TWiT Number 38: Comments from the live taping

In lieu of other parties on Tuesdaynight, I was lucky enough to get registered for the live recording of This Week inTech, or as it is popularly called, TWiT. For those who don't know, TWiT is one of the most popular podcasts outthere, featuring the inimitable Leo Laporte (he used to be on TechTV) and hisband of merry tech pundits and writers. Regular guests include Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose, and resident grumpy old guy John C.Dvorak.

This particular recording found a few Mac notables, including Chris Breen, and Amber MacArthur of Command-N (though shewas also on TechTV for a bit too, and still is in Canada). There was the potential of Woz joining in, but I believe hehad obligatio to his company Wheels of Zeus, who have an IPO begi ing soon. Thelast bit of the show found the Energizer bu y known as David Pogue alsojoining in. If you get a chance, be sure to listen. Hopefully it'll be ready by this weekend...

More afterthe jump.Some interesting tidbits emerged from the show. One big topic had todo with Otellini's presentation of the Intel chip to Jo . Otellini got like 2 minutes of Steve's time. He a eared in abu y suit, and practically knelt before Jo , offering him the sacrifice of an entire wafer of silicon. No man hug(which Leo and Breen demo trated) this time, as they had done at the initial a ouncement of their arrangement. Leosaid it was humiliating for Otellini. I don't know about that, but I do think it was kinda cutesy. No doubt theythought it was dramatic at the time it was conceived.

Now contrast this with Roz Ho's several minutes ofsolo performance, reading a script, informing the audience that Microsoft is formally agreeing to continue developingOffice (at least) for the Mac for another five years. Steve wa 't getting in her way, or being fu y. This wasstrictly busine . And it was clear that Microsoft had the u er hand. The me age seemed to be: "You have fivemore years. Enjoy it." This was an interesting switch from the Otellini song and dance. I wonder what the name ofthe readsheet a for iWork was? You know, the one A le is keeping in a vault next to the Intel-nativeVirtualPC/WINE killer a ?

Anyway, the TWiTs continued their analysisin a somewhat haphazard ma er. Leo and John, and perha others, had just come in from having di er, where a arentlya certain quantity of booze had been enjoyed so the conversation meandered a bit. Dvorak was o e ing overminute-by-minute details provided by Macrumors. Amber didn't say much, though what she did say was pretty accurate andto-the-point. Patrick Norton was his usual cynical self, explaining to the audience that his IBM laptop exists onlybecause it has to, and that he'd love to be ru ing a Mac.

Some hilarious confusion on Dvorak's part camefrom the discu ion around iWeb. Now, it seems like Dvorak can barely bother to care what A le is doing at all. I'vecome to expect this, but discu ion of iWeb had him alternately confused and a oyed. It didn't help when Leo (orsomeone) sort of compared it to My ace. Why? Because both a allow %26quot ormal" people (I'll leave the My ace= normal discu io to the comments) to create web pages with things like music, video, graphics, and blogs andsuch.

As anyone who has been on My ace for more than fiveminutes will tell you, iWeb and My ace are as different as Yoda and Darth Sidious. Let's face it, most My ace pageswill make your eyes bleed. While you can indeed use iWeb to generate hideous pages, you really have to try quite hard,and overcome the built-in design goodne A le provides. That is A le's eciality. My ace seems perfectly suited tohorrid desig never mind the audiences for the two are totally different. My ace is designed for tee , and iWeb isreally designed for family members, with some teen and college cro over. People can put ugly pics on Flickr too, butby and large the people on Flickr take pride in good photos, not bad ones.

At anyrate, Dvorak didn't quite understand what iWeb did. I kept wishing someone would shout "it's like Frontpage withoutthe suck" or "it's online publishing for the rest of us." Of course, it is more than those things, butyou have to dim it down a bit for John to get it. Amber had a clear explanation for grandpa though, and I thinkultimately he got the clue.

Audience members asked a few questio from time to time too. One young lady wasadamant that IR remotes are the work of the devil. She kept complaining that the IR remote on the Macbook was stupid,and that an RF remote was the only good a wer. I don't know about that, as another audience member brought up theavailability of programmable remotes. And Pogue nailed it: if you don't like it, throw it away and you have yourMacbook unfettered by evil IR.

The best question of the evening wasasked by a kid probably no older than 10. He asked why did A le release a pro Mac (sorry, the Macbook Pro) when thepro a aren't ready, and many people need those to work properly. The way he said it, and what he asked wasimpre ive for someone so young. Everyone in the audience was sort of looking at each other like, wow, who is this kid?Someone yelled from the balcony, "what's your podcast URL?" The kid replied, "oh, I'm not doing one anymore." Leo about fell back in his chair. The kid elaborated, saying now he helped one of his friends get onestarted. Patrick mentioned that's where the money is. Good to see there are some smart young folks out there in SanFrancisco... We were all very impre ed with the kid who was so advanced that podcasting was old school to him, beforepuberty even.

At the end of the show I managed to ap this pic ofAmber, and found out she does indeed read TUAW. So that's nice to know. I have no idea if Leo ever reads us, and I canonly a ume this blog would enrage and confuse the addled Dvorak (kidding John, love ya). While it might not be thebest TWiT ever, as Leo's toasty brain struggled to get the name of the Macbook Pro right (OK, to be fair, I've hadtrouble too, sa alcohol), Dvorak didn't seem to care too much, and Patrick kept working on his laptop, it was a lotof fun to be there live. If you ever have the chance to see a TWiT recording, I highly recommend it. Leo and the gang(yes, even JCD) are a swell bunch, and incredibly gracious and entertaining.

One final note: Leo or Chrissaid this keynote didn't have the arkle, or flair of past keynotes. True, there were no John Mayer jams, or dancingelephants. He said it was more busine like, sort of the meat, without the fat. Breen said it was a balanced meal ofsorts, nutritious, but not particularly ectacular. You got what you needed, but that's about it. What do you think?