The first Mac that my family owned was a Performa 578. This baby was screaming speed demon at a full 33mhz. I realized that I needed my own Mac and picked up a second-hand Mac IIsi for about $300. Now, this one was slower than the Performa, but I was able to pop it open and overclock the processor on it. I remember installing a system extension called “Kaleidoscope” that allowed you to change the look of the finder on the OS completely. After that, the first PowerPC processors were coming out and I realized that I needed one of these monsters. I bought my first “new” Mac at a WalMart of all places. It was an open box, so I thought that this was a great deal I found. Of course, when I got home, it would not start up. I tried to return it, but the store wouldn’t take it. Great. So I called Apple. They sent someone to my house to fix it! Yeah. That made me a fan for life there!

This magazine sits in my office

Around this time period, one of my all-time favorite magazines appeared. MacAddict magazine. This magazine was incredible! It was full of all kinds of great news about the Mac and it even came with a CD full of programs! Back at this time, if you had any internet access at all, it was dial-up, so downloading large programs and files was out of the question, so the CD was a fantastic addition to this magazine.

As time passed, I had gone through iMacs, iBooks, MacMinis, iPods and all kinds of applications from Apple. I was even a member of their Consultants Network for a number of years (I still maintain different Apple Certifications). One thing that always remained through all of Apple’s changes. That was their constant commitment to quality. Even in the bad old days of Gil Amelio, Apple was producing great machines. Of course, there were a few missteps here and there, but by and large, they came through when it mattered most.

Why do I tell you all this? So you know that I am passionate about Apple and their products. However, if they release a product that I don’t think is up to their standards, I will tell you. On the other hand, I will ring the bell when I think they’ve got another knockout. So, if you love the Mac like I do, be sure to stop on by everyday and check out what we’re talking about. We plan on having some great features, some tutorials, a podcast now & then and perhaps a video or two as well! Hopefully you’ll be entertained and even learn a little bit along the way.

Your Editor,
Brian Sakowicz

Now, after some deep thought, I could find many uses for such a device in my home. It would be a great little device for using the internet, much more functional than trying to surf using a iPod touch. My young son would love such a device for watching his shows while we are on vacation (can’t miss Little Einsteins!). My wife could check her email quickly without firing up her computer.

Of course, a lot will depend on what Apple charges for this device. If a tablet comes in around the $600-700 range, I could see people find a lot more justification for buying this device. Charge around $1000… then it becomes a question of “Do I spend a grand on a device that is probably not a full-functioned computer, or spend a little more and get a MacBook Pro”. That’s what you’ll be asking yourself at that price point.

Either way this shakes out next week, you can bet that you and your friends will be talking about this announcement for years to come!

Have I mentioned that I love Apple products? Maybe I haven’t since I really haven’t written a lot of articles for this site but I really do love their stuff. I fell in love the first time my parents brought home a Performa many years ago. I grew throughout the years as Apple advanced an added more great stuff.

Today, one of my favorite things is consuming my entertainment from Apple products. I have an iPod with me constantly that I can plug into my car’s stereo to listen on the go and at home I use an AppleTV to watch video podcasts and kid’s TV shows for my 2 year old son (actually a good cost savings over DVD’s for them). Other than watching some live sports, it’s pretty safe to say that the majority of my content these days is served up through Apple.

I have spent a lot of money in the past couple years on my entertainment from Apple. That being said, I do think that there is some vast room for improvement in their offerings. If I were running the show for a day, here’s some of the ideas I would do:

AppleTV subscriptions: This would be a cable TV killer. Imaging just turning on your AppleTV and being able to watch any show at anytime. I know that you can pretty much get that from Hulu, but their offerings are limited and it’s also limited to my computer. Unless I go through the trouble of hooking a computer up to my TV, Hulu is stuck in my home office, and isn’t that what the AppleTV was supposed to do away with?

Apple could even get away with a monthly fee for this too. Maybe something like $14.95 a month and you get to watch all you want. I think that would be fair and for someone who doesn’t feel like watching sports on live TV, this would be a great alternative.

iTunes Music subscriptions: Most other music services today are offering their versions of a music subscription service. Microsoft’s ZunePass is a great example of a subscription service that works great. $14.95 a month gets you all the music you want to listen to AND they let you download 10 tracks per month to keep as well. So, if you are already spending money on music downloads, this would be such a win-win. Also, it will generate auto-downloads based on music you listen to that you might be interested in as well. See, Microsoft can do things right… occasionally.

Apple provides me and my family with lots of great entertainment choices. I think with one or two improvements, they could move themselves into a dominant provider of content for years to come. Make the move, Apple, and make me happy.

In our home, we have a G3 iBook (802.11B), an iPod Touch (802.11G), a MacMini (802.11G) and an AppleTV (802.11N). To utilize our home network to it’s fullest wireless speed potential, I have actually set up 2 different routers. One of these runs at 802.11B & G speeds and one runs at 802.11N 5GHZ speeds (for the AppleTV). I view a lot of digital video on my AppleTV, and that video is changing daily, so I need to be able to send large files across the network to it quickly, so I have an Airport Express dedicated to getting video to the AppleTV. The rest of the network is trudging around at the slower speeds.

Well, enter the new Airport Extreme. It actually features Dual-band wifi networking. With this you can now have these 2 different wifi networks running off the same device, simultaneously. Additionally, you can also have network attached storage and shared printers on the device. Attach a powered USB hub and you can even put multiple drives on the Airport Extreme (this feature was available on the previous generation of Airport Extreme).

At $179, the new Airport Extreme might seem a little steep, but for anyone who has created a crazy home network like mine, this is the answer to our problem!

I have not had any trouble with it yet, but do remember that this is a beta version of the software and as such, may be buggy and crash a bit more. But, if you feel like gambling, you can download the latest version at www.apple.com/safari. Versions are available for both Leopard and Tiger.

I will be doing audio editing in Apple’s Garageband program. For recording guests, I will be using Audio Hijack Pro along with Skype. I will be producing about 3 or 4 episodes, completed and edited before I post them. I want to make sure that I get everything down to a science before I commit to doing a show a week. I will also need to get some listener questions together so we have some good content when we do go live!

I hope that you will like the audio show and the video clips I will be sneaking on to the site in the near future as well!