’s one of our most dedicated listners. Kacey is Corey’s dog and not only does she listen to every show, she usually hangs around while we record them (although we think she naps through quite a bit of it.) Kacey is modeling one ouf our MacCore T-shirts available at our cafepress store.

If you (or your pet) wants to support the show and wear some cool threads the same time, consider picking one up. Send us a picture of you, your kid, or your pet modeling your shirt (G rated please!) and and if it’s cute or funny enough, we may just feature it on our website.

For all you designers out there, we’re always interested new ideas. If you have an idea for a great shirt that incorporates the MacCore logo, send us an email with a mockup and we’ll consider adding it to the store.

Today is Dave Teare's 33rd birthday, Happy Birthday Dave! Dave is the co-founder of Agile Web Solutions, and maker of one of our all time favorite Mac Apps, 1Passwd. In honor of Dave's birthday, today only, MacZot is offering 1Passwd for $19.95, normally $34.95. We've talked about 1Passwd at length on our show, it is a full featured password manager and form filler and now includes integrated iPhone/iPod touch support, a feature they first demoed for me at Macworld. If you've been thinking about trying 1Passwd, there's never been a better time. You can find all the info here: http://agilewebsolutions.com/promo/daves_birthday

As you may have heard, I had an opportunity to meet some of my favorite Mac Podcasters at Macworld this year and had a chance to participate in that now infamous "podcasters lunch." It was commented that it was a shame that we didn't record our conversations from that lunch because what a great podcast that would have been. We thought it would be fun to get together on a regular basis to chat and catch up on all things Mac and if the conversation was worthwhile, post it to our respective feeds. Well, one thing led to another and we ended up getting together with the original crew from the Mac roundtable to re-launch that podcast, which we internally have called "Mac Roundtable, Take 2"

All of the original crew are back, including Adam Christianson, Steve Stanger, Joseph Nilo and Tim Verpoorten but we are also joined by Don McAllister, Allison Sheridan, David Sparks, Jonathan Cost, and myself. Talk about being a member of an All-Star team!

Now obviously, all the members won’t appear on every show but know we should be able to bring you a much more varied and regular show with a bigger pool of resources.The first show of the re-launched Mac Roundtable has just been published and you can listen here or even better, subscribe to the podcast in iTunes I hope you enjoy this first show with some of the new line up and thanks to the Mac Roundtable guys for welcoming us with open arms!

Well, I must say this is a day that I'm glad to see come to an end. As I type this last blog entry I'm on the flight home and due to land in about 30 minutes. Assuming you're reading this, it means I made it home save and sound and was able to post. The day started out with news that our flight home had been cancelled. Apparently there was fairly bad snow in Atlanta and as a result our flight and about 1000 other Delta flights were cancelled. I was supposed to catch my connection home through Atlanta, so that was a no-go. After 45 minutes on hold with Delta I was finally told the best they could do was to put me on a 3-stop flight that would eventually get me home around 9am on Sunday, assuming the Atlanta airport was open the following morning. Great...just great. The Delta representative on the phone did tell me that although my re-booked flight didn't leave San Francisco for another 10 hours, I could possibly do better if I went to the airport and tried to get on another flight from there. So the decision, go to the airport, give up my room, and risk being stuck there for 10 hours until our re-scheduled flight take off with the possibility of getting out sooner, or stay another day in San Francisco and fly all around the country throughout the night and hopefully make it home the next morning.

Well, I went straight to the airport and luckily my gamble paid of. The Delta agent at the airport was extremely helpful, and within just a few minutes had me booked on a US Air flight with one connection that left in 2 hours and would have me home within 10 minutes of my original scheduled arrival time. Perfect. So, here I am, on the last leg of my flight, and hopefully will be home warm in my own bed within the next hour or so.

All in all it's been a great trip. I had a chance to meet some of my podcasting friends, see the sights of Macworld, and get introduced to some really great products. I'm going to be going through all the audio I recorded from the show floor in the next few days and hope to have that posted to the feed over the coming weeks. In the short term, stay tuned as I'll be making a special guest appearance on the Typical Mac User Live Podcast this Sunday where Victor and I will gab about our first Macworld experience. It should be a lot of fun, especially considering Victor and I know have had an opportunity to meet in person and get to know each other a bit more.

Well, no Macworld Expo today. I've never been to San Francisco, so today was my day to go explore the city and see some of the sights. We took the famous cable cars down to the pier, saw the sea lions, and took a boat tour under to Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz prison. After our boat tour we went to Ghirardelli Square where I had to pick up a few gifts for the folks back at the office. What is it about girls and chocolate? :) Wait...don't answer that. Wrapped up the day at Lorri's diner with some Apple Pie ala mode - Yum.

I was able to get a good connection to the hotel WiFi so I've posted all my photos up on Flckr. To access them, just click the Photo Album link in the right navigation bar of this site.

