HOW DO YOU KNOW your brand has extraordinary equity? When customers begin producing your advertising. And in this case, we could say as much for the brand equity of NYC as AAPL. (It's also an excellent example of how the Web is turning us from information consumers to information producers and distributors. See more here.)

I'm A Mac ...

This is brilliant. Thanks, Doug, for the link.

For what it's worth, the primary use of my MacBook Pro is pursuing a commercial interest--and I'd say (due to increased productivity and ease of use) that I'm better at it with the Mac than I ever was with a PC. Perhaps I should be the Mac guy, in a suit, in the next round of ads?

The Best of All Worlds

Yesterday Apple rocked much of the personal computing world by announcing Boot Camp, a simple download that allows an owner of an Intel-based Mac to run Windows XP on their computer. This isn't an emulation, where a program takes the place of Windows and translates code on the fly -- this is actually Windows, set aside in a separate space of your hard drive and running on your Mac. Hold down the Option key when you turn on your Mac and you're given a choice: Boot Apple OS X, or boot Windows?

I installed the download and Windows XP on my MacbookPro last night. The whole process took about an hour, most of which was spent in the Windows installation process (having done this on Windows PCs many times in the past, the process was exactly as it always is). I set aside a 5 GB partition on my MacbookPro's hard drive -- just enough to run XP and a few programs. You can see my Mac running Windows in the picture there; click it for a larger view.

Why would I do such a thing? Because there are a few Windows programs I need to run for work, MS Project being first among them. Now I can do so with ease.

Regarding performance, the Mac runs Windows extremely fast -- much faster than my relatively (1 year?) new IBM ThinkPad X40. Blazingly fast.

So now there's no reason to go back. XP functionality (when I need it) on a Mac platform. It's the best of all worlds.

Tags: boot camp, windows, macbookpro

A New Laptop

Apologies for limited posting recently: I did a London - Miami - Philadelphia trip last Sunday to Thursday, and was working or traveling most of the time.

Something else that's new (besides the look of the blog): I've switched from my IBM ThinkPad X40, which was a wonderful machine, to the new MacBook Pro, which is also a wonderful machine. Formally, as our firm's CTO I'm piloting the MacBook Pro as part of our considering switching the office to Apple. Informally, I was tired of dealing with all the hassles Windoze puts between a computer user and his work and the poor design values of Microsoft software. If you spend much of your life in front of a computer, you might as well use one you love to use.

By way of a review, I generally echo the sentiments of Michael Hyatt, who has also recently picked up a MBP. It's been a week since I made the switch and it's been nothing but pleasure. I did feel a bit uneasy for the first few days, but it was a free-floating unease from switching to a new platform for Getting Things Done. (I was using Outlook on the ThinkPad and had my system down cold, and it took a while to get equally dialed in with Entourage. It seems no matter how open you are to change, change still causes discomfort until you have things just as you like them.)

I do miss how extremely small and light the ThinkPad was, but the more I use the MBP the happier I am. The wider screen means much better resolution and the ability to work in windows side-by-side, which has made me more productive. Other nits: The battery life maxes out around 3:45, whereas I could get 4:30 and more from the IBM. The MBP also gets hot, but I don't mind that.

Spotlight is spectacular -- it seems no person, file, email, folder, or program is more than a few keystrokes away. And here's something I'm looking forward to: with the MBP's in-screen camera and an iSight that I got for our home Mac, Kate and I can now chat face-to-face when I'm on the road. We gave the software a trial-run today, and the quality was excellent. It's not the same as being home, but it beats the phone.

Oh, and regarding using files written in Windows Office on the Mac and sending them back and forth: I went a week on the road with the MBP without telling most of my colleagues. They had no idea I had switched. The Mac's file translation and export system is that good.

So with a week gone by, I'm sold and getting happier all the time. If anything about my sentiment changes, I'll post it here.

Back In The Flow

KATE AND I are back in the flow after a few wonderful days in London. I was able to wrap up my work by 5 or so on Friday, and we enjoyed the next 48 hours spending time with friends, walking the many neighborhoods of the city, riding the Tube, doing a bit of shopping, and all-in-all simply enjoying the refreshing change of context a shift in culture brings.

And now we're happily back at work. I trained to and from the NYC area today and, with our late arrival last night, mused at how completely natural it can feel to ride both the Tube and Amtrak, to gaze upon Parliament and the Empire State Building, within a 24-hour span.

With all the travel I'm sorely behind on posting, as the large collection of items tagged "post" in my del.icio.us account may attest. I'll certainly be writing more about Mac life -- our friends in London use a Mac at home as do we, he in particular to manage his extraordinary (pushing twenty thousand tracks) music collection. Indeed, on the heels of our visit I spent some time after work picking up a an external hard drive, iLife 6, and two AirPort Express Base Stations for the house. I'll move our digital media to the hard drive, and will use the AirPort Expresses to stream music from our iTunes library on the Mac to stereos in two different parts of the house (and boosting / extending our home wifi network in the process). Cool, and a sliver of what I've always wanted personal computers to be.

One other highlight of the trip: The friend with the massive music collection arranged for he and I to have a by-appointment-only demo session at a high end hi-fi shop near Oxford Road. How high end? Incredibly high-end: We spent over three hours plugging tracks from CDs we'd brought into a Krell KAV-400xi amp, Martin Logan Vantage speakers, and an Audio Research Reference CD7 cd player. The sound these pieces produced was undoubtedly the most incredible reproduction of music I've ever heard. I put on the London Symphony backing up La Boheme and I could hear the stage. Literally: I could hear (more accurately feel) the very deep, low bass resonance of the bass strings through the stage. Amazing.

It was also the most expensive reproduction of music I've ever heard. How high end is high end hi-fi? The four-piece system we heard: amp = $2,500; speakers = $7,000; cd player = $9,000. Add $1,500 for cables (yes, cables) and that's a ... let's see ... $20,000 four-piece stereo. I never knew such equipment existed. Yes, the sound was incredible. And if hi fi floats your boat, this stuff is the finest Pacific cruise you can imagine, presuming you don't mind not sending the kids to college.

Rather than mortgage the house for music, I indulged a much more reasonable splurge on Jermyn Street (check out this cool street-level map of same). Only one purchase there, at Crockett and Jones. A pricey pair of shoes, yes -- but they'll dress my dogs until retirement. As I see it, that, when paired with style, is money well-spent.

I'm lucky enough to be going back to London in March. When people hear about how much I travel, they always ask, "How do you do it." Like anything else, you develop systems and get used to your reality. And while it's not always the easiest life, it is always an interesting one, and a good one. I'm blessed to have it, and to share it with Kate, and this past weekend in London is just the latest blessing.

The First Stevenote

I POSTED EARLIER in the week about Steve Job's latest MacWorld keynote. Tonight while browsing* I came across a video of Job's first MacWorld keynote, which he gave at MacWorld 1997 in Boston.

It was an interesting time for Apple: the company was in disarray, losing market share, and increasingly called irrelevant. Jobs was CEO of Pixar at the time, and had been asked back to Apple in an unofficial capacity to poke around and offer some counsel. With this Stevenote he'd announce a significant turnover of the Board (including his taking a position as Director), a new partnership with Microsoft (the crowd reaction to Bill Gates joining the speech via downlink is priceless), and more. More important, he'd nearly instantly begin to reinvigorate Apple's employees and user community, launching The Apple Comeback (as you watch the video, pay attention to his use of optimism and descriptions of an appealing future ... part of the rhetorical sense that makes him such an effective leader).

iPods, Powerbooks, G5s, iTunes, an $80 per share post-split stock ... they all started with this speech Boston. I've posted the video for your viewing pleasure; just click the "play" button (courtesy Google Video ... bought that stock yet?). There's also a first-person account of the day on the web here; together, and given all the change that's occurred in the past nine years, they're a pair of very interesting new economy artifacts.

Technorati Tags: steve jobs, macworld, macworld1997, apple

* Found via the always interesting del.icio.us Popular Page.

MacBook Pro

WHILE ON THE TOPIC of his Steeveness, yesterday he threw a monkey wrench in my personal computing life. I'm not one to covet, but I gotta have one of these ...

* Scheduled post, written earlier.

Jobs On Stage

HIS STEVENESS delivered his MacWorld keynote yesterday -- likely the most watched and critiqued senior executive speech in the world each year. Watch it via streaming video here (free QuickTime required) and see a senior exec. doing the on-stage thing about as well as it can be done. He does so well, in fact, that he easily breaks one of my rules: Give no speech over 20-30 minutes in length. It's a great example of how an authentic performance and interesting content can suspend time (and of those two, interesting content is much more important).

Job's focus on prep for the keynote is legendary, and there's a nice inside account of it here. He follows my Paul Newman Principle: He doesn't practice because he's Steve Jobs; he's Steve Jobs because he practices.

It's also a lesson in presentation development: You'll surely note that Jobs slides and the ones you likely see and produce at the office don't have much in common. (Yours should look more like his.) For more on the "right way" of PowerPoint / slideware development, visit Presentation Zen.

Technorati Tags: Steve Jobs, MacWorld, Speeches, Leadership, Presentation Zen

* Scheduled post, written earlier.
 

Just Do It!

JUST GIVE IN, DAVID. I went bi-digital earlier this year, and you'll be glad you did ...

* Yet another pre-scheduled post ...

History of the Apple Key

IF YOU'VE WONDERED where the interesting icon for the "Apple key" came from, here's your answer (via TAB). (Those of you who are Windows-only are probably wondering what this post is about. My advice ... give yourself the chance to learn ...)
* This is a scheduled post written earlier. I'm likely on the phone at the moment ...

The Mac Demographic

TODAY I STUMBLED UPON a unique photoblog, which turns out to be a site titled "The Mac Demographic." Check it out; the photos are interesting, too (if representing a young demographic that's not the full Mac demographic). I'm especially taken with this one:

(Ultimately, via TAB.)

MacMap

A GOOGLE MAP of all the Apple stores in the U.S. (Via tuaw.)