After we snap out of our dreams of sugar plum fairies and New Year's celebrations, we'll be trekking off to San Francisco for the annual Macworld Expo and Steve Jobs Keynote of Apple Goodies. This will be the first year in some time that Macworld Expo has occupied both the South and North Halls of Moscone Center, and by my count there are over 360 vendors currently signed up. Although oodles of them will undoubtedly be selling iPod cases and accessories, it's still way more fun to see Macworld Expo once again large enough to expand into both halls.

Expo Happenings -- Along with Steve Jobs's keynote, other feature presentations [1] include a Q&A with Kevin Smith (of "Clerks" fame), Macworld Live! with David Pogue, the presentation of Macworld Magazine's Best of Show 2007 awards, the ever-enjoyable MacBrainiac Challenge game show, and a talk by photographer Joel Meyerowitz.

The show will feature numerous welcome extras, including the free advice from the Apple Consultants Network, the new Microsoft Blogger Lounge (booth #702 in the South Hall) for bloggers to take a load off their feet and their minds, the Taste of the Conference sessions [2], and of course the huge user group presence with a User Group Booth, the User Group Lounge, and guided tours from user group volunteers.

Conference sessions [3] are becoming ever more a part of Macworld Expo, with five separate tracks of training, including the day-long Power Tools Conference sessions (plus Lesa Snider King's intensive two-day Graphic Secrets for Business course), the MacIT Conference, the Users Conference, the Hands-on MacLabs, and the Market Symposiums. The sessions radically increase the cost of attendance, though, so pick carefully.

On Thursday, January 11th, the Netter's Dinner [4] is celebrating its 21st anniversary in traditional style at the Hunan at Sansome and Broadway, where the hot and spicy Chinese dinner (vegetarian dishes are available) costs $18. You must register in advance by Tuesday, January 9th, via Kagi; the link below has all the details. As in previous years, meet at the top of the escalators on the south side of Moscone at 6:00 PM and be prepared for a brisk, sometimes damp, walk that snarls traffic throughout downtown San Francisco. We'll leave no later than 6:30 PM for the restaurant.

And of course, there will undoubtedly be a variety of other parties, though it's a bit early for everything to be scheduled. Check out Ilene Hoffman's Hess Events List [5] for updates as we get closer.

TidBITS Events -- As usual, a number of us will be at the show, singing, dancing, and... well, okay, not singing or dancing, but imparting whatever words of wisdom we can. Here's our current schedule, and please do come by and say hello!

• Monday, January 8th: At 4 PM, Adam will be joining Chris Breen and Bob LeVitus at the User Group University [6] for a Q&A panel with user group leaders. Everyone who was there last year had homework, so we want to know how well our ideas worked.
• Tuesday, January 9th: We'll undoubtedly be in shock until the afternoon while dealing with news coverage of the keynote. But we hope to have recovered by noon, when Adam will be at the Macworld booth stage (#408) with Shawn King for a Your Mac Life presentation that will undoubtedly be covering the keynote announcements. Then, at 3 PM, he'll be participating in a MacNotables Taste of the Conference panel [7] with numerous other brilliant industry luminaries. Bring sunglasses.
• Wednesday, January 10th: At 11 AM, Adam and Tonya will be examining what's hot at the show in the User Group Lounge [8], up on the mezzanine level of Moscone. Then at 3:15 PM at the Macworld booth stage (#408), come see the most interesting products of the show through the eyes of as many expert Take Control authors as we can round up. At 4:30 PM, Adