Honestly, aside from updating old entries, this blog has plenty of info available that will fill the needs of most people. Starting with page 1 and working forward will help you find a place to stay, find that cheap flight to San Francisco and find things to do when not at the show. The resources on this site are still great for first timers and I suggest following my “BEST OF” category for the entries that will help you at Macworld 2010.

If someone would like to take the reigns of MacworldBound, be my guest but to be clear it’s an upaid position w/ little ad revenue and I’ll retain ownership of the content and domain.

———-

Regarding my relationship with Macworld both personal and professional, I’ve moved on. I’ll try to keep this brief. My fanaticism for Macworld Expo and, most importantly, the Mac community has been ridiculed and mocked by many. There are people at IDG World Expo who don’t give a shit and actually threaten me with legal action for using “Macworld” anywhere in my events, groups & website. There are Mac users and companies who think my role as a MW Evangelist is pointless and weird and finally, there are current and future clients that have given me puzzled stares after I dedicate months of planning to bring Mac users together at my events, meet ups, parties and trips to Apple headquarters. Well, no more.

It was never about Macworld.

My approach to all of this had more to do with the community of amazing people and less to do with growing the Macintosh community for my personal profit. I’ve spent thousands of dollars going to Macworld and never recouping the costs. I’ve spent nearly 4 grand each year on Macworld events, parties and meetups and I even quit a job because they wouldn’t let me go. The reason for all of this was that I wanted to show people the lesson of giving without expecting anything in return because that commitment to our small community is what kept it going all of these years. Apple never endorsed it and since Mac OS X, The Intel Switch, The iPod and now, The iPhone, the community we’ve known and loved has gotten larger but has changed to a decentralized collective that are so separated between long time Mac users (15+ Years), OS X Mac Switchers 6+ Years), iPod Switchers (3+ Year) and iPhone Switcher (6+ months). Anyone that’s been around less than 10 years has no clue there’s a Mac community and they don’t see the relevance of Macworld Expo. Everything is online now and they don’t see a point in going.

My inspiration of these events was to help get people to Macworld. One user at a time, I’d arrange travel, help them find roommates, plan events and answer every single email with enough info & encouragement to get them to go. I made it my duty to prove to every Mac user that Macworld was the one trip they had to go on as a Mac user. See Steve Jobs, meet other users and see what it’s like to be a part of this culture. This would, in turn, excite them about Mac blogging, joining Mac forums and even going to Mac User Groups. My work was a success. In 2009, my city tour had over 75 RSVPs and I was turning people away. My parties were exceeding 600 RSVPs and we turned people away at our trip to Apple HQ. I had done my part but some Mac Elite and IDG World Expo thought I was completely insane and never supported me.

This is a little history that I never talked about. It’s too late to convince me otherwise because I moved on. I moved to San Francisco because I could do work year ’round to plan for Macworld and as I attended more tech conferences, I realized just how bad Macworld Expo was. It really was for the community. The more work I did, the more I was shunned by people who make money from the mac community such as authors, bloggers, instructors & developers. The more I fought, the more I was ignored. I gave up.

———-

That’s all in the past. When Apple announced they’d be absent from Macworld 2010, I was optimistic. When I attended Macworld 2009, doubts started to cloud my Apple worshiping logic and soon I realized just how depressed people were at January’s show. It was a different group and people had little faith in the future of Macworld. More and more developers, friends, bloggers, press & exhibitors told me throughout that week that they wouldn’t be returning in 2010. What’s great is the timing. I had started moving into a more broad market because living in San Francisco on a day to day basis opened my eyes to the world of startups and marketing to a larger audience and not just those that are in love with their Macs. That’s right. The Mac user base is growing which is good for Apple. The base of people who love their Macs is dwindling and even less love their Macs enough to go to a conference to meet other people who love their Macs.

———-

So, with a heavy sigh and much internal conflict, I am not attending Macworld Expo 2010. I can think of a handful of people who will celebrate my “giving up” but there are a few hundred who will email me over the next 4 months begging me to plan a party or event. As more of the people who I convinced to come to Macworld a 2nd & 3rd time check my blog for travel deals and party info, they’ll read this and see what I’ve been going through.

For the thousands of people who I’ve met from 2003-2009, I thank you. There’s about 5 people who have been coming to Macworld since 2005 and attending every one of my events. You guys rock and I’ll miss you the most. I live a block from Moscone Center and go to every tech conference that’s in town (usually 2 a month) but Macworld will not see me because I’ve moved on. I’m still in town for my old friends who want to meet up.

Got something nasty to say? Save it. I didn’t give a shit about you anyway. Good luck Mac Users. I’m going to miss you guys.

This will be my last post on MacworldBound.

———-

In closing, if you love the Mac and you’re new to the Mac. Buy the book called, “Macintosh: The Naked Truth”. It’s the ultimate book for any Mac user. Those old timers like me read this book and remember how it was. Switchers will read this and have a new found respect for those of us who fought back for The Macintosh & Apple. The author of this book, Scott Kelby signed my copy back in 2004. He signed it, “Adam – Keep fighting back for The Mac.”

“Macintosh: The Naked Truth” on Amazon

———-

The site has every party that I was going to list so instead of doing all of this work, I’m going to link to him and trust he’ll keep the list up to date but for the sake of keeping things clean for those of you that subscribe to my RSS feed, I’ve quoted his list below but it is subject to change so bookmark his site and share it with your WWDC friends!

Don’t link my site anywhere. Do your part and link THIS PAGE to everyone you know that’s going and leave a comment on his page saying that I sent you. You gotta share the love with these sort of things. [QUAZIE.NET]

[UPDATED] I have included two iCal files that make it super easy to add all of these events as a dedicated calendar on your iPhone / iPod Touch for next week. This calendars won’t auto-update but it has everything listed below.

1. DOWNLOAD LINK: Thanks MacNotes.De AND Maxdzellmer.de

2. DOWNLOAD LINK: Thanks Ben Hughes

Friday June 5th

• Events

• iPhone meetup @the Mansion – 6:30-Midnight @ The iPhone Mansion (map)
• Crypto-Zoo Chase Night – 8-10pm @ 3rd and Howard

Saturday, June 6th

• Events

• iPhone night @the Mansion #1 – 6:30-Midnight @ The iPhone Mansion (map)

Sunday, June 7th

• Events

• SF Mac Indie – 5:00 to 9:00 PM @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• iPhone night @the Mansion #2 – 6:30-Midnight @ The iPhone Mansion (map)

Monday, June 8th

• Parties

• iPorn after party – 5pm-2am @ Gold Club (map)
• ngmoco party – 6-8pm @ W’s XYZ bar (map)
• Loopt Mixer – 7-9pm @ 111 Minna Gallery (map)
• iPhone dev union party – 7-11pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• iPhone Intelligence Party – 7-11pm @ Harlot (map)
• CPCoder Night – 7-11pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• Group Logic/AFP548 party – 8-11pm @ Thirsty Bear Restaurant & Brewery (map)
• Push.io After party – 10pm @ Tempest (map)

• Events

• iPhone night @the Mansion #3 – 6:30-Midnight @ The iPhone Mansion (map)

