Intelligent life on MacWorld

[View pictures of this event, courtesy of Kenney Marlatt.]

By Jeff Hindenach
210 west News Editor [send email]

My life is now validated. I've been to the other side, and seen how the other half lives. And it's a scary sight.

I'm speaking of MacWorld, the international trade show and convention for the tech geek extraordinaire. Once a year, the geeks flock from all over the globe to the tiny Moscone Convention Center in the heart of San Francisco's Financial District to see all the new tech toys, talk the tech talk and show off all their toys to the other geeks.

To the non-technically inclined average Joe, this can be unnerving.

I've never in my life felt more out of place. It was like a whole other world, full of PDA's, WiFi's and airport hook-ups. (Apparently, in tech talk, airports have nothing to do with flying.) I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying. Apparently, in Mac Land, every word starts with i (iPod, iChatting, iSight, iLife). Luckily, my tech-inclined friend was with me to translate, although he was quite embarrassed to be answering my questions, which included:

What's a PDA? What's streaming? What's a WiFi?

How can they get so many geeks into one building without the earth imploding? (Ok, that wasn't one I asked out loud, but I was thinking it.)

The geeks all looked at me funny. For once in my life, I felt uncool for not knowing the answers to these questions. But then I saw the kid with the sports jersey that said "Macman" on the back with a number 7, and I suddenly started to feel the validation set in. In the real world, I'm the cool one. Right?

So the hours went on and I became more comfortable. Highlights of the trip after I accepted my fate:

The new mini iPod's: The new colors make them seem cooler, but for only $40 less, it seems shady that it only holds 1,000 songs. My tech friend tells me the buttons are better too because they are attached to the wheel-sensor thingy. I'm not up on the lingo.

The new Garage Band software: You can basically just plug in your instruments and the computer records it for you. You can mix pre-recorded music and beats. It's all very high-tech and cool. And I got to see one of the geeks jam on the guitar.

Touch-screen software: One of the booths was demonstrating this software where you could just touch the screen to move the cursor, choose menus and move things around. Of course, first thing that pops into my mind is "How easy would it be to layout a news page with that!" But it was pretty cool stuff, way high-tech.

Macs through the years: We stumbled across an exhibit that showcased Macs through the years. It was cool to see the computers that we put the newspaper together on in high school. And then, a nice fellow, Haines Cohen, apparently from BMUG (the Berkeley Mac Users Group, as explained to me later), was nice enough to decorate one of the older Macs with floppies from the 1980's. We took a picture.

Our ID badges: I type my name and occupation into the registration computer, and in the two seconds it takes me to walk over to the badge booth, I already have a sleek, plastic, credit card type ID badge to wear around my neck. How do they do that?!

Geek moment of the trip: My friend, who's friends have iSight (I had no idea what iSight was until this point), chatted with his friend from Denver to rub in the fact that he was at MacWorld. I took a picture of him iChatting with his digital camera. Complete geekiness.

Highlights of the trip for the non-geek: The fact we got in for free because we showed up for the last 2 hours. The ice cream and water we got at the little deli at the Convention Center. The guy with the "Want Powerbook, Have Money" sign taped to his back.

But the most shocking part of the trip was the shut down. At 4 p.m. sharp, it was like someone had flipped a switch. All the lights went out, people started streaming out from behind these curtains and tearing everything down. Literally, at 4:01 p.m., as we were trying to get out, workers started to pull the carpet up from underneath our feet. Apparently there was a Dungeons and Dragons convention right after. (Joking. Just some geek jokes.)

All and all, it was a successful trip. I learned way more than I needed to about technology, got to see a bunch of sweet presentations and got a cool poster for my geek friend in Baltimore. But I think next year I'll go across the street to the MOMA and check out whatever exhibit is going on there. I have to feel more comfortable at a museum. Right?