IRL - RIP

NOTE: For those of you over 40: IRL = "In Real Life"

So last week when Apple announced that it would pull out of MacWorld next year, and, oh yeah, by the way, Steve Jobs won't be doing the keynote THIS year... people went absolutely bat s**t.

There were 1,000,000 blogs on the topic - rife with speculation that Mr. Jobs had a spat with the organizers (IDG) and that they simply were "taking their dollies and going home." To add insult to injury - they offered up a Jobs Replacement - Phil Shiller. Now, I don't know Mr. Shiller personally, and I'm sure he's a great guy and everything, but geez... he for SURE no Steve Jobs.

Apple's cold press release about the fact that they were just dumping MacWorld - right before the show (January 6-9, 2009) was about as childish and stupid as you can get. It's like getting dumped via a text message.

Would it have killed them to have Steve get up and say "Nothing new... and one more thing... we got NOTHING new to pimp." Then in February or March, just come out and say that due to _______ (insert standard corporate crap here) they are "re-aligning" their tradeshow strategy with market conditions... or something?

The "other" big show that's going on at exactly the same time is the once-huge CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas. There was a time where this show was like the old COMDEX show - 150,000 people strong. Where you would physically age while waiting for a cab. When the crappiest, dirtiest, keep-your-socks-on-at-all-times-people hotel room was going for $395 per night. Last year, not so much. This year, even less "so much."

I don't know if it's just a reflection of the recessionary times we live in - or whether people just really don't give a crap - but it seems like (to me at least) that tradeshows in general are just sucking wind. They're expensive for both the attendees as well as the exhibitors (I've been both, many, many times). Yeah, it's cool to get all the useless swag to give to your kids and all, but really - what function do these live, in-person events really play?

We live in a world of 140 character "blogs". A world full of "status" messages on social networking sites, and a world in which 25% of the paper wealth of everyone just vanished overnight.

And it's not just tradeshows. It's user conferences and gatherings. Just last week Novell just canceled their "BrainShare" (user) conference because a bunch of the people said they weren't coming because of restrictions on their travel budgets.

Personally, I say - good riddance. I think it's important to meet with customers face-to-face. There are certain things that Twitter, and emails can't convey. However, I think that the power of meeting with people IRL is the fact that they all share a certain love for a product, service or industry and they want to be around others who are like-minded.

The problem is that with technology being what it is - phones, and Skype and online meetings and webcams are slowly taking the place of speakers, presenters, drinks in the bar and good old fashioned business card exchanges.

I guess the change in the way we interact together was (is) inevitable. There was a time when I had physically printed manuals for all the software I used sitting on a bookshelf. Now I either just use the online help (usually F1 on a PC application) - or I use Google as my online manual. I don't need no stinkin' printed manual - and I don't need to go IRL with other folks to find out about any new developments in my industry.

I get 24 hour news, 500 blogs that report the absolute latest and greatest, etc. However, I think that if shows like MacWorld and CES go the way of COMDEX - a little bit of humanity goes with it. And once it goes, it's very difficult to get back.

MacWorld Melee!

Editor's NOTE: This is a moldie oldie that I pulled from a text dump archive. None of the links will work anymore (or 99% won't) - but the names and companies have NOT changed.

Greetings from the computing bowels of the lovely city by the bay - San Francisco, California. It's my annual pilgrimage to "fog city" (not to be confused with the excellent software company fog city software) for a week of outrageous hotel prices, inflated parking prices, expensive food and drink... oh yeah, and computer stuff.

MacWorld in San Francisco is like an intimate encounter with 9,000 of your closest friends - there's no time to see them all - and even if you could you wouldn't. Among all the Internet hype, new hardware announcements, software introductions, show specials on software you'll never use, and endless opportunities to melt even the most hearty of credit cards, there were a few notable things in the pipeline that I found to be of interest to us folk who wax poetic in the (sometimes lonely) land of FileMaker development:

There's a new version of FileMaker Pro in the works... That's about all I can say about it. Suffice it to say it will be good and will include new stuff as well as fix some stuff that's been bugging all of us for years.

New versions of CGI's exposed: All three major FileMaker CGI vendors showed off their latest versions (all included WebStar 2.x plug-in capabilities),
*Web Broadcasting's WEB FM (and "Web Essentials" bundle), *BlueWorld Communication's Lasso (as well as a super-duper 2.0 version that will include it's own HTTP server AND will Java-enable FileMaker), *Everyware's Tango. I'll be ranting and raving about CGI & FileMaker stuff in a future column.... but you owe it to yourself to check out the latest YUMMY offerings from these vendors!

Cool New MAC ONLY Software
*Everything FileMaker CD Matt and folks at ISO have put out THE reference source for FileMaker users! This FANTASTIC $35 CD is chocked-full of over 600 megs of actual FileMaker FILES, EXAMPLES, TECHNIQUES and more - get it while it's HOT!

*Secure FM (download here!) Danny Mack and the wired-in people at New Millennium have cooked up an extension that will dim out editing menu commands IN FILEMAKER! They're also at looking at doing a windoze version, and adding FULL MENU CONTROL in a future version!

*Web Collage that will collate info from the Web or FileMaker databases and create (and auto-upload to server or FTP) GIF images based on the data

*Myrmidon by Terry Morse Software - weird name, COOL print driver that will translate ANYTHING that can be printed into HTML and other formats (INCLUDING script steps, field definitions, etc.)

*Coda by Random Noise is a visual Java builder for creating 100% Java web pages. It will also run on Windows 95, Windows NT, AND Solaris - WAY COOL!

*Web Burst - by the good folks over at PowerProduction is a visual animation tool that will generate it's own Java code, classes, and HTML,
*Home Page 2.0 (Mac & Windows) - nice update to a useful, mostly WYSIWYG HTML editor - watch this space for more info on possible FMP integration in a future version

Coolest place to stay in S.F. if you're staying a week or more - is the City Central Townhouse (click for picture) owned by my good friend Leigh Robinson. This place is the best - it's right next to Jefferson Square and is in walking distance from the Civic Center, Main Library, Memorial Opera House, Japantown, St. Mary's Cathedral, etc. It's 3 bedrooms, 2-1/2 baths of pure pleasure that INCLUDES a jacuzzi tub in master bath, fully equipped kitchen, fireplace, washer/dryer, multiple TV's, VCR, phone, answering machine, roof garden, exercise stuff, and housekeeping services! Check it out - it's even got it's own web site!. You can also contact Leigh at (510) 236-5496, FAX (510) 215-9385 or write to Express, P.O. Box 1639, El Cerrito, CA 94530 and tell em' BOB SENT YOU.

Mac Based ISP I met the folks from the Bay Area Infoasis at the most excellent Macs of Marin FileMaker Pro SIG meeting that I hosted. If you want to super-charge your site by offering the power of FileMaker and CGI's, but don't want the hassles of having your own T-1 or server, contact them and check out their FileMaker Serving services (from $100/mo.)

I also met (for the first time in person) Chris Ogden fellow wine nut, CGI maestro and author of the most excellent AppleScript Web Site that uses Tango and FileMaker Pro to run the ENTIRE site! He and I... well... um... let's just say that the good people at the oh-so-trendy watering hole "Bix" weren't sorry to see us leave in the wee hours of the morning. Keep watching this space for more on the super yummy FileMaker gyrations from the slight-of-hand magicians at Infovista.