For the last four years, at this time of year, I’ve devoted a lot of copy to the annual MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. For a certified (sometimes described as certifiable) Mac fanatic like myself, the first week in January rivals the holiday season as “the most wonderful time of the year”.

Some years (this year included) MacWorld has a direct effect on what I ask Santa for. Similar to the way some people wait to buy their Christmas gifts until the post-Christmas sale season, Mac users obsessed with “the latest, greatest, and fastest” hold off on Apple product purchases until new products are announced at MacWorld in January. Sometimes this backfires, sometimes it pays off.

Before I moved 2738 miles from San Francisco, I attended quite a few MacWorld Expos. Some of them were quite memorable. The year that Apple launched their “Think Different” advertising campaign, I got to meet Muhammad Ali – you may remember him as one of the legends shown in the “Think Different” commercial about people who “changed the world”. At that same MacWorld I sat right behind actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, who was there to show how she used her Mac to place her artwork (which was very good) on a calendar for her mother. OK, not a “world changing” application of Apple technology, but a sweet present for Dear Old Mom.

A few years later I actually met and talked briefly with Apple CEO Steve Jobs on the expo show floor. In the awkward and panicked few seconds before I got to step up and shake his hand, I frantically searched for something to say that wouldn’t sound stupid. I ended up congratulating him on the success of the movie “Toy Story”, a product of his other “pet project”, Pixar Films. He smiled.

While the show floor is a great place to get some hands-on time with the myriad hardware and software in the Mac universe, the real highlight of any MacWorld is the Keynote Address. Back in the day, mere mortals could gain access to the auditorium just by arriving, bleary-eyed, and braving the lines. Those days are gone. The Keynote is now an invitation-only event for lofty journalists and luminaries. Most of the working press (as I was two years ago) views the Keynote via closed-circuit, big-screen TVs in an overflow auditorium. However, once the lights go down and Steve takes the stage, it doesn’t matter where you are.

© 2007 Peter F. Zimowski