Countdown To MacWorld San Francisco 2008 – “There’s something in the air”

CES 2008 is over, and it’s time to turn the attentions to MacWorld San Francisco 2008. As reported by many web-sites, the tag-line for this years MWSF is “There’s something in the air”.

UPDATE: 2008.01.14 – Apple site posts “There’s something in the air.” Keynote Teaser. Steve Jobs’ keynote will be available for viewing Tuesday afternoon.

Apple - Apple.com -

As usual numbers of Apple-oriented and tech sites will be providing live coverage of Steve Jobs Keynote.
January 15, 09:00AM Pacific Time.

Mac Rumors Live
Engadget
Ars Technica
MacScoop
LoopRumors
The Mac Observer
MacDailyNews
MacWorld
The Unofficial Apple Weblog
CNET
Mac360

Links will be added here as I stop slacking.

Now, off to Warner Bros Studios for some photo-shoot.

First Glance at Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder

UPS delivered the Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder just a few hours prior to this post. Thanks to Amazon.com for prompt service and UPS for actually delivering the camcorder one day early.

The price @ Amazon.com is $761.60 at the time of this post.

I use iMovie ’08 and Sony Vegas to import the videos.

I need to spend more time using this camcorder to write a more thorough review. In the mean time, check the pictures below.

The other camcorder is Panasonic HDC-SD5.

Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder packaging Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder inside the box Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder compared to Panasonic HDC-SD5

Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder setting the time and date Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder with CMOS sensor Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder compared to Panasonic HDC-SD5 again

Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder in my palm Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder USB Disk Mode Canon HG10 AVCHD 40GB High Definition Camcorder and 2.5inch hard drive

Great comment on Word on Slashdot…

This pretty much sums up my experiences with Microsoft Word:

The way it works isn’t the problem

I read TFA, and these guys seem to be worried about the wrong thing. Word menus, etc, are easy enough to deal with. What makes it a god-forsaken piece of s**t are all the bugs. Documents are always getting corrupted, figures don’t do where you want and stay there, can’t save sometimes for no apparent reason, the entire thing just bombs out, etc. We had a “Platinum Support Ticket” or some similar nonsense open on Word for a few years. The upshot, direct from a Microsoft senior support line, was that if we wanted documents to not get corrupted, was to print it out on paper, make sure it was right, then use a scanner and save it as a TIFF. Thanks, that’s good advice.

What is so pathetic is that I have ordinary technical documents from the late 50’s and 60’s that are laid out better, have better graphics, and are still perfectly readable today. While at the same time, a Word document I saved last week either can’t be opened, or has all the symbols corrupted.

Brett

I have seen too many tech articles talking about how great the new Office 2007 is with is “Innovative” new ribbon interface. For gods sake, Microsoft fix Word from being the piece of crap that it is. If Microsoft could fix the program from mangling long documents, then maybe I’d be more excited about their lame new ribbons.

The Article where the comment was quoted from:
Slashdot.org – Goodbye Cruel Word

Windows XP SP3 Beta, Note The “Beta” Part.

I knew it might happen, but I did it anyway. On many occasions, I tend to place myself at the the cutting edge and the bleeding edge of technology. In this case, it is all about Windows XP Service Pack 3 Beta. Yes, I know that it is a Beta release. Yes I read through Microsoft’s notes regarding the beta release. I told myself, “What could go wrong? Windows XP Service Pack 3 Beta is a collection of security patches and then some. Nothing is gonna go wrong.”

The first install on a relatively new computer encounters zero problems so far. The second computer also encounters zero problems to date. So I installed SP3 on a freshly installed Windows XP with SP2 on a Gateway laptop. Everything seems to be working normally with the exceptions of the audio driver. For some reasons, the system wouldn’t load the audio driver. I tried to reinstall the audio driver, but it wouldn’t install at all. OK, that’s just a minor setback, but it’d be a lot nicer to have audio on the laptop. After an hour of troubleshooting, it appeared that there’s some incompatibilities with Windows XP SP3 Beta and RealTek HD Audio driver. I then fresh install Windows XP with SP2 on the Gateway laptop to get it properly working again. No SP3 for this laptop.

Some friends called me and told me that their computer was not working. I finally got to their place and work on the computer. Found out that many things went wrong with this Compaq computer. I tried system restore, but it was not much help. After uninstalling and re-installing device drivers and applications, the computer is working again. Took me a good 3 hours to get that computer up and running again; without having to reinstall the system. For some reasons, I had the idea on installing Windows XP SP3 Beta on this computer. It took a little bit over 30 minutes for SP3 installations, and the computer rebooted. Then the computer rebooted. Then it rebooted. Then it rebooted. Obviously, it was a bad idea to install Windows XP SP3 Beta on this system. I managed to boot windows into Safe Mode, and uninstall SP3 Beta.

