I’ve finally spent a little time on it, and I have three things fixed.

1. You can actually log in to the thing.  Registering used to put you in a terrible loop where you put in your credentials, it tells you you’ve logged in as yourself, and presents you with the login screen again.
2. The Boookmark Importer works.  Save/export your browser bookmarks as an html file, then in Telegraph click the Import button on the top.  (Looks like an arrow going from a star—your favorites or bookmarks—to a telegraph pole.)  You can then upload your bookmark file and—voila—have all the bookmarks you know and love right in Telegraph.  Now, Telegraph will only build tags for bookmark folders one layer deep, so if you have some grand hierarchical scheme going… sorry about that.
3. The favicons associated with your links are correct for the actual URL you save, not just the root host, as it used to be.  That was by design, but I think it’s better to have the right icon for the URL you put in, which might be different than the host site.  Also, the code is more robust; more favicons will get picked up.  In case you’re curious, Telegraph is not going out to each URL in your list every time you load it for the icons–they are cached in Telegraph itself.  Much faster that way.

Second, Macworld:

I’m going, on the Friday, which is February 12.  Once again, no booth (maybe someday I’ll be in TinyTown), just me cruising around on a free expo pass, taking in the booth swag and feature presentations.  So see ya there!

@dthomson

I’ve been saving/selling stuff to try to pick up an iPhone or iPod touch, mostly so I can surf the web and play games while my wife is using the iMac.  The iPad does this on a whole new level, of course, but that’s not what impressed me.

The iPad is a really amazing device for watching movies and showing off pictures, of course, but that’s not what impressed me.

What impressed me, essentially, was iWork.  Not the details, though they were nice, but the mere existence of it.  iWork on the iPad shows that Apple clearly regards this device as a computer, deserving of business applications as well as “lifestyle” applications.  It shows me that this is actually a very, very viable second computer.  Above an iPhone or iPod touch, my pipe dream was to pick up a MacBook, so I could have just a little more functionality.  But now, forget it; an iPad is all I would need.

I say second computer, but contrary to many of the commentators I’ve listened to over the past week, I don’t see any reason why an iPad could not be the sole computing device for a lot of people.  What does it not do?  The only things I do with my iMac that essentially I could not do with an iPad are some web development and edit movies in iMovie.  There’s no earthly reason somebody couldn’t write a decent IDE for web development on it (paging Steven Frank and Cabel Sasser), and you’re on crack if you don’t think Apple has a version of iMovie for the iPad in the works, to be released when Steve-o says it’s good enough.

Consider that, if this is your only computer, you could just get by with the AT&T unlimited data plan—you wouldn’t even need to have cable or DSL in your house!  There are certain demographics this is perfect for.

For a lot of us, of course, a desktop machine makes sense.  Even the iPad continues the use of a keyboard, and there’s no question that a full-size desktop keyboard is a better text input device than the virtual one, or even the optional hardware keyboard with the dock.  And never mind the vast amount of processing and storage available in today’s desktops.  But unless you are a true road warrior who needs to be able to do the same kind of work on the go, the iPad is just so… right as your mobile computer.

Some of the podcasters and commentators have worried that this kills the MacBook Air.  It just might, but this is what the New Apple does: it kills existing products, even hits, with superior products before they start to fall off in sales.  The MacBook Air is by no means a hit.  I do think people will continue to buy MacBooks ad MacBooks Pro, for the use of traditional old software.  But I, for one, can’t wait to get an iPad, push it to its limits, and see how far I can get on it.  I may well never need to buy a notebook, ever.

And depending on how far Apple takes this new level of OS abstraction, and how fully-featured future iPad-based products become, I may have already bought my last desktop Mac.

Microsoft, as you know unless insert-your-living-under-rock-cliché-here, has opened a couple of brick and mortar stores.  This is laughable for several reasons, most of which are plainly obvious even to Windows enthusiasts, but I’ll repeat them here for the sake of completeness.

