by Joan Matsukawa
MacWorld | iWorld 2012 was three days full of talks, apps, cool gadgets, and Fun! (For a glimpse, view a MacWorld iMovie video below, and download a compilation of products and links at https://files.me.com/hmauscloud/7hqj3h.)
It was great to reconnect with our friends Joe Kissell, Christopher Breen, plus Tonya and Adam Engst of Tidbits.com. We also had the privilege of meeting several Apple User Group leaders at a dinner courtesy of Lorene Romero of the California North Coast MUG. Get this: NCMUG hosts a Mac Expo every October and they attract over 2000 (!) attendees. We also got to meet Marsee Henon from O’Reilly Media. O’Reilly has always generously supported HMAUS by donating books for Macfest prizes, and Marsee promised to keep the books coming in the future. Then, Bob from the Flint Apple Club in Michigan gave us his door prizes — a copy of TextExpander and TopXNotes! Score!
Our official HMAUS emissaries, Jerome Koehler and Capsun Poe, worked hard talking with iWorld presenters, doing their best to entice them to come to Hawai’i for HMAUS. They also spoke with vendors to learn about the new products and score copies to test or to give away as prizes. And did they do their job? HMAUS now has, not one, but (thanks to a little added persuasion from HMAUS President, Ron Albu) two Doxie Go portable wireless scanners; we’ve also been promised, among other things, a good-looking Octa iPad stand and holder, cool mobile gadget accessories from eStyle.com and SolidLine, and productivity software from Smile.com, makers of the top rated PDF Pen Pro and TextExpander. Plus, iKlear (once, the only screen cleaner recommended by Apple) is sending a huge bunch of cleaning kits to give away at our upcoming Springfest.
Jerome, Capsun, Marie Kunimura, Susan Saka and I shared a little about our favorite talks and the gadgets we found most interesting at our Wrapup on February 18. Everyone who attended went home with something we brought back from the show — pens, bags, glass cleaners and more. Michelle Manna took away a copy of TopXNotes and will be posting a review in the Signal very soon. TopXNotes is one of several really good productivity apps, that perform well on mobile devices and Macs.
Watch the video to see some of the gear and images of some of the talks about living in the Cloud, business apps, shooting movies, iPhone lenses and gadgets. See what a fun and energizing event iWorld was. See Jerome learning about the ecomm Printopia app for printing to any printer; Doc Rock and John Garcia taping for their Nonstop Honolulu video blog; and look for Capsun Poe and the giant Doxie Go scanner! Jonathan Marks, the photographer featured in the last shot is definitely very interested in coming to see us in Honolulu.
Jerome and Capsun also talked with Barry Roddenberry — son of the original Trekkie Gene Roddenberry, and Gregory Wyatt — Sacramento County Coroner, who does his forensics exclusively on Macs. We also engaged with Les Posen — Presentation Magician, who teaches unique strategies for presenting with Keynote, and Michael Clawson — Amazing photographer. All our shmoozing, and macadamia nuts, left those experts with Hawai’i firmly on their minds, and some of them may be coming our way very soon!
We had a blast! You could too! Put it in your calendar — Macworld 2013, January 31 – February 2, in San Francisco!