Well, after day two at Macworld I think I've decided I'm going to give up on my career and become a full time Mac junkie. Does anyone happen to have a spare $60k laying around so I can pay off my student loans? :)

Seriously, I had a great day on the show floor today. I took about a dozen or so audio interviews from the show floor with my Zoom H4. I haven't had a chance to listen back to any of them yet so I'm hopeful they turned out. I'll be editing for quite a while and will try to post some of that audio out in the coming weeks. It was great to actually put names with faces and see some of the great products offered by Mac developers that I didn't even know existed. One note for today, there will be no more photos posted to flickr. I took so many photos today and the hotel wireless just isn't reliable or fast enough to get the photos posted. But rest assured, once I'm home and back on my reliable broadband I'll have a chance to edit and post.

A few follow-up notes on the Apple products I thought would be of interest. As to the MacBook Air, I am now getting conflicting information from the Apple employees on the show floor. Two Apple reps told me that the MacBook Air would boot from a CD that was in another computer's optical drive using their Remote Disc software, one told me it would not, and several others stated they didn't know. So looks like we're going to have to wait a bit and see on that one. Also, I'm not getting conflicting information about the Apple TV Rentals and whether or not they can be rented on the Apple TV and then moved to a computer or iPod. Two Apple reps told me that if it was rented on the Apple TV it stayed on the Apple TV and if it was rented on the computer it could not be transferred to the Apple TV. Several people have questioned this and indicated that Steve indicated the exact opposite in his Keynote demo. I watched the keynote and it was my impression too that the rentals could be transferred freely, but I'll have to go back and see for sure.

Far and away, the best part of the day was having the chance to meet in a more personable atmosphere some of my favorite Mac Podcasters. Allison from the Nosillacast showed up today and we really hit it off. I'm going to have to see about having her on the show more often. I also had lunch with Allison, Victor, David, and Don and what struck me as so odd was it was as though we had known each other for years. Kindred spirits I guess. Of course tonight we had Adam' Podcaster Meet-up and the Mac Mingle party which was great. The panel was quite interesting and as a relatively novice podcaster I felt I learned quite a bit from their conversation. I have a lot of ideas that I want to try to implement now based on their thoughts and suggestions. I'm sure the audio will be available in a few days in the MacCast feed. One great treat for me is I got to meet Tom and Veronica from Buzz Out Loud, one of my favorite shows. I also talked to Scott Bourne and Liana Lehua from the Apple Phone Show and Girls Gone Geek. One of the most pleasant surprises of the day was learning that many of these podcasters that I so admire actually listen to my show, truly an honor.

I'm having such a great time here at Macworld that I don't want to leave, but alas all good things must come to an end. Tomorrow (Friday) is my last day in San Francisco and I'm going to take the time to skip the show and instead to a little sight seeing around the city. I've never been to San Francisco before so figure a little tourist fun is in order.

Well, by the time I finish posting all this I will have been up for 22 hours straight. And to be honest, I'm not all that tired. I'm no longer speaking coherently, hopefully I'm typing coherently, but I'm running on adrenaline here. I only had an opportunity to spend a few hours on the floor today. The show closes at 5 and once we got to the hotel, checked in, and grabbed some lunch it was nearly 3pm. But I do have a few thoughts and impressions from my first day on the floor.

First off, the MacBook Air - Wow. That pretty much sums it up, wow. I had the opportunity to play with one briefly and learned a little more about the device. Although it's not the right device for me, right now, it's am amazing piece of technology and I can't wait to see how it evolves. First off, this thing is TINY. The pictures don't do it justice but until you pick it up you don't realize how light 3 lbs is. The keyboard feels good and the screen is very clear. My only problem with the device is that it is designed to complement another Mac in your household, it will probably not suffice as your only mac. Only 1 USB port, a non-user replaceable battery, no built in optical drive and only an 80GB hard drive and 1.6 GHz processor means that this mac is good for traveling light, but not a replacement mac for the average consumer. Though I did learn a few things about it today. Most notably, you CAN boot the MacBook Air from a CD when the CD is in another Mac. How Apple does this from a technological standpoint I don't now, probably magic is involved. But in theory at least, you can boot your from a CD or DVD wirelessly. I still think this may pose some troubleshooting problems, especially if you're having trouble with your mac all these fancy features may not be working properly. However there's always the option to boot off a USB drive and I suspect we'll see companies coming out with USB drive utilities in the near future.

The new Apple TV software is great, I cannot wait to get my hands on this update. The demos they're doing seem flawless, but I notice they're all using the same material which leads me to believe the two week delay is more related to adding content than it is to finishing the software update itself. One thing I did learn that gives me some concern is that if you rent a movie on your Apple TV you can NOT sync that movie back to your Mac or transfer it to a portable device. If you rent on the Apple TV you watch on the Apple TV. Similarly, if you rent the movie from your Mac you can move it to an iPod or iPhone but you can NOT move it to the Apple TV. From a practical standpoint, I don't see this being much of a concern for me as I plan to watch and rent all my movies on my Apple TV and not my Mac. But I don't see why Apple felt the need to put this limitation in the software.

