MWSF 2010: The Expo Part

I spent all of Saturday on the show floor, talking to companies, and discovering new products. The show was definitely a lot smaller than last year. Not only did Apple pull out, but because Apple left, a lot of other vendors decided not to show at Macworld this year. But luckily, there were a lot of new companies there. What follows is a list of companies that I talked to, and some brief notes. I thought I did a reasonable job covering everything in one day, but I continue to read reports from other blogs on things that I missed.

• New York Times Reader 2.0 — This is an online/offline reader for the New York Times newspaper. It costs $3.45 per week, and aims to be digital deliver of the paper. Unfortunately, it doesn't support full screen mode (likely due to limitation of Adobe Air), but on Mac it can produce PDFs that look really nice. Works offline, and doesn't show hyperlinks when it can't detect an internet connection. There is no way to trap links you follow (from Twitter, etc.) and route into Reader app (that still goes to browser). I think it might be a challenge for them to convince lots of people to pay weekly for this.

• Clipstart — from Riverfold Software looks like a much better way to handle movies from my camera than iPhoto + FlickrExport. Can upload to YouTube in full HD (unlike the de-HD-izing uploader in Quicktime X on Snow Leopard), and supports uploads to Flickr video (unlike FlickrExport). Fast tagging interface — can completely drive via keyboard. After about 5 minutes into his pitch, Manton had already sold me.

• Flatscreen Arms — crazy monitor arms. They have an arm that takes advantage of the VESA mount that Apple sporadically puts on their products, as well as arms for iMacs that don't support VESA. Take iMac to authorized service center, and they crack it open, remove the stand, and install the arm. Wild.


Flatscreen Arms monitor arm attached to an iMac

• Other World Computing — gave a kickass demo of their Mercury Extreme enterprise SSD. Two MacBook Pros, one with faster CPU but 5400 RPM HD, and the other with a slower CPU but SSD. Reboot both at same time, and compare boot times + loading all Adobe apps on boot. Has SandForce controller, and is undersubscribed (i.e. 64GB SSD that they format as 50GB). Apparently it can saturate 2.5Gb/s SATA bus, and the hope is that Apple will offer 6Gb/s SATA3 on 2010 Macs. The guy hinted at products coming later in the year... They also have the Icy Dock, which converts 2.5" to 3.5" form factor (for use in tray on Mac Pro). Also hinted at an upcoming 5.25" to 2.5" converter, for use in 2nd optical bay in the Mac Pro.

• Kanex XD — HDMI to mini DisplayPort for 27" iMac. Didn't seem to run too hot. Took awhile for iMac to recognize new input source. Resolution is confusing — they claimed that the Kanex XD is hardwired to do 720p, so you have to set all input sources to that. But the image displayed clearly filled the iMac's 2560x1440 screen. They also claimed that it wasn't doing upscaling, but it must have been doing pixel doubling. Doesn't sound like non-digital inputs (i.e. component from a Wii) are feasible. They are doing audio over the mini DisplayPort connector. Demo'd with XBox360, PS3, and a Sony Blu-Ray player.

• MacScan from SecureMac — advertise as malwear detector. They focus only on Mac. Not 64-bit yet on Snow Leopard, but upcoming version 3 will be. Doesn't run continuously — instead, runs as scheduled job from their own daemon.

• ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4 for Mac OS X — ESET is coming out with anti-virus product for Mac, a port of their BSD product. Also offer beta for Linux Desktop, and release for Linux server (including 64-bit). Downloads 2-3 new signature database updates a day (small updates). Beta available for Mac.

• The Omni Group — got demo of OmniGraffle 5 — HUGE improvement over what I have (version 3). Layers, auto-layout, auto-stencil download from Graffletopia is sick. Can also import Visio stencils, and import both Visio file formats (and export!). I got the engineer who gave the demo to talk a bit about the iPad and it sounds like the iPad version is going to be insane (in a good way).

• Microsoft — wasn't talking about Office 2011, or demoing it. Didn't really have too much to show technology wise, more just marketing for them this time out. They're thinking October/November release for new Office.

• JAMF Casper Suite — A Mac-focused machine management, for 25+ macs and up. Strong Active Directory integration. Sick package management. Self-service option. Full bare-metal bootstrap. Have cooked Adobe installer, to support CS apps that require activation. Looks really comprehensive. Full inventory (can pull detail over SSH). Supports bash-scripts in inventory (later this year) to harvest custom data. Control of software updates. Can auto-kill bad apps (i.e. bittorrent). You start the app, and JAMF will kill the process, and notify admin.


The JAMF Booth at Macworld

• Likewise Group Policy — sort of different from JAMF — make AD the master of config, make it push stuff into Macs. They have authentication piece from linux that they wrote themselves.

• Handshoe Mouse — ergonomic mouse that felt great. The goal is to keep fingers in a comfortable position, with the wrist supported. Moving the mouse with a natural arm movement, not using the wrist.


The Handshoe Mouse

• HP Officejet Pro 4500 and 8500 — HP had two new all-in-one (print, scan, copy, fax) devices on display. Both models are equipped with WiFi, and have an LCD display to configure WiFi. They can scan to the network (with HP software). The 4500 retails for $200. The 8500 retails for $400 version and adds Ethernet, a better display (it was clearly higher quality), and little apps for printing from Internet services without invoking the computer.

• VMware — I didn't spend a lot of time here (I already have VMare Fusion 3, and I'm happy with it), but I did learn that volume upgrade packs to Fusion 3 will be available starting March 5th.


VMware Booth at Macworld

• CrashPlan — flexible backups to local storage, friend (offsite), or cloud (unlimited for $100/year). Breaks files into 32k chucks, checksums, and check in hash table. This leads to strong data de-duplication. Can ship a hard drive to friend, to seed backup so it isn't so punishing over the WAN to start off. They were hadning out free licenses like candy, so I hope to try this software out soon.

And there you have it.

-Andy.