Tuesday, June 9th

• All Day Events

• Three Wolf Tuesday – Wear this shirt to WWDC on tuesday and possibly get Delicous Library 2 for free – via twitter
• Pandav iBart Giveaway – First 5 to find @Pandav and get iBart live for free

• Parties

• MobClix party – 5-8pm @ Roe (map)
• Greystripe iPhone Developer Meetup – 5:00pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• Parallels Tweetup/Innovation Party – 6-9pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• Appcelerator Titanium Beta Launch Party – 6:30pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• CrunchGear meetup – 7:00pm @ SF Marriot (Map)

• Events

• Apple Design Awards – 7:30pm @ Moscone – Presidio
• Stump the Chumps – 9:00pm @ Moscone – Presidio

Wednesday, June 10th

• Parties

• WWDC Twitter Developer Meetup – 5:00 @ Twitter HQ (map)
• Macworld Party – 6-8pm @ Jillian’s in the Metreon (map)
• Sproutcore Meetup – 6:30 @ Tropisueño (map)
• Mac Ruby WWDC Meetup – 7pm @ Moscone lobby (1st floor)
• WWDC Tweetup – 7pm @ Thirsty Bear Restaurant & Brewery (map) @wwdc_tweetup
• OpenFeint Meetup – 7pm @ San Francisco Marriot (map)
• WebKit Open Source Party – 7:30pm @ Thirsty Bear Restaurant & Brewery (map)
• iPhone Launch Party -8-12pm @ Cartoon Art Museum (map)
• Anti-Launch Party – 8pm @ Eddie Rickenbacker’s (map)
• Cloudmade VIP party – 9:30pm @ Swig (map) @CloudMadeRSVP

• Events

• Developer Artist Meetup – 12:15 @ Yerba Buena Gardens
• Cocoaheads WWDC – 7pm @ Apple store near Moscone (map)

Thursday, June 11th

• Parties

• WWDC Party – 6:30-9:30 @ Yerba Buena Gardens (map)

Dear ADAM JACKSON,

We wanted you to be the first to know: IDG World Expo announced today that Macworld will be moving from its traditional January event dates to February 9 – 13, 2010. The location will remain at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA.

As we began the planning process for 2010, the Mac community – exhibitors, attendees, media and fans of the show – made it clear that February would be a more ideal time to hold the event, so we listened. The Conference programs are scheduled for Tuesday through Saturday, February 9 – 13 and the Expo will be held Thursday through Saturday, February 11-13th.

The Macworld team is focused on making Macworld 2010 the most productive, efficient and content-rich event for you, our valued attendee. For 25 years, Macworld has been the pre-eminent event focused solely on the Apple products ecosystem, and in 2010 Macworld will continue to be the most important event for the Mac community to gather face-to-face and see, share, learn, and explore the best and most innovative technology, tools, and toys for the Mac platform.

Free Expo Hall registration for Macworld 2010 will remain open, for a limited time, so tell your friends and colleagues to register today. As we continue to build next year’s event we will be contacting you with updates on new vendors, expo hall highlights and speakers that have been added. We encourage you to continue emailing your feedback and comments to suggestionbox@macworld2010.com.

The journey toward a new era for Macworld has begun and we are more excited about this ride than ever before. The Macworld Team

Hmm.. I’m going to leave the speculation up to the experts on this one. If you’ve already made travel plans for January (all 5 of you) then it’s time to push those dates back.

• Expo food is over-priced – Ya know how they charge like $4.00 for a bag of popcorn at the movies? Macworld is like that but a x1000 worse. A pathetic bologna sandwich and a bottle of water came to $12.50.

• Floris Natural Benefits Soap – The Intercontinental San Francisco had some of this product line in our room and I couldn’t get enough of it. I must try and track down the Jabon hand soap for use at home!

• Craig has groupies – I mean I knew people loved Craig, but I didn’t realize they would actually wait in line to talk to him. Every day on the show floor was filled with people waiting to chat with Mr. Hockenberry, they just couldn’t get enough of him. All of that attention made me realize just how proud I am to be able to work with him.

• Mel’s Diner has the best lemonade – I’ve drank a lot of lemonade in my time, but the lemonade I enjoyed at Mel’s during the expo was, without a doubt, the best I’ve ever had. In my life. The perfect blend of sweet and tart that should not be missed.

• Chairs are precious – Our kiosk at the show only had one chair. I was told that to rent another for the week it would have cost $200. After spending almost 7 hours on your feet $200 didn’t seem that bad. When some bastard stole our one chair on Friday morning, we almost had a freak out. Luckily Travis was able to procure another in short order.

• Rickshaw computer bags – New product. CEO and owner gave me a demo of the bag and had me sold at like the 5th feature. If you are in the market for what could be the best computer bag you’ll ever own, check them out.

• Basil Thai on Folsom – Of all the wonderful places we ate while at Macworld, this little restaurant on Folsom Street was the best. From the appetizers to the wonderful desert and everything in between, it was to die for. Ged gives Basil Thai 5 stars!

• Meeting people – By far the best part about Macworld was simply meeting everyone. Tweeting with people is great, but Macworld reminded me that face to face contact can’t be beat. I met so many awesome people at the expo I can hardly keep track of them all. I especially enjoyed meeting the TUAW crew including Mike Rose, Christina Warren and Nik Fletcher. Other notable Mac heads I met during my week in San Fran included: Arlo Rose, Dan Moren, Rick Yaeger, Chris Pirillo, Rich Seigel, Michael Simmons, Scott McNulty and Arne Fismen.

I’m going to re post a few key things:

“As a result of Apple’s decision not to exhibit at Macworld Expo going forward, the vast majority of third-party iPod and iPhone companies we’ve heard from have said that they will not be exhibiting at Macworld Expo, either, and that they are instead considering—under the right circumstances—moving over to the 2010 CES.”

“…we went directly to the iPod and iPhone development community to determine their plans for Macworld and their needs going forward. The broad consensus amongst these companies was that they were not going to exhibit at Macworld Expo. Many of them knew what happened at Macworld Boston, Apple Expo Paris, and MacExpo London, trade shows which became sad ghost towns while draining lots of money from overly optimistic exhibitors’ pockets. Without Apple around to draw crowds, and with limited marketing resources, companies are trying to figure out the right next step.”

“We are convinced that the best option is CES 2010, and we have absolutely, openly been in contact with CEA and members of the iPod and iPhone community regarding that show.”

“Our strong hope is that CEA will make it possible for everyone from small App developers to large accessory makers to exhibit at the 2010 CES show, and we think that we have some great ideas for how to bring the community together and make this happen. My personal belief is that CES will wind up offering iPod and iPhone companies fantastic exposure at a time when they will really be glad to have it”

It would seem that iLounge is announcing it’s coverage of CES2010 and that it will not be covering Macworld 2010 at least not in the capacity that I’ve seen the past 6+ years. Unforunately, iLounge is kind of a big deal for iPod and iPhone accessory makers and iLounge announcing that they’ll be pulling out means that a large chunk of exhibitors will be doing the same. This is a very sad development in the Macworld 2010 show. I don’t know if IDG was ever contacted by iLounge directly but I think a good thing IDG could do would be to make iLounge and other sites like Engadget, Gizmodo and Macworld.com “Media Partners” so they get some free promotion in exchange for doing what they were doing anyway which is covering new products at expo. Now, I’m not saying that those companies would accept the offer and still end up going to CES2010 but it might be something they consider.

Other than my tiny thoughts, it’s unfortunate that we won’t see iLounge covering this year’s Macworld and I have a good feeling this is going to be a big deal as 3rd party companies hear of this news.

MacworldBound has become a very influential engine for Macworld Expo. I don’t think IDG feels that way but I certainly can see the value in real time for people attending Macworld. Our biggest day of traffic was Tuesday with 25 thousand unique visitors. It leveled off to a cool 1,000 unique visits by Satruday morning. 60% of the traffic was from California and many of our visitors came from people searching for common things like, “when do I line up for the keynote?” or “how much are tickets to Macworld?” The rest of the year, my traffic will come from “Macworld 2010 dates” and other things regarding Macworld in 2010.

This year, I started Macworld festivities early. I live in San Francisco now so it wasn’t so hard. Friday consisted of a co-working session at Sugar Cafe followed up by burritos in The Mission. Saturday was a slow day that pretty much involved dinner with some close friends who haven’t been to Macworld since 2007. Sunday I gathered 15 people together for mimosas at Sugar Cafe before we left for the city tour. The 5th annual city tour was SO MUCH FUN! I went to some new locations, eliminated walking and I think we only walked 1.5 miles this time around compared to previous tours that had more than 5 miles. I took everyone all around San Francisco and it was a TON of fun. I can’t wait to do it again next year. Sunday night, 28 of us had dinner at Bucca Di Beppo. We filled an entire wing of the restaurant and ate nearly $600 in food.

Monday was our trip to Apple headquarters which I’ll probably need to get a bus next year because we stuffed 3 cars full of people and I had to turn 5 people away because we just couldn’t fit everyone. Monday night consisted of more drinks with friends but I called it an early night to prepare for the big Tuesday Keynote. Tuesday, my 5th annual Apple Store Keynote meetup was awesome. Everyone got coffee and donuts and we took some photos. 4Am was a perfect time to lineup and we got some great seats at the keynote. That night, there were some great parties but I decided to sleep because I was exhausted. This was my 4th day of partying and needed my rest.

Wednesday, Thursday & Friday were a complete blur full of checking out new products, hanging out with old friends, partying with new friends and still managing to fulfill my day job activities. MacworldBound has been a great project of mine. I have met some amazing people and dozens of people I met told me that MacworldBound and my events through the week helped them fall in love with Macworld and The Mac Community. 10 people this year told me, “your site and events have made me want to come back next year. Thank you.” That’s what it’s all about. I’m not doing this for Apple, IDG World Expo or The Macworld name. I’m doing this for Mac Users and if we can all come together once a year, party, geek out and build relationships, I’ll continue covering Macworld and doing events.

I owe so much thanks for my friends who come here every year to hang out. I can’t list everyone but boy was it awesome to see all of you and catch up. I owe all of you a beer one of these days. Macworld C&E, it’s employees and namely Paul Kent did a fantastic job this year. Everything was more organized and I didn’t experience any hiccups. You guys make it happen and ever Macworld attendee needs to recognize how planning Macworld is a full time gig for tons of people. I want Macworld to succeed in every way and I’m available any time to help any way that I can.

When I left Apple back in 2005, I knew that Apple wasn’t about us and they were on their own path. They didn’t care about the community and I was fine with that. We have so many switchers these days that are just PC users that have Apple computers. They don’t understand or know about the community and Macworld is the gateway drug to that community along with Mac User Groups. My blog is here to inform, educate and involve new Mac users to show them they’re not alone and Apple isn’t their only lifeline to the Mac World. I hope I’m able to continue this passion for years to come. Thank you all.

Photo Credit: Yonner1

Starting Tuesday, everywhere I went there were people passing me wearing the bunny ears. I finally found that Peachpit Press was the culprit. The lovely Peachpit people did something completely off the wall and I assume they just had somehow gotten a good deal on bunny ears but their simple idea turned out to be a huge hit. If it had not been a hit, I guess they would have had a lot of bunny ears on their hands. I hope the company does it again next year.

Here is the Flickr Group that has 40 photos of people rocking the ears. (Flickr)

Chris’ video can be applied to those building a community or those trying to salvage a dying community. It’s really good and Chris sums up things perfectly. We Mac users will decide if Macworld happens again. Apple doesn’t decide that. We do.

There are a few Macworld Attendees sticking in San Francisco until late Saturday / Early Sunday. I thought we could do a small get together and then I thought a great wrap up to this great week would be a trip to The Computer History Museum (Wikipedia Page).

The Computer History Museum is a museum established in 1996 in Mountain View, California, when The Computer Museum (TCM, in Boston) sent the majority of its historical collection to Moffett Field, California, so that TCM could concentrate on computing-related exhibits for children. Thus, it was originally the West Coast division of The Computer Museum, named The Computer Museum History Center[1] until it shortened its name in 2001, dedicated to preserving and presenting the stories and artifacts of the information age, and exploring the computing revolution and its impact on our lives.

We all meet at Moscone South at 10AM on Saturday morning and head down to Mountain View where the museum is located. Admission is free and there are tours every couple of hours. The museum closes at 5PM but we’ll be done earlier than that. I only have 5 spots available. RSVP below by commenting. See you there!

Yesterday I announced a party taking place on A FREAKING BUS! and I wanted to followup with a photo of the bus and a reminder that we’ll be circling Moscone every 20 minutes from 3-4PM picking people up. Once the bus is full, we’re going to take the party bus around the city. I hope you’ll be there!

I don’t feel that latter will happen. Paul Kent of IDG has stated many times that IDG World Expo is committed to Macworld in 2010 and they’ve already announced dates for next year’s conference and dubbed the event, “the start of a new era.” Some things have already started changing for the better but some other developments have come up in the past 24 hours that I’d like to discuss.

Yesterday, Macworld Conference & Expo VP Paul Kent hosted the first ever Macworld Town Hall. I feel that it was a little too short but some excellent things came out of the show. Here are some facts about Macworld from Paul Kent.

-MWSF 2009 has 500 exhibitors and 90% of the products on the floor are not in Apple Stores

-Intiut, Mackiev, Shure, FastMac, OWC and over 60 companies have signed up to exhibit in 2010

-4.2 out of 5 satisfaction rating for last year’s conference in a poll of 2008 Macworld Attendees.

-David Pogue is going to host the “anti-keynote” next year

-John Gruber is developing “gruber’s list” a feature presentation for next year

-85-90% of speakers have verbally confirmed that they’re coming back next year

Macworld 2010 is scheduled to take place January 4th-8th, 2010 at The Moscone Center in San Francisco. I have faith that next year’s event will happen and I suggest all participants of this year’s conference need to start making plans to be here next year. If you believe in The Mac Community, you need to be at Macworld 2010. This is bigger than our budgets and economic situation. This is for the Mac Community, Apple and The Macworld Legacy to ensure that future generations have a chance to enjoy this yearly Mac gathering. This is not so IDG World Expo can make more money. This is for the community.

Macrumors has posted that CES is targeting exhibitors at Macworld and promising a “mac only” section at next year’s CES in an attempt to poach them from Macworld Expo. Although this is a crappy tactic, it’s something I’m not surprised to hear this news. Let me state to any Macworld exhibitors who are watching, there is no value in exhibiting at CES. Mac Bloggers won’t attend for a small “mac only section” and the big news sites won’t stop by the dinky little Mac section. You’re going to be shadowed by Sony, Microsoft, Intel and the other big guys and CES is only going to give you enough exposure to make you not feel pathetic for abandoning your core audience at Macworld. That’s just my opinion but Mac users are fanatical about their products. Exhibiting at Macworld puts you in good with the Mac community even if your product isn’t good. When you turn your back on Macworld, you’re turning your back on the Mac community. I’ll be doing a report as we get closer to next year’s conference documenting which companies abandoned us to go to CES.

In a very rare move, IDG has actually opened up Macworld 2010 registration. I encourage EVERYONE who reads this site to pre-register now. It’s free and you’re only registering for an exhibit hall badge. I can’t tell if exhibit hall badges will be free next year or if this is only an introductory price but let’s show IDG that we are committed by registering today. You can register on MacworldExpo.com.

If you are a Macworld Fan or future Macworld Attendee, I encourage you to write IDG World Expo and offer up your thoughts and suggestions. IDG is giving you the chance to give feedback and they’ll be listening. You can email them here.

I also suggest that everyone reading this join the 1 year old Macworld Expo Online Community and join in the conversation. You can join here.

———-

One final portion of this report. I’d like to address a couple of things people suggested during the town hall.

1. “We want a la carte conference package where we get charged on individual sessions.” I think that would rock but it would be far from what Macworld has done traditionally. I’d like this too. $49 per session and you could choose from all 75 sessions. That would be fantastic but I feel Macworld may make less money from that kind of pricing plan.

2. “Is there an opportunity for macworld to do smaller conferences in more geographic locations?” Paul Kent responded with a neutral stance but I can say that Macworld announced Macworld on Tour back in 2005 and I signed up but they cancelled the event a month before it was supposed to take place. I don’t know what happened but it was cancelled and I’m guessing it’s from a lack of registrations for the event.

3. “We want Macworld New York again!” Wouldn’t we all. Macworld is very expensive to plan. Moving the conference to New York is certainly an option but it appears that people in the audience were speaking about having two conferences like it was back in the day. We’re trying to save this conference. I don’t think adding MWNY back in is an option right now unless we make both conferences smaller and more intimate. I want to focus on keeping San Francisco’s conference alive before we focus on moving things back to Javitz.

4. “Let’s do a schwag fest the day before Macworld where we all show up and trade Apple Schwag.” That’s a good idea. I might do that next year. A Macworld flea market is a good idea. Just wash your shirts first before we start trading. I don’t want a stinky newton shirt with sweat stains.

——–

Well, let’s see how things go from here. I’ll be paying close attention to IDG’s steps throughout the next few months. Every move they make in the next 8 months will decide Macworld C&E’s existence in the long term.

Two major parties are tonight. One is hosted by YourMacLife & Shawn King. The party used to cost a pretty penny or you can get tickets from the sponsors of the party. I’ve never been to one of the YML parties but I’ve heard great things. The other option is Deb Shadovitz’s Mac Mingle. She’s been doing Macworld parties for a while now and I’ve been to the Mac Mingle in 2007 and 2008. They’re really good so I have faith that this party will be good as well. Arrive early because they usually have food and drink tickets. Enjoy yourself, unwind because tomorrow is Macworld’s last day for another year. *tear*

One other event that just popped up on my radar is MacRadio’s 2nd Annual Macworld Meetup. My friend Omaha is organizing it. She’s a very talented podcaster / gamer gal and this is going to be a lot of fun for fans of MacRadio. It’s a great place to meetup prior to the Mac Mingle.

MacWorld Walkthrough in 2mins and 39 seconds from Eileen on Vimeo.

Here is the film in HD.

where: Blue Bottle Cafe, 66 Mint Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
when: friday, january 16 at 8:30am (PST)
hosts: mark and tad

The party starts at 3PM and ends at 7PM. The bus will begin picking up Macworld attendees at 3PM and swing around the block every 20 minutes as attendees leave the convention center. At 4 O’ Clock, the bus will take us around San Francisco on a tour of the city. The tour won’t have a boring guy talking about historic landmarks. Instead, we have a DJ spinning dance music, open bar and flashing lights that will make this an unforgettable experience.

The downside? The bus can only hold around 50 people. It’s a small space and will fill up fast. The 3 hour tour begins promptly at 4PM after we’ve picked up the last bit of people. So you have 1 hour to get on the bus and then we’re off. When they drop us off at 7PM at Moscone, everyone will be going over to 4th Street Bar & Grill for my 6th Annual Macworld Closeout Meetup which has already had 64 RSVPs.

This is going to be an awesome way to wrapup the week. Music, booze, friends, touring the city on A FREAKING DOUBLE DECKER BUS! I’m excited. You should be too. Comment below if you’re going to be there. Tell your friends! Thanks so much to HearPlanet for hooking us up.

Today was pretty great. I got my voice back, felt very rested and ate a hearty breakfast compliments of Fuze. I’m not a fan of their software but the muffins were pretty great. I spent the morning in the press room getting work done for my day job. Having a day job is great but it also means Macworld can’t be all play and I have to get some actual work done too. Well, I finally got to the show floor around 1PM which means I skipped lunch (big mistake) and began touring booths. Tons of great new products, catching up with old friends and I even gave my boss a tour of the exhibit hall and sold him on some Shure SE530 earphones (which have been my favorites for 2 years).

I picked up a Speck See-Thru case for my girlfriend’s new MacBook Pro and I also got Speck’s new iPhone case which REALLY FREAKING ROCKS! By the way, Speck is on Twitter. Axio has some new bags too which I really love and I’ll be purchasing very soon.

At 5PM, I attended the Macworld Town Hall hosted by Paul Kent with a guest appearance by Alex Lindsay (owner of Pixel Corp and MacBreak). It was an enlightening experience as Paul discussed the future of Macworld and took user feedback from the community. A lot of things mentioned we’d heard before. Macworld OnTour which was supposed to take place in Kissimmee Florida as a “mini-macworld” was canceled but someone brought it up as an idea. Someone also brought up the gaming pavilion and others brought up that they wanted to collaborate with other Macworld attendees online. Well, there’s a site for that. Here are some quick notes I jotted down.

• MWSF 2009 has 500 exhibitors and 90% of the products on the floor are not in Apple Stores
  Intiut, Mackiev, Shure, FastMac, OWC and more companies have signed up to exhibit in 2010
  4.2 out of 5 satisfaction rating for last year’s conference in a poll of 2008 Macworld Attendees.
  David Pogue is going to host the “anti-keynote” next year
  John Gruber is developing “gruber’s list” a feature presentation for next year
  85-90% of speakers have verbally confirmed that they’re coming back next year

Here are some quick tidbits / quotes from Alex Lindsay:

1. don’t get distracted by apple’s involvement or big booths
2. ..it’s the cultural center of the apple community
3. the people who show up here are the nucleus of the mac community.
4. if macworld didn’t exist, the community would dissipate.
5. we should bring more exhibitors to the web. don’t think about foot traffic.
6. alex lindsay, “i’m going to be here next year”

After the town hall, I went to the MacHEADS Premiere. I happened to be in the film along with many of my friends in the Mac community. It was a great film and I really enjoyed it. Not much to say here but that it will be in iTunes by the end of the month and on DVD very soon. If you missed it, then you missed out. I really enjoyed it.

Following that, I went to some parties and came home. A slow night which usually Wednesday at Macworld is. Thursday we’ll have some more parties and I have a special event planned for Friday night.

Data connections on AT&T are brutally slow and the iPhone’s 3G icon will randomly switch the evil EDGE “E” for no good reason. I thought SF was supposed to be wired? SpeedTest.net won’t even load on Mobile Safari on EDGE and my iPhone can’t hold a 3G connection to save its life. Previously, the fix for no 3G was to reboot the iPhone, now even that doesn’t work.

Yes Jason that’s just how it is at Macworld. At Macworld 2008, Edge just didn’t work and we still had dropped calls on AT&t’s network. The reason is that this is one of the largest gatherings of iPhone users in the world and AT&T just can’t keep up. Local San Francisco also know that AT&T coverage in San Francisco is horrible. Jason calls us “wired” but we don’t have have Verion FiOS available to us and some parts of they don’t have high speed Internet. San Francisco, as far as a metropolitan city goes, is far behind on cell coverage both EDGE and 3G. Macworld only makes that more apparent.

A tweet from Macworld VP Paul Kent last week said.

Report from Setup – Attendee bags stuffed, speaker bags stuffed, AT&T installed extra COWs (cell tower on wheels), i t’s coming together!

Looks like Macworld’s band-aid to the problem didn’t help much because even 5 blocks from Moscone I’ve been stuck in EDGE or without Internet since Macworld began 2 days ago.

Here is a link to the photos.
Here is a link to the translated article about our tour.

A must attend event tonight is the IDG World Expo Macworld Town Hall. It’s at 5PM and all Macworld attendees are encouraged to be there. IDg is going to spend the hour discussing the future of Macworld and listening to our feedback. It’s important to be there if you want Macworld to succeed.

I wanted to make sure everyone makes it to MacHEADS the movie at 6:15PM. Check the show guide for the room number. I happen to be in this movie so I’ma little biased but it’s going to be a good film.

Parties tonight? Well here’s what Ilene’s Hess Party list has to say. The Griffin Technology Twitter meetup at 5PM is taking place at House of Shields on New Montgomery street. That’s going to be a lot of fun and the party that I’d recommend just because it’s going to be a packed house and full of some cool peope and don’t want to buy a ticket.

Tonight I’ll be skipping the Twitter meetup because I have the IDG Town Hall and MacHEADS premiere back to back and I want be done until 8PM. So I’ll be heading to the MWSF09 FCPUG Supermeet. Tickets are $15 a person but gets you 2 raffle tickets and there are over 40 thousand dolllars in giveaways from the biggest names in video editing. It’s going to be a fun party and I’d recommend that everyone be in attendance.

Today had its highs and lows. I began by getting in line for the keynote at midnight with friend and had a great time. Our pre-keynote meetup at 4AM in front of the Apple Store was great! Everyone was really happy to be there and it was a slightly smaller meetup than last year’s but still a lot of fun. We got in line around 4:30AM which actually was perfect. Last year, our 4AM lineup was around the block and this year it was half of that and that’s how if felt. Overall, the keynote traffic just felt lighter. More news crews but a lot less people.

We finally piled into the hall as Phil Schiller delivered a less than stellar keynote presentation. I wasn’t amazed and that’s just how it goes. He did a fine job on delivery but it wasn’t a steve-note. The announcements were “meh” and I can see why Steve skipped the presentation this year aside from simple medical issues. After the keynote, I stayed in the press room most of the day and finally venutred out on the exhibit hall for 2 hours to run through and take stock of everything but it was packed today on the show floor and I’ll be spending more time on Friday.

I was tired today from not sleeping all night and I started losing my voice so I went home for a 3 hour nap which turned into a 7 hour nap which meant that I missed every single party tonight. I woke up at 10PM, I couldn’t speak since my throat was totally rocked from 3 days of speaking to people and I just didn’t feel well. Laura convinced me that we should still go to the iSkin party and after some hot tea, I went but still couldn’t speak above a whisper. So I missed VMWare, MacRumors party and the iPhone intelligence party at Harlot. I’m sorry to all of the hosts of these parties (who are also my friends) but I just couldn’t make it after a night up at the keynote. I really am kicking myself for missing those parties.

Photo Credit

The iSkin party has been “the” party since my first Macworld over 5 years ago. I went in 2004 to their party at Club six and every year since has just been awesome! This year, the club was nice (fluid lounge), the music was ok, the drinks were overpriced as usual but iSkin just didn’t have it. I’m not going to go into full details but iSkin promised me things that they didn’t deliver and I’m a little upset about that. I don’t ever ask for special treatment but they told me, “bring your friends, we’ll put you in VIP we have product demos, giveaways and free drinks.” I arrived and my contact was busy flirting with 3 different women and my other contact just didn’t seem to understand as we was chatting up with someone else. I bought an overpriced rum & coke and left with my friends to another location.

We joined up with a few others and 8 of us went to an irish pub to have some drinks and wrapped up the evening at Cafe Mason at 3AM. I enjoyed the company of my friends that I only get to see once a year when they come to Macworld. It was a good evening despite being sick, losing my voice, oversleeping and getting screwed by iSkin.

You can always follow me on Twitter as I’ll be sending updates from the keynote. AdamJackson@Twitter.

Change the room to “stevenote” on the bottom right hand corner.

HearPlanet is a new iPhone application that is launching this week at Macworld in San Francisco. HearPlanet turns your iPhone into a “talking tour guide”, providing spoken descriptions of things around you.  During the week of Macworld, HearPlanet is available for free in the App Store.

Rather than a booth or a more traditional party venue, HearPlanet will be operating a glass-topped double-decker bus every day of Macworld (Tuesday January 6th thru Friday January 9th).  During the day from noon until 5pm the HearPlanet bus will be circling Moscone Convention Center picking up conference attendees, giving HearPlanet demos, and conducting complimentary bus tours of nearby San Francisco landmarks.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night the bus will switch into party mode around 5pm, and with live DJ’s spinning on the upper deck.  This bus party is open to all Macworld attendees.

As a service to the Macworld community, the HearPlanet bus will be offering shuttle service between many evening events. In particular, there is a pre-scheduled pickup at 9pm and 9:30pm to take people from the Macworld Finale Bash to the iPhone Intelligence Party on Tuesday night.  And on Wednesday, HearPlanet will be shuttling to the FCPUG Supermeet from in front of Moscone, starting at 5:15pm.

To get realtime updates on where the HearPlanet bus will be next stopping to pick up / drop off, you can follow “HearPlanet” on Twitter.

HearPlanet has also created an audio “tour guide” to many Macworld events.  This guide is accessible by searching for “Macworld” within the HearPlanet application.

The HearPlanet homepage: http://www.hearplanet.com
The HearPlanet Twitter page: http://twitter.com/hearplanet

Photo Credit – Ravden

Macworld 2007 Pre-Keynote Meetup

Today is the keynote. I hope you took yesterday’s advice and got some rest because this is the biggest day at Macworld. Just after 9AM, Phil Schiller will take the stage at Moscone West and talk about the next enhancements to Apple’s strong product line. You want to see? Well don’t show up any later than 5AM cause you might not have a seat in the keynote hall. Actually, I encourage everyone to attend our 5th annual pre-keynote meetup. Last year we had 50 people show up. The beauty of the meet up is that you get your photo taken as a person or group so you can show all of your friends how crazy you are for lining up at 4AM, you first timers get help finding Moscone West and the keynote line, you get free coffee & donuts and you have 50 fellow MacHeads to chat with for the next 5 hours in line. Everyone should come by and don’t line up too late cause you won’t get in the keynote.

After the keynote it’s time to hit the exhibit hall. i won’t be doing that this time around. I’m doing the exhibit hall on Thurs/Friday. Tuesday will be spent in the press room doing interviews, catching up with old friends and enjoying the amazing Moscone lunch. Just kidding. Don’t eat food at Moscone. It’s horrible and overpriced. How you spend TuesDAY is up to you because there are great sessions, cool new products and San Francisco should be very pretty tomorrow (party cloudy with a high of 55 degrees).

Tuesday night is chock full of events and it’s the one night that I’m torn as to which party I should attend. Here are the parties tomorrow.

Screengrab from The Hess Memorial Macworld Expo Partylist – via Ilene’s Machine

Personally, I’d recommend the iSkin party but it’s invite only. I’ve been to iSkin’s parties since 2004 and every year they have THE BEST parties. Last year was hosted at the penthouse suite of the marriot with live DJs, open bar and really hot men and women dancing until late into the evening. There was also sushi catering which was a nice plus with epic views of the city. If you have tickets to the Mac Blast then you should go. Last year Devo played and the year before, Cheap Trick performed. It’ll be a great party for those who paid $40 for the tickets. The Macworld Finale bash is an “all ages” event so you guys that are under 21 can get in. Finally, I’d also recommend the iPhone Intelligence party hosted by Raven Zachary. Raven is a key member of the iPhone developer community and has brought together some great iPhone developers for this event. It’s at Harlot where I threw a Christmas party last month which is a very nice space.

My schedule? Well it’ll go something like this:

• VMWare Fusion Party from 5:30-6:30 (press and bloggers only)
• Macworld Finale Bash from 6:30-7:30 (open to all ages. Cash bar)
• iPhone Intelligence Party from 7:30-8:30 (21+. Great Venue)
• iSkin Party (8:30 – I pass out, the best parties)

That’s my list and afterward i’ll be going to sleep because I would have then been awake for over 36 hours. I hope you have a great Tuesday!

• A) All of my friends are here. I saw nearly 50 people today that I’ve seen at every Macworld since my first.
• B) The vibe about Expo and Apple’s Involvement is ultimately positive and everyone is ready to learn, have fun and experience Apple.
• C) Half of everyone I meet is at Macworld for the first time. That makes me feel so good inside.

Photo by Dave Schumaker / RockBandit

The morning started out a bit hectic. There were “gaza” protests on Market street in San Francisco.  The protests stopped traffic from 8-9:30AM which meant my bus ride just didn’t happen. I was on my way to pickup a mini-van for our annual trip to Apple headquarters and it just didn’t work out. I ended up walking to Moscone center and hitching a ride with Laurie who had graciously allowed 4 other Mac heads to ride with her.

By the time I got back to Moscone after picking up a mini-van, we had another van for a total of 3 large vehicles capable of holding nearly 20 Mac users. We caravaned down to Apple HQ in Cupertino for a fun filled day!

Everyone went shopping at The Apple Company Store buying clothes and other Apple branded goodies.

Our friend Dizzle got kicked out by security but I’m not surprised. She really loves Apple.

Then we all had lunch at BJs as 5 other people joined up with us to enjoy lunch.

Afterward, some photos were snapped. Yes, it was a great day and we finally got back to San Francisco around 4PM.

Photos used with permission.

After that, I ventured to my office to get some work done and then attended The IDG Press Event, ShowStoppers @Macworld and the Qik / Cali Lewis / Chris Pirillo Twitter Meetup at 21st Amendment. I’m losing my voice and the place was extremely crowded so i ducked out early but just long enough to see many of my long time Macworld friends. I’m home early tonight because this week is going to be full of late nights and I’ll be out at 4AM for The Apple keynote. Tomorrow is going to be a great day.

I’m here…finally! It wasn’t easy.

First of all I never slept Saturday night. Too excited and too
many decisions. Such as which panties should I bring? My *achievement
locked*, *safe mode*, or *byte me*? What the hell, I brought them all!
Not to mention having to switch my battery out in my truck so I could
make it to the airport at 25 below zero which caused me to wreck my
nails mind you! Crap! Did I mention I live in Alaska? And YES! I can
see Russians from my house. Dangerous and sexy Russian
men….mmmm….yeah. All goes well as I arrive at ENA for my first
flight to Anchorage on a 9 seater. Getting to Seattle is smooth as
well. Getting to San Francisco is where things took a bad turn.

Due to snow, my Virgin Air flight was stuck on the ground for four
hours. Coming from Alaska, this seemed really absurd! Sheesh! It
wasn’t even that much snow. However,I was exceedingly glad that I
decided to pay the extra $60.00 for first class. I finally made it and
successfully found the baggage claim area…good lord! Not that it
made any difference that it took me forever to find it as it was an
hour after the flight that the baggage finally came out! Long story
short, after more waiting, I finally got on the Super Shuttle and
arrived at the InterContinental much too late to hook up with anyone I
wanted to.

Hungry and thirsty, I found the Irish Pub across the street and
proceeded to drink 3 shots of Patron Silver between 1:30 and 2:00 and
smoked 2 clove cigarettes. May I remind you, I hadn’t slept since
friday night. And I don’t normally drink or smoke. Of course I get
shooed out of the bar at closing time and go back to my room. Now I’m
feeling a bit snockered….actually WAY snockered and decide to go
outside to smoke another clove. Wanting some exercise I decide to take
the stairs. That was a mistake. It took me into a apocalyptic/horror
genre type labyrinth. Little did I know, security was stalking me. I
created a security breach in my first few hours here. When they
finally caught up with me they wanted to see my key card which I had
safely stowed away in my bra. Hee!!! I finally got sleep at around
4:00 am.

I wake up much to early and find a San Francisco Chronicle hanging
on my door. I was excited to see on the top banner of the front page,
that they were covering Macworld. I eagerly went through the paper
scanning it through my bloodshot eyes, for that article. Where is it,
I wondered! It’s not in here dammit! Then the Sports section fell out
with the back page up! What in the hell I thought, is Macworld doing
in the friggen Sports section! What cruel masochist is responsible? Is
*Bif* the owner/editor of the Chronicle? Still hating nerds? What the
hell? Jocks and Geeks together in the same section! Preposterous! And
on the back page at that! I’m insulted and disgusted! The Sports
section is always the one I burn first. I don’t read it, I don’t look
at it. It was a miracle that I found the article on Macworld and I’m
nauseated at the thought that it’s rubbing up against sweaty sports
news! Ewwwww!!!!Bleck! Yuk.! And sheesh!