I only had a chance to browse the exhibit hall today to get a lay of the land but I have a game plan to go back tomorrow with my Zoom H4 audio recorder and my Canon PowerShot SD850 to make sure I get lots of audio and photos for you. I'm going to post the photos as a batch up to flicker each night, but I will not have time to do any editing or organization. I'm just throwing them up there for you to see. Once I get home and have some time to catch up I'll go through and edit them and try to do some labeling. But for now, they're just up in the flickr stream. You can find them up on http://www.flickr.com/photos/themaccore/

However, far and away the best part of the day was The Mac Observer's Cirque Du Mac Party. The Mac Podcasters had an unofficial meet-up and I finally had a chance in person to meet Adam from the MacCast, Victor from the Typical Mac User, Don from Screencasts Online, David from MacSparky, John from Mac Tips Daily, Ken from Mac OS Ken, and Dave and John from The Mac Geek Gab. These guys were great and I am so thrilled to have finally meet them in person. I can't wait to have a chance to talk to them more at the Mac Podcaster Meet-up and Mingle tomorrow night. Also, gotta say the Macworld All Star Band- awesome. They put on a great show for us.

That's all for me tonight, I'm off to bed but I l can't wait for a full day on the show floor tomorrow!

Some of these are pretty out there, some have have a chance, and maybe even a few will happen by the end of next week. Here is Katie's list of things she would like to see from Apple, Inc. in 2008. Note that these aren't predictions for 2008, but just a wish list of things we'd like to see. If you have you own ideas of where you'd like to see Apple go in the new year, post a comment to this thread, or send us a email to themaccore@gmail.com or leave us an audio comment and we'll continue the discussion on a future show.

(story continues...)
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The new year is only a few hours away now, so I figured I might as well get an early jump start on one of my New Years Resolutions...

New Years Resolutions...I've never really been a fan of them. I mean after all, who REALLY keeps their resolutions much beyond the month of February, right? I use to never make New Years Resolutions, but for some reason this year, I find myself oddly motivated to. And since one of my resolutions is to blog more I figured I might as well share a few of my resolutions with you in hopes of inspiring you as well.
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As I sit at home and prepare to spend Christmas with my family, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately on the year that has gone by and how fortunate I have been. Between graduating from law school, traveling to Europe, moving and starting a new job, it's been a very busy, but wonderful, year for me both personally and professionally. Believe it or not, one of the highlights of this past year has been to spend some of my time with all of you out there in the Mac Community. Through podcasting, your emails and comments, and through my local Macintosh Users Groups, sharing some of my time with you all has been a wonderful experience.

It's been an interesting year for the MacCore Podcast, we've continued to grow in listenership, re-designed the website and logo, and I booked my first trip to Macworld. It's also been a year of changes with Corey's unexpected hiatus during the latter part of the year, the various solo podcasts, and the wonderful range of guest hosts and contributors. I thank you all for you continued support during this time. My hope is that things will begin to return to normal this next year and that Corey will make a triumphant return to the show. I know there have been a few bumps along the road but I'd like to think I came through this experience having learned a few things along the way.

Sending my sincere thanks for your continued support, and wishing you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a bright and Happy New Year...

- Katie

I stayed up WAY too late last night playing with Leopard, but I must say I had a blast. I was number 20 or so in line at my local Apple Store and got my Leopard launch day T-shirt. I had a blast. Met up with some friends from my MUG and then had a nice dinner together at Cheesecake Factory (Yum!). Once they left it was Install time. The total install on my original 2.0 Ghz MacBook Core Duo took about an hour and half. Most of that time was spent zeroing out my hard drive and the check of the DVD itself. Just the install itself took probably only 45 minutes.

You can find photos of the launch event here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/themaccore/sets/72157602740014488/

Posted By: Katie

I just got back from a trip to my local Apple Store to check out the new iPods (living just a few miles away is a very dangerous thing). My first impressions overall were much more positive than when I saw the keynote presentation. Specifically I was surprised by the Nanos. I was expecting not to like the new design, we kept hearing it being called the "stubby pod" or the "fatty pod." but make no mistake, this Nano is till...well, nano.

(Story Continues...)
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Posted By: Katie
I get this question a lot: I need a basic Mac, email, word processing, web surfing, a little graphics, manage my photos and create the occasional movie and DVD. What Mac should I buy? My answer is always the same, it depends. You'll have to forgive me because for the past three years when I was in law school the answer to any question ever asked was always, it depends. So as you can Imagine I'm a little predisposed to throw out this answer whenever I'm asked a tough question. But in this case, it really does depend. The reality is, for the average person either the Mac Mini or the iMac will probably be more than enough power to accomplish these basic tasks. There's no question that either of these machines will hands down run faster, smoother, give you less problems and last a whole lot longer than any run of the mill PC you buy.

Continue reading for more and a detailed graphical breakdown of your buying options...
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Posted By Katie

Let's just get this out of the way right now, I don't have an iPhone. But I really want one. In fact, just yesterday I was actually in my car on the way to the AT&T store to make my purchase, but then I heard a little voice in my head (it sounded a lot like my Mother's voice actually) telling me that this was not a practical decision, and I turned the car around without having even managing to get out of the neighborhood. 

Let me back up a few steps now...
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