Hi, I’m Matt Hamilton, and I have joined theiLife.com as a contributing writer. I am a first-year at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation College of Engineering, and I have been paying much attention for many years to first the Apple Corporation and later the new web start-up boom we currently find ourselves in. Mainly, I’ll focus on how new developments in both the Apple and overall technology sphere affect me and my colleagues here in New York City, but also general advancements and controversies in the technology and web industries. The first topic for me is how Apple and other technology products help out college students. To me, one of the best tests to determine whether a product is actually useful or necessary and fashionable is if college students use it, or really want it. Full article after the jump!
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The iLife Podcast – Epoisode #3: Macworld Wrap-up

Show notes after the jump. Read more…

We me the guys from the Polar Bear Farm on Monday night. They were coming out of the Moscone West while we were waiting on line. The next day, we paid them a visit, downloaded their software for the iPhone- which is awesome. We brought out the camera and asked them a couple questions about the software and the impending port for the SDK.

As you might recall, I wrote a series of articles on major Macworld rumors in the week leading up to Macworld. You can review them here: MacBook, iTunes and iPhone.

You’ve heard the story of our Macworld experience. You’ve heard about the new products. Our Macworld 2008 coverage is sadly coming to an end- its time to see how I scored with the rumors.

I organized each rumor by a Verdict (brief explanation), What To Expect (actual prediction) and What is Possible (things that could happen). Now with the Keynote over, I’ll go back and grade myself. All new commentary in bold.
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When we first saw the McAfee booth in the West hall, staffed with one person, decorated with a banner of the McAfee logo, we just couldn’t resist the temptation of asking why they were at Macworld. Apparently they are still counting viruses from dating back to OS 6 so- you should invest in their protection.

This is a continuation of Macworld Show Floor Part I, Macworld Keynote Part I, Part I and, Macworld Registration Part I and Part II.

And then it was Thursday! Did I mention that the week really flew by? After exploring the entirety of Moscone West on Wednesday, we crossed the street and explored Moscone South on Thursday. Starting from the corner, with the mobile Best Buy store, we walked down every isle and visited every booth. Like I explained yesterday, Moscone South had bigger names and less iPod Accessory vendors- which was nice.

We walked around, again talking with exhibitors about their products- which ranged from obscure to some we use everyday. It is great to meet and interact with the people behind products you use every day- which is an experience technology can never replace. This is why conventions like Macworld and CES continue to thrive in this age of the internet.

Highlights from the South Hall were getting to use the new Apple products weeks before they became available to the general public- the MacBook Air is incredible; and the AppleTV upgrade seems promising. Belkins booth was a large house with interactive displays of their products, a band (pictured below) and a gaming room equipped with members from the PMS gamer clan. The Microsoft Blogger Lounge was popular and offered a nice resting point with free refreshments (pictured below). The Mobile Best Buy was pretty cool- they brought a 53 foot tractor trailer onto the floor and sold only Apple products with some accessories and a live DJ. We barely covered the floor in the one day, by the time we reached the other side, booths were already closing.

On Friday we split the day into two parts- finishing up coverage between both the West and South Halls. We did the West hall first, ate lunch and walked over to the South hall. We were trying to make the best of the remaining hours in Macworld, especially because the Expo closed at 4PM instead of 6PM to allow the exhibitors to pack up. We ended up talking with the engineer of VMWare until almost 6:20, so walking around amongst the Exhibitors packing up was interesting- everyone was scrambling to take things apart!

In conclusion, our trip to Macworld was incredible! We met new people, talked to developers, designers, journalists and more- you cannot replicate the experience from your computer. Going to Macworld has always been a dream of mine, and now it may become a tradition! Our first year, first in line- hopefully one of many more to come.

Pictures after the jump. Read more…

This is a continuation of Macworld Keynote Part I, Part I and, Macworld Registration Part I and Part II.

Immediately after the keynote was over, I hung around Moscone West and actually got to see Steve Jobs a little bit closer. Sidney was in Moscone South but they were not letting people onto the floor yet. After about 5 minutes of hanging around with Jobs and the media, I decided to join Sidney so we could get our hands on the new products (and livecast for The Digital Lifestyle). I ended up arriving just in time and was among the first to lay hands on the MacBook Air’s.

After spending about 30 minutes at the Apple booth, we moved on to the other parts of the show floor. Slowly, however, we began to feel the effects of limited sleep over the past night and decided to head back to our hotel room at about 4PM. When we woke up that next morning, we started to upload all the content from the keynote and show floor. Afterwards, we ate breakfast and hit Moscone West.

For those not familiar how Macworld Expo is run, they split the show floor into 2 buildings. This year, it happened to be Moscone West and South- typically it is North and South. Moscone South is filled with the booths from the large companies such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, Adobe, Griffin, Belkin and more. Moscone West had some of the smaller vendors, and gets much less traffic and attention.

Knowing we lost time in the morning, we figured that we could tackle the West Hall that day. We carefully walked down each of the isles, talking with each of the exhibitors. Seeing anything interesting or funny, we would instantly start recording. Among my favorites were McAffe, who had a booth with only one person in it, preaching about Anti-Virus software for the Mac, yet counting Mac viruses dating back to OS 6 (we have an interview coming soon). We also met some really interesting people as well- a guy who converts Mac Minis to be Military Grade (VictorSystems) or the Remote Time Machine (MiraLink) people. As always, there was an endless count of iPod accessory makers which quickly got repetitive.

The West hall was a lot calmer and had a more intimate vibe than the bustling South Hall. Buried amongst the loads of iPod accessory makers were some great smaller vendors: Ambrosia Software, Aspyr, Polar Bear Farm to name a few. Before we knew it, 6 o’clock came around and we had to leave.

Part II coming tomorrow but for now, check out the EXPO video or the two interviews (Ecamm Network or MacSpeech) from the show floor.

Pictures after the jump. Read more…

In the MacSpeech booth, a representative demoed their new software to us called Dictate. Dictate is speech software that allows you to dictate commands and sentences to any program in OS X. For those familiar with iListen- Dictate is not just a new version- it is completely redesigned. From what we saw the software was extremely accurate and seemed very intuitive. From MacSpeech: “Written from the ground up for the Mac, MacSpeech Dictate’s features, accuracy, and capabilities make it as fun, productive, and intuitive to use as the Mac itself.”

We were drawn to Ecamm Networks booth by their iLidz hat which was on display. They actually have a lot of neat software products: iChatUSBCam (to use USB cameras in iChat), iPhone Drive for file storage on the iPhone or iPod Touch and DockStar for customizing the Mail dock icon. As explained in the video, “We are a software company, but every year we like to find something really unique to bring to the show.” Last year, they created the Huckleberry mirror for your built in iSight.

I have to apologize for the lack of updates today- we have been busy encoding the gigabytes of interviews from Macworld. Late, yeah we know, but there is only two people running this site! Regardless, I have readied a bunch of interviews that will be appearing over the corse of this week (as they finish rendering). Additionally, Sidney and I will be recording a podcast on Wednesday which you should see later this week. Of course, you can expect the regular text posts as well (just not today). So keep tuned for the interviews- there should be at least one out within the hour. Feel free to contact us via email, Twitter or on AIM (theilife) with any questions, concerns, etc.