• From what I’ve seen, the MicrosoftStore looks very, very, very like an Apple store.  Apart from the mute Windows logo (again, centered on a plain background above the portal like an apple might be), and the dominance of the color blue, you would be forgiven if you thought were actually walking into an Apple store, if perhaps that of a parallel universe.  I’m not suggesting that the wheel need be reinvented here, but it’s kind of embarrassing, anyway.  I assume that over time these stores will evolve to feel definitively Microsoft-y, just as you can definitely tell the difference between walking into a Target and walking into a Wal-Mart, even if you were red-blue color blind.  This is assuming they stay open long enough for such an evolution.

• Here’s where my liberalism comes in to play.  Apple started its retail adventure as a solution to a problem: there was a lack of a distribution channel between Apple and consumers that was unbiased towards PCs.  People had little chance to be exposed favorably to a Mac before; now they can just saunter along in a reasonably upscale mall in a middle- to large-sized metro area and get sucked into an Apple store.  Microsoft suffers no such problem.  Microsoft is not starved for customers, or exposure to customers, or laboring under a widespread conception that its products are not to be taken seriously.  Microsoft is the damn default!  When you say, “I want to buy a computer,” you have to actively try not to get a machine with Windows on it.  In an economy of startling variety and diversity, I am hard pressed to come up with any other product group in which there is such an overwhelming single standard brand.  Therefore, I have a hard time truly understanding why Microsoft needs to have a store in my mall.  This is like offering affirmative action assistance to rich white boys who want to go to college.

• One answer given to the above is that Microsoft wants to have face-to-face interaction with customers, to help them with the problems they have with their PCs.  They call this their Guru Bar; Apple’s version is of course the Genius Bar.  Lord knows the average Joe needs help with his PC, but I have a hard time believing that these Gurus are going to be able to handle the work load.  When you bring a Mac in to the Genius Bar, I suspect most of the time something is really wrong-a pref file got inexplicably garbled, some bit of hardware bit the dust.  Not that OS X doesn’t have bugs and problems that crop up, but there is a finite number of Macs for which you need a script of known fixes.  How many possible combinations of PCs are there?  Now multiply that by the number of OSes they are running (going back to XP SP1, at least) that people are going to be asking about.  Now factor in the likelihood that the problem is PEBKAC or viral.  The Gurus are going to be overwhelmed.  I just wish I had a bird’s eye view and a bag of popcorn.To sum this point up, I don’t think it’s possible to solve PC user problems with a “Bar” in the same way it is with Mac user problems.  It’s inherent to the product.  I’m not knocking Microsoft’s tech support, I’ve heard it’s usually very good, and it has been the time or two I’ve had occasion to use it.  I don’t know how appointments are going to work, or if support is going to be predicated on having a valid license key or what, but giving Windows users carte blanch to walk up to a counter and say fix this, and giving the Gurus 15 minutes in which to do it, is a recipe for disaster.

• Related to my affirmative action analogy, isn’t this kind of a step backwards?  Never mind Fry’s, Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, Costco, Office Depot/Max, and others I’ve forgotten, all of which are perfectly valid brick-and-mortar opportunities to buy a PC, there is quite a robust means of buying a PC electronically: the World Wide Web.  Maybe the point isn’t selling PCs so much as software, to which I say that the Web is an even better avenue for said purchases.  Again, what’s the point here?

The only thing I can see the MicrosoftStore is good for, similar to Xbox and Zune, is losing money.  Yes, they will offer classes and training, but those cannot possibly make enough money offset the colossal cost of renting space in a mall and staffing it, and I just don’t know what people would be buying in there to offset it, either.  If they plan on moving PCs in enough volume to make it profitable, I think some OEMs are going to get cranky really fast.  Again, I will want popcorn for this.  Operating these stores as loss-leading advertising for the Microsoft Brand™ seems particularly daft, even for Redmond.¹

I’m a grown man in my 30s with two children, and I’m excited because I scored a second plastic guitar on eBay, so we will have a full compliment of instruments to play with.  It’s such a blast to play, particularly because those songs are so ingrained, even if you haven’t heard them for years, that the rhythms and cadences come quite naturally.  The art, game design, and just the whole package of The Beatles: Rock Band are just genius.

