Macworld Expo 2008 Favorites

With more than 450 exhibitors at this year's Macworld Expo, it's impossible to "see it all." Which is a shame especially because of all those countless small and medium sized companies whose product announcements are often drowned out by the major news from the big players like Apple or Microsoft. Hence, let me point out five products I stumbled over at the 2008 Expo which, in my humblest of opinions, deserve a bit more attention than they have received so far.

Retrospect lives: With rumors about layoffs at EMC's Insignia/Retrospect group making the rounds last year and a lack of any major upgrades to Retrospect for Macintosh in what seems like ages, it was a relief to see EMC present Retrospect X at Macworld Expo. Instead of demonstrating its commitment to the platform in some generic way, they have shown off a promising package.

Sporting a fresh user interface and a choice of other enhancements, the most important change is under the hood: Retrospect X is a complete re-write as a Universal Binary, so it will run natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs, which should (hopefully!!) result in dramatically faster overall operation.

Currently, Retrospect X is still under development (the demo I saw at Expo was just a QuickTime-based UI mock-up) and should enter the beta stage later this year, for which EMC is looking for participants. To apply, visit their Mac Beta page.

Planned ship date is the second half of 2008, and the basic version (probably with licenses for one master and two client machines as in 6.1) should cost around $120.

Skitch goes public-beta: Plasq has launched the public beta program for its Skitch application, which program, so far, was an invite-only (or, rather, know-whom-to-ask-and-ask-nicely) affair. Skitch is a nifty utility that lets you take screenshots, capture images from a webcam or import photos from your iPhoto library; annotate them with Skitch's drawing tools; and share them via FTP, Flickr, and Plasq's own photo-sharing website, skitch.com.

Skitch, the software, integrates seamlessly with skitch, the website. E.g., instead of just adding some text to comment on someone's photo on skitch.com, you can download that photo to Skitch running on your Mac, annotate it, and send it back to the site. "Visual commenting" with just a single mouse-click. Very slick.

To register for the public beta, head over to skitch.com, where you also find lots more information and tips on the software.

DIY custom backpack for your 13.3" MacBook: I've long been a fan of Brenthaven computer cases because of their craftsmanship, well though-out designs, and seriously fat protective padding (The usual disclaimer about simply being a happy customer applies). Their new "Trek Sleeve," however, is the first computer case that I get seriously excited about (which excitement is not caused by any halucinogens although I'm still in San Francisco while I write this -- just thought you should know), and here's why.

I prefer backpacks over the classical laptop bags, because the former don't scream "I contain a computer -- STEAL ME!" quite as loudly as the latter, so I have used Brenthaven's "Pro 12 Backpack" for a few years with my 12" PowerBook. The neat thing about this bag is that it has an inner protective sleeve that can be removed from the backpack, but since this inner sleeve opens at the "top," you can remove the laptop from the backpack without having to remove the inner sleeve first.

Unfortunately, Brenthaven have not made a custom-fit 13.3" version of this backpack, so I had to resort to some other solution when I got my MacBook. Yes, there is a 15" version backpack, but my gut feeling says that a laptop-hugging sleeve that is exactly the size of the actual laptop would provide that little bit of extra protection just in case.

Enter the Trek Sleeve.

It's custom-made for the 13.3" MacBook and also features a hidden side pocket for power adapter and iPod. Since both the opening zipper as well as the carrying handle are located at one of the short sides of the Trek, this is nothing short of an improved slide-in replacement for that Pro Backpack's original sleeve.

Place the power adapter and maybe the DVI connector in the Trek Sleeve's pocket, and you have all the essentials for a presentation -- no need to carry the complete backpack around with you. Visit a conference or trade show, though? Just leave the sleeve in the backpack that holds all your other gadgetry-related stuff like digicam memory cards, battery chargers, cables, what have you, and haul that around.

Can't wait to buy one of these when they become available end of next month.

Wireless battery charger -- sort of: Korean manufacturer iVolta has come up with a novel way to eliminating the hassles of plugging in electronic gadgets for recharging: based on the gadget's type, it is either outfitted with a clip-on adapter (e.g., for iPods) or with a replacement battery (e.g., for mobile phones). Either methods equip the gadget with four contact terminals which, when placed on a charging panel, make contact with that panel's electrodes. Two types of panels are available, one for the desktop powered via USB, and a smaller one with a plug for a car's cigarette lighter, and both allow for charging multiple devices at the same time.

Although not "wireless" in the true sense of the word, the iVolta system does manage to relieve its owner of plugging and unplugging cables all the time -- unless you need to synchronize the device with your computer, that is. But who knows: maybe "wireless iPod connector" will be next in line...

Casio redefines the bridge camera: Here's my nominee for the "Best of Product of the Show That is not Directly Related to the Mac" award: shown publicly for the first time at Expo, Casio presented a new digital camera, the EX-F1, featuring: a 6 Mpixel 1/1.8" CMOS sensor, 12x optical zoom, support for RAW (DNG), full manual mode, face recognition, image stabilization. Nothing special so far.

But here's something very special: 60fps burst mode, 7fps burst mode with flash, full-HD resolution movie recording (that's 1920x1080 pixels, my friends), high-speed movie recording at 300fps, 600fps, or 1200fps. And all of this comes in a sturdy, surprisingly light package that should become available within a month, or two. At $1.000. Nuff said!

Given the sheer number of products shown off at Macworld Expo every year, chances are that you won't find the above products quite as cool or worthy-of-featuring as I do, because you have found some others that strike your personal fancy a lot more. If so, let's discuss: head over to this thread on the Digital Media Mac Community forum and share your favorite MWSF 2008 finds with us.