The Leaky Press

It's MacWorld time again. Yep, MacWorld San Francisco begins tomorrow with Mr. Jobs giving his usual Steve-note. Pre-keynote hype has been off the charts this time. Much of it has even been generated by Apple themselves, with phrases like: "Count the days. Count the minutes. Count on being blown away." on Apple's front page of their web site. So, everyone has been speculating on what Steve & Co. have up their sleeves this time.

Tonight, Time Canada leaked the full details of what will be announced tomorrow: a new LCD-based iMac. As you can see by the photo, it's a hemisphere with the 15" LCD display on a short chrome pole. It looks pretty neat from the looks of the photo. I'll be very curious to see what it looks like in real life. It also looks like Apple will announce a new (simplified) photo-editing program, called iPhoto. It will be like a very scaled-down version of Photoshop and is designed for cropping and resizing images. It is rumored that Adobe is NOT very happy that Apple has developed this software. But you know what? Photoshop X for OS X is STILL not out, and probably WON'T be out until March! I say it's their own fault if they lose market share over iPhoto. I'm anxious to see how it works. If you're bored tomorrow afternoon, check out Apple's site and see what's new.

On a totally different note: I was just sitting here musing at all of our A/V remote controls. We've got no less than 5 remotes sitting here. Some of them control the lights. Some of them control the TV, the cable box, the home theater receiver, the DVD/CD changer. I know that plenty of companies make "Universal" remotes that are supposed to do EVERYTHING, but I hate to tell them: it's just not possible. For one, my cable box has some pretty specific buttons that allow me to view special menus, etc. Somehow I don't see a universal remote having a "guide" button.. But..you know what..I'd really like to get hands on one of those Phillips "Pronto" devices. It's a neat little Palm-Pilot-looking remote with a backlit LCD screen. It allows you to custom-design your own remote "screens" to get exactly what you want. So, my question for you is: How many remotes does it take to control YOUR house and all of it's electronics? Check out the new poll on the right and enter your answer in there.

Have a great Monday! (blech!)