Finally, some observations I’ve made as I watch black-and-white clips of the Beatles on YouTube:

1. Paul plays his bass left handed.  I can’t believe I’ve never noticed before, particularly because I saw him in concert a couple of years ago.

2. As much as Paul is “the cute one,” Ringo is, well, not.  And he has this kind of odd, stilted style, but it’s captivating to watch.

3. I never really knew what George brought to the Beatles equation—Paul had his looks and voice, John had the voice and songwriting chops, and Ringo was, um, Ringo—until now.  Looking with a more critical eye at the performances, I can see George was a hell of a guitarist.  In my youth, of course being aware of the Beatles and seeing the odd clip, I never drew much distinction between the lead, rhythm and bass parts.  Now, an adult lover of music and amateur vocalist myself, I can get as much out of George’s playing as John and Paul’s harmonies.

I try to do the green thing.  Actually, where I live in Roseville, recycling is built-in to the waste pick-up service, so we can just throw our plastic, aluminum and glass in with the rest of our trash, and rest assured that these materials will be sorted out and properly recycled.  But what about that deposit I paid at the register? Lost, at least to me.  I have no doubt Roseville is collecting a tidy sum for all this stuff, and well they should, I guess.  Those funds surely make their way into the budget somewhere; at the very least I would hope they reduce the cost we pay for garbage pickup.

What if I want to recover that deposit myself?  I have to save this stuff up, separately, which in a small house is no small feat.  Then I have to devote time to go to a “recycle center.”  My experience with such centers is that it feels like some kind of dirty, back-alley deal.  They are generally behind the supermarket, hidden from street view, and with good reason.  It’s a smelly, grimy affair—I’m sure I don’t need to describe the blow by blow of it.

I don’t actually consume that much that comes out of an aluminum, glass or plastic container.  My family’s biggest vice is 2-liter bottles of club soda, which are so voluminous that even at 10¢ a pop (pardon the pun) it’s too hard to collect enough of them to make the recycling trips worth the time.  So I collect my aluminum (more club soda, at the office) and glass (the occasional beer or bottled Frappacino), and generally only need to go to the recycle center once a year.

I just made this trip, which is why it’s on my mind.  One bag of cans (pre-crushed by my foot), one bag of glass, which amounted to $8.47.  I can definitely say that I make more at my day job in the half hour it took than $9.  Which is to say, I suppose, that I can really afford not to go at all.  This reduces the financial incentive for recycling to those who you generally see waiting in line at the recycling center—those who really need that money back.

I’m sure I’m about to commit all kinds of broad generalizations and unfair classisms—so be it.  I am a product of my own background, and this is my perspective.  Chiefly, I would say that it would be far better for those who drag up endless bags of 1-liter soda bottles from 7-11 and Budweiser cans to save an awful lot of money and just drink water.  Certainly it would be better for their health.  In this economy, I sometimes feel guilty about the club soda, which is pretty darn cheap. In fairness, on this most recent trip I did see a large quantity of San Peligrino bottles, which while still expensive, at least is better for you than Coke.

I must conclude that recycling is a racket, like mail-in rebates. Most people never collect—those that do tend to be so cash-strapped that they ought not make the purchase in the first place.

Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right now: each series has its share of turkeys. I’ll admit I’ve never seen the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special, but it’s a notoriously bad thing. Then there’s Star Trek V, which has a few redeeming qualities… very few. And let’s not even discuss “Spock’s Brain”. But every show from every genre has its clunkers, its phoned-in acting and cartoon plots.