The lesson is that Windows XP SP3 Beta is still a “Beta”. It still has some kinks to be worked out.

Sony HDR-CX7 AVCHD Camcorder MPEG Video Sample

Sony HDR-CX7 was one of three solid state AVCHD Camcorders I considered buying back in 2007. The other two are Sanyo Xacti HD1000 and Panasonic HDC-SD5. After some testing and deliberations, I bought Panasonic SDC-HD5.

I tested Circuit City‘s store display unit sometimes in October 2007. I didn’t even bother setting up the time and date of the camera.

Download the sample here (47.8MB).

Sony HDR-CX7 AVCHD Camcorder MPEG Video Sample

Obviously, the non-HD and MPEG2 movie does not look that hot. It’s visibly interlaced. I purposely move the camera rapidly to see how the quality looks when in motion. The image stabilizing feature seems to work well in this camera.

I will post the HD version soon.

Accessories for HDR-CX7:

Year 2007 Expires on December 31st at Midnight

Despite all efforts to hack the flow of time, the “year 2007” expires on December 31st at midnight. Teams of hackers are still working on cracking the encryptions to prevent “year 2007” from expiring. Unfortunately, their efforts so far bear no fruits.

If you are affected by the expirations, please do not panic. Upon the expiration of “year 2007”, “year 2008” will automatically activate and resume any tasks carried over from “year 2007”. If for some reasons, you found out that other people in different part of the world were already upgraded to “year 2008”, please do not panic. That’s because you’re living in a different time zone that is a little bit behind the time. As a matter of fact, numbers of part of the world have already had “year 2008” activated at the time of this writing.

Q: Would I need a new serial number to upgrade from “year 2007” to year 2008″?
A: No. You don’t need any serial numbers at all.

Q: Is “year 2008” backward compatible with “year 2007”?
A: Generally yes. But remember to date anything with “2008” instead of “2007”. Let alone using “2009”.

Q: Where do I sign up for year 2009 beta testing?
A: Unfortunately such beta program has not been announced yet.

Q: I love “year 2007”, and I refuse to upgrade to “year 2008”. What can I do to stay with year 2007?
A: In a way it is a mandatory upgrade. You can pretend that it’s still
year 2007, but it’s going to be hard to interact with everyone else. There is one other extreme solution, but I won’t get into that; let alone recommending or condoning it.

Q: Will year 2008 performs better than year 2007.
A: Results may vary. It also depends on what happened in
year 2007.

Q: Will my love life be better after upgrading to year 2008?
A: Can’t answer that one. You’re on your own, buddy!

Q: What kind of warranty does year 2008 come with?
A:
Year 2008 comes with a limited lifetime warranty; the lifetime of “year 2008”. It’s guaranteed to run until December 31st, 2008. It also comes with guaranteed upgrade to year 2009.

Q: Can I get full refund if I don’t like year 2008?
A: You’ll get full refund of the amount you paid for purchasing the
year 2008. Basically you’ll get refund in the amount of nothing.

Q: I think I like year 2008. But can it run Linux?
A: You dirty unbathed Linux Hippie!

Q: Should I buy an iPhone along with year 2008?
A: Should you? Buy it if you want it. I’d suggest to wait until Steve Jobs is done with his annual Keynote at MacWorld San Francisco. If you’re recently given a T-Mobile Dash after you dropped and broke your Treo, just wait and listen to me!

Year 2008 is expected to be the time of many events, which some of them are carried over from year 2007. In the world of technology, many events are scheduled to take place in year 2008. Confirmed events to take place shortly after year 2008 activates are CES and MacWorld San Francisco.

According to many rumors, speculations, analysis, and pure imaginations; the followings are expected to be announced at MacWorld San Francisco 2008:

  • iPhone announcements. Second Generation iPhone with 3G network support?
  • New Mac announcements. New MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, and Mac mini?
  • Updates to Apple TV with more features.
  • iTunes movie rental.
  • More DRM-free music on iTunes Store.
  • New Apple software. What could it be?
  • iPhone software updates.
  • More news on iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK).
  • Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard update. (10.5.3)
  • A new device from Apple. OK, this one can be classified “made-up”. Take that, Apple!

to be continued.