So here I am, barely conscious, drinking copious amounts of room
service coffee, applying Visine every 15 minutes to my bloodshot eyes,
and finally fixing my nails I wrecked switching out my truck battery
in Alaska. And I don’t even have my badge yet and it’s 2:15 pm on
Monday. My quest today is simple. Get my badge. Get some food. Find a
500GB G-Drive mini triple. Flirt with as many geeks as possible.

What an awesome email from a MacMac. Enjoy Macworld!

I wrote this post back in June outlining Macworld Magazine’s Efforts to snag Flickr Groups for every Macworld Expo to infinity. I was surprised when Expo was 1 day away and yet they hadn’t announced their Flickr group yet. Well today they did. No worries and I was totally expecting that but it got me thinking. A lot of blogs have linked to me like Cult of Mac, TUAW, iJustine and MacRumors. Macworld.com will happily link to a lot of other Macworld Events but in the 2 year history of operating MacworldBound and receiving thousands of links from Mac blogs, I’ve never once had the graces of a link or even an friendly email from a Macworld.com or Macworld Magazine editor saying, “hey. good work on the blog.”

I don’t need or deserve a thanks but I’m just making a simple and quick observation. I’m not mad, just a little confused that maybe IDG the entity just really hates me and this might be the last year that I operate this blog. I have plenty of time to do it and love meeting new people but my service to Macworld, IDG and IDG World Expo will probably be coming to an end. I feel like they are continually effing me and doing all they can to push MacworldBound as far away as possible from their show. I understand but a quick hello from someone over there in IDG land would be awesome and make me feel like all of this hard work was actually being noticed.

So at this point, there’s my Flickr Group and there’s Macworld Magazine’s Flickr group. I offered to IDG last year for them to take over my group and they declined. I don’t know but you can choose either one. I’m not trying to “be the best” and only trying to give back to this awesome community.

Photo Credit

This is a photo of Nick Lensander. He lined up early this morning just as the sun came up ready for a 26 hour wait before the Apple Keynote which takes place on Tuesday morning just after 9AM. Nick is also on Twitter. He’s been in line all day now and has the first spot. He has been interviewed by CNN among other news organizations. Awesome work and I think he wins for being in the keynote line the longest.

Below is a sample of David Pogue’s work:

Today, we’re heading to Apple Headquarters in Cupertino. It’s a 30 minute drive south and they don’t let people just walk right in but Apple does allow us to shop in their store and spend money. So we depart at 9:30AM from Moscone Center and hit Apple around 10:15ish. There is an hour spent buying clothes, taking photos and checking the parking lot for Steve Jobs sightings. Then it’s lunch at BJs. We’ll be back in town around 2PM. Sorry though but we have already filled up 3 vans and can’t take any more people for this trip. Next year, I’ll be doing a charter bus because I just can’t fill demand of everyone that wants to go.

After that, I encourage all attendees to take an afternoon nap. Let me break it down for you. There are 4 parties on Monday night that I know about and probably 10 more smaller events. Then, you’ll be getting back to the hotel at 11PM only to get up 3 hours later to see the Phil Schiller keynote. Monday needs to be a day of relaxation because Tuesday is going to be crazy. One of my friends is lining up at 10PM on Monday night and I know of another person who will be joining him.

Monday night parties are all listed on Ilene’s Machine and Upcoming.org but of all events listed there, I’d recommend the Macworld Tweetup at 21st Amendment. It’s open to everyone, has a large attendance and is guaranteed to be a great time. Also, VMWare is doing a party at Thirsty Bear (661 Howard Street) from 5:30-8:00PM. I’ll be there for an hour before going to the Twitter meetup. I hope to see you all there but I encourage everyone to get rest on Monday because Tuesday-Friday is going to rock! By the way, I’m taking a van to The Computer History Museum on Saturday with 4 other people. If anyone wants in just let me know.

Photo Credit

In 2007, I conducted the city tour but due to a mishap with the cable car schedule, we ended up walking the 15 person tour group up Powell street to Fishermans Wharf. It’s a walk that’s doable but no one wants to do it. Luckily, things were a little easier this year. This morning at 9AM I met up with nearly 15 people at Sugar Cafe as we took over an entire section to drink bottomless $10 mimosas and enjoy some free wi-fi. Some people took advantage of the brunch items as well but most of us just geeked out. That went until 1PM when it was time for many of us to trek down to The Apple Store to meet up with everyone else for the city tour.

The annual city tour kicked off just after 1PM and went through 9PM this year. Quite a day for a bunch of geeks . We walked over to Powell Street where the cable cars pickup and snapped some photos. Then took the cable car over to Fishermans’ Wharf. I took everyone to In-N-Out burger ( a local favorite) and we continued through Fishermans Wharf stopping at many attractions. Finally, a steep walk up to Coit Tower right before sunset so photographers could snap photos of the sunset over San Francisco. We finished up with a bus ride back to Fishermans’ Wharf and a street car ride back to 3rd and Market streets. The tour finished with us picking up our Macworld badges and I explained local places to eat, coffee joints and the various Moscone Center buildings on the block. Then, a 2 hour dinner at Bucca Di Beppo was in order as we crammed 25 people into a room for a huge feast!

Photo Credit

What an amazing evening we had and it was all a part of DAY 1 of Macworld partying. I love helping to bring Mac users together and I hope everyone had a fantastic time. Drinks, touring, photographs, making friends and feasting on Italian food. I can’t believe it’s only Sunday and we have 6 more days of Macworld events. The photos that I used were taken today on the city tour. More photos will be available by tomorrow on our Flickr Group.

How awsesome that 100 photographers are signed up to share their photos on Flickr. I can’t wait to see all of the awesome shots. You can join in the action RIGHT HERE.

What started out as a Mac fan renting a mini van and trucking down a few MacHEADS to Apple headquarters has turned into a caravan containing 2 vans and a car for a maximum of about 14 people. The rules still apply which I’ve pasted below. If you’re still interested please comment below. I’ll email you if you make the list. I already have 7 people who have RSVPed and they’ll be in my car. That least about 7 more.

The price is $15 a person due to the price of rental & gas and I hope everyone can make it. Of note, if you have a rental or planning on renting your own vehicle and can take another 2-4 people with you please let me know.

I’ll be parked outside Moscone South in the parking lot on Monday the 5th at 10:00AM. I’ll be in a silver / gold Toyota Sienna Mini-van (for identification purposes) and wearing a black baseball cap with an Apple t-shirt. If you didn’t RSVP and you are not on the standby list, please don’t show up because I can’t accommodate more than 7 people.

You can follow more updates on Twitter.

Sunday AM:

We meet at Sugar Cafe for “Mimosa Factory.” The event runs from 10AM-5PM but I’ll be ducking at 1PM for another event. $10 gets you unlimited mimosas and they have fantastic breakfast & lunch items plus some really speedy wi-fi. More details are on Upcoming. There is no limit to this event. The place can hold up to 100 people but only has about 45 power outlets.