Both franchises also have their share of fanatics, and this is not as uncommon as you might think. You know the images: the Klingons at the convention, the Jedi at the movie premiere, who have waited for untold hours to be the first to see it. The home theaters remodeled as either the bridge of the Enterprise or Palpatine’s Coruscant office. I’m not among these who has more money and free time than interest in conforming with the rest of society, though I’m hardly a casual fan, either. I’ve met two of the original Star Trek cast members; I’ve been to a few conventions; I’ve worn a Starfleet uniform. I also have at least four versions of the original Star Wars trilogy; I insisted on seeing each prequel on opening day; my son’s first Halloween costume was Yoda.

What gets me is the fundamental disdain some people have for one franchise or the other. Unsurprisingly to anybody who knows me, I love them both, perhaps equally, if such a thing is possible. They are simply different. I think it comes down to one important difference in particular: one is science fiction, and the other is not.

I think the Trekkers who are down on Star Wars regard it as silly, as very bad science fiction. The thing is, even though it takes place in space, has spaceships, laser guns, and aliens, Star Wars is not science fiction. It just isn’t. It’s fantasy. It’s set in space, sure, but the story it tells is very much in the vein of mythic fantasy, such as the Arthurian legends, Tolkien, even Harry Potter. Here’s the plot: Orphaned boy is taken under the tutelage of an avuncular old sage, discovers he possesses a special trait, and is meant to change the world. He reluctantly takes up the quest; along the way he gathers companions, and he loses his mentor. Ultimately it is his willingness to sacrifice himself for those he loves that wins the day. To varying degrees, this plot applies to every fantasy story of the last 50 years. The point isn’t the technology, swords or lightsabers, magic rings or the plans to the Death Star; the point is the personal quest. Yes, there are technical elements along the way, how the magic or the shield generator works, but that’s not the focus.

Here’s a little secret: Dune and The Matrix are two more “science fiction” movies that really aren’t. Rebels, Fremen, people of Zion, they’re all the same. And so are Luke Skywalker, Paul Atreides and Neo. (And Eragon, and Harry, and Frodo, and…)

On the other side of the coin, you have Star Trek, which is very much science fiction. Over the long haul, the story has elements of the hero’s journey—take Benjamin Sisko’s arc over Deep Space Nine²)—but the real focus is on the setting. The story being told is how different technologies might affect society. What does it mean when a very advanced people interferes in a primitive planet? When a transporter accident clones one person into two (or combines two people into one)? Science fiction asks questions, and explores possible answers. It also provides commentary on current social phenomena in a more comfortable, euphemistic way. Racism, sexism, war, sexuality, euthanasia, slavery, polyamory, the afterlife-all of these have been addressed on Star Trek. Star Wars fans who diss Trek tend to think it’s too nerdy, or put down it’s production values, but they, too, are missing the point—Star Trek is about human potential, possibility, and responsibility as we advance technologically. It’s less fantasy and more extrapolated reality.

I suppose my point in any of this is to encourage exclusive dyed-in-the-wool fans of one franchise to give the other a chance to be what it is meant to be—not a poor copy of the other, but its own kind of storytelling. Because neither borrows very much from the other, (the similarity between the Breen and Boush the bounty hunter notwithstanding).

This is the point where I think they are wrong, for two reasons.

For the first, I point to a pretty old Daring Fireball article which John Gruber has referred to in security-related posts over the years. I think his comments on market share are important. While Windows commands an overwhelming PC OS market share, its share of malware is disproportionately more overwhelming, compared to Mac OS’s. I would add to that datum the fact that if you look at individual exploits/hacks/whathaveyou, the worst Mac OS problems have never approached the epidemic nature of Windows’ viruses and botnets. They are shut down rather quickly, or they are too flawed to propogate effectively to begin with.

My second point is to refute the idea that hackers aren’t already actively trying to penetrate and exploit OS X. Seriously? Have you read the comments of any die-hard Windows users lately? There has to be more than a handful of compentent programmers nefarious enough to write viruses and with an interest in getting a Mac virus out there, profit in it or no. Particularly when you look at my first point; while the ratio of Windows exploits to Mac exploits does not match the OS market share ratio, I would guess that the ratios of programmers attempting said exploits is more similar. My conclusion: they are trying, but Mac OS X is a robust enough platform, owing to some combination of inherent engineering and a system that encourages good user practices¹, that it is difficult to exploit.

Ultimately, my belief is this: Apple (its designers and engineers) makes good stuff; they do the right thing, they care, and they’ve given usability and security some thought. Microsoft doesn’t, and hasn’t. Or, if they have, it hasn’t come through in their final product. Coming full circle back to John Gruber again, it might have something to do with his Auteur Theory of Design.

Update - Daniel Eran Dilger has a new article on this very topic.

• Adding a new link with a “mailto” URL does not function
• When an existing tag is added to an object, the Category “expand/contract” arrow does not change state when the Category opens
• Imports from bookmark files saved from Safari do not work properly
• Tag addition or edits to objects do not update visible Categories properly; a refresh of the app is needed to see changes

I will update this post as needed ahead of my departure for Macworld on Thursday, January 8.

I’m surprised there was no new Mac mini−and yet I’m not. I can see where getting hardware out the door by a given date is harder than software. Hence, they hyped iLife and iWork ‘09 during the keynote, and will save a new mini for their own special event, possibly in conjunction with revamped iMacs. No skin off my back… I just got my in-laws to switch to a mini a few months ago, so it’s just as well that the new ones come out a little later on. (I’m a firm believer in making technology purchases when you need to make them, with no regrets for what comes later, but others don’t necessarily take that view.)

I am excited about the new iLife ‘09 stuff. And jealous, because I probably won’t be able to justify upgrading for a little while. iMovie’s improvements are neat−and I really like iMovie ‘08. The simpler interface that generally “does the right thing” works better for me. I don’t necessarily have time to do all the little tweaks that an expanded, detailed timeline allows. It would be nice to have the option, though, and I love the travel montage theme stuff.

17″ MacBook Pro, kind of a given.

iTunes announcements: yay and meh at the same time. Yay that everything is going to be DRM free, but meh that we knew it would all go this way eventually, and for me personally, I don’t care that much. The notion that the DRM on iTunes music was putting any kind of stranglehold on your music library is ridiculous; it’s trivial to remove it. And I’d rather just keep it in iTunes and on my iPod(s) anyway, because that’s the best way for me to use it. I go to pains (HandBrake, for example) to get media into my iPod; I’m not terribly concerned that it go the other direction.

Tony Bennet: outstanding choice for final keynote musical guest. Very, very classy. The best is yet to come, indeed.

So, barring any new announcements during the week, it looks any time in the Apple booth for me will be spent taking a look at iLife. Mainly, though, I’ll be there to chat up anybody that will listen about Telegraph.

So, the point of this is I am inching closer to being ready to go to Macworld, in terms of telling people about Telegraph without being embarrassed by it. Follow the link to see the spiffy new icon! There are still bugs, it still doesn’t have an iPhone-friendly CSS scheme, but it’s getting there. The point is, it’s very usable and ready to demonstrate my intentions with it.

I don’t have convention floorspace—no booth, no kiosk, just me. I only have an expo-hall pass. Not being the chat-you-up type, I’m not even sure how this is going to go. It’s my hope to just get into conversation with some people and hand out some cards, perhaps start some word-of-mouth. At the very least, I hope to get some folks to check it out and give me feedback.

Of course, getting my card in the hands of notables like John Gruber, Andy Ihnatko, Leo Laporte, etc. would be ideal, but I suspect unless I’m prepared to be pushy, the chances are small.

Timing wise, I’m looking at Thursday, January 8, from 10am to 5-ish for my attendance. Look for the 6′1″ guy wearing (or carrying, depending on how warm it is in the halls) a brown leather jacket that looks suspiciously like a famous archaeologist’s.