Sunday PM:

My 5th annual Macworld city tour of San Francisco kicks off at 1PM and continues on through 8PM. We start at The Apple Store downtown, make our way through chinatown to Fisherman’s Wharf and the tour ends in SoMa near the moscone center. After the tour, nearly everyone stays together for dinner near Moscone. It’s a great event and you can get full details on Upcoming. OF NOTE: This Tour is currently completely full. I can only take 25 people. We have 5 people on “standby” All are welcome to show up and take their chances but I can’t lead a tour with more than 25 people. I’ve tried it.

Friday, I went to Sugar Cafe to get some work done and sent out some tweets that others were invited and two people from overseas came by to hang out. After that, we joined up with 4 more people for some burritos in The Mission which was great because 5 of the 7 people there were eating their first Mission Burrito which, in San Francisco, is a pretty common choice for an anytime meal. We ended the evening around 7 so I could get home and do more Macworld preparations.

Saturday, Laura and I spent the day cleaning house because a few Macworld attendees are staying at our place for the week. We have the extra space (not really) and a few extra bodies is no big deal if it helps them save the hotel costs. At 7PM, Laura and I met up with Rob and Gina who we met for the first time on our 3rd Annual City Tour back in 2007. It was great to see them again and we went to get some Tex Mex near Moscone Center. It was another early evening as I had some more things to take care of. However, a late night IM from a few guys from Italy has caused me to go out again for a few beers at Lefty O’ Douls. They are from Italy and one of the guys has a very successful blog.

Tomorrow is going to be a lot of fun. Our 5th annual city tour will be awesome!

My 5th Annual City Tour is at 1PM so I’ll be ducking out early but everyone is welcome to keep drinking until 5 and soak up that free Wi-Fi. Details are below.

Date: January 4th (Sunday)
Time: 10AM-1PM (Official Time)
Location: Sugar Cafe 679 Sutter Street
Price: $10 for unlimited Mimosas from 10AM-5PM

RSVP: on FACEBOOK and UPCOMING

This photo taken by Setteb.it is simply showing the dates that next year’s Macworld will fall on and next year’s slogan which is “The start of a new era.” Well a blogger on Twitter said this,

“Exit sign apparently says “The start of a new era.” — sounds like Snow Leopard to me. Making room for lots of innovation ahead. Hm.”

What? How does that mean Snow Leopard? It’s an IDG sign that is clearly referencing a new era since Apple will no longer be involved with the conference. It’s not an Apple sign.

Then there’s this photo:

I’ve seen comments like this all over the mac web,

“Well SMALL = 9″ Netbook, TALK = iPhone Nano and BIG = Mac Mini (big thing in a small package)”

What?! It’s a freaking IDG World Expo banner! It has nothing to do with any Apple announcements, past present or future! Those banners have been all over SF for 2 weeks and have been full page ads in magazines for the past 6 months. This speculation is getting old. Just freaking relax already!

MWSF 09 on Twitter

Macworld Expo on FriendFeed

Macworld Expo on Upcoming.org

Macworld 2009 on Flickr

Macworld Bound Group on Facebook

Are you in town early for Macworld? Are you hungry? Well, we’re doing an impromptu dinner in San Francisco’s Mission district. Right now, only 5 people are on-board but you can come too.

We’re meeting at 5:30PM PST
Location: Pancho Villa at 16th & Mission in San Francisco
I’ll be wearing a Pandora hat. The place accepts major credit cards and is right by the BART station. Below is a map to get from Moscone Center to Pancho Villa.
View Larger Map

Go ahead and put in your vacation time for January 4th-8th, 2010. It’s going to be the best Macworld ever! 2009′s slogan is, “even the small talk will be BIG” and 2010′s slogan is, “The start of a new era.”

Ilene’s list is the Hess Memorial Macworld Expo 2009 Partylist and it has more than just parties but I like that she separated day and evening events very well.

Of course the two spots that I have events posted are on Upcoming and SocialCalendario but her list takes the cake for perfection and attention to detail.

Download it here

You can check out many of the events on Upcoming.org here.

Registration Information

On-site Registration Hours

Registration Locations
North Hall Lobby and South Hall Upper Lobby of the
The Moscone Center
747 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

BADGE PICK UP Process for  Conference Attendees
•Badges will NOT be mailed to conference attendees for this event.
•You will receive a pre-mailer ticket in the mail if you registered by December 8, 2008.
•Bring the mailer you receive to `AREA 3 CONFERENCE REGISTRATION` located in the upper North Hall Lobby of The Moscone Center to pick up your badge and badge holder, once you arrive onsite.
•After you pick up your badge and badge holder, you may go to Conference Material Pickup located in lower North Hall, in room 123.
•If you are unable to go to Registration on Sunday, we suggest you arrive approximately 1-2 hours before the start of your first session to ensure adequate time allowed to pick up your badge, badge holder and conference materials.

BADGE PICK UP  Process for  Expo Plus and Expo Only (Received Badge)
•Badge Holder Pick Up for all Expo Plus registrants will be located in the upper South Hall Lobby of The Moscone Center.
•Badges will be mailed to Expo Plus attendees, within the United States, if you registered by December 8, 2008. You will need to bring your badge with you to the show.
•Proceed to AREA 1 PICK UP FOR PRE-REGISTERED EXPO HALL ATTENDEES, once on-site to pick up your badge holder located in the upper South Lobby of The Moscone Center, in order to gain entrance to the Expo Floor.
•All International badges and badge holders will need to be picked up on-site at the counters marked AREA 1 PICK UP FOR PRE-REGISTERED EXPO HALL ATTENDEES, located in the upper South Lobby of The Moscone Center.

BADGE PICK UP -Process for Expo Only opt  not to receive your badge in the mail
•You did not opt to receive your badge in the mail, therefore you will need to pick up your badge and badge holder on-site.
•Print the bar code portion of your confirmation and bring it with you on-site.
•Badge and badge holder pick up for all Expo Only registrants will be located in the upper South Hall lobby of The Moscone Center.
•Proceed to AREA 1 PICK UP FOR PRE-REGISTERED EXPO HALL ATTENDEES, in the upper South Hall Lobby of The Moscone Center, once on-site to pick up your badge and badge holder, in order to gain entrance to the Expo Floor.
•All International badges and badge holders will need to be picked up on-site at the counters marked AREA 1 PICK UP FOR PRE-REGISTERED EXPO HALL ATTENDEES, located in the upper South Lobby of The Moscone Center.
•Should you want to receive your badge in the mail please contact us before December 8th at (800) 645-EXPO (within the U.S.). You will be charged a $5 service fee to have your badge mailed to you.

To all Attendees please note:
Proper identification (driver’s license, credit card) is required to receive your registration materials.  Business cards will not be accepted as appropriate identification.

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Macworld on Twitter
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My personal account will have Macworld updates on week

DETAILS:
Date: 01/02/09
Time: 12PM-6PM
Location: Sugar Cafe 679 Sutter St, 94102

Questions? Twitter or Email me.

There are tons of other events going on this week. Check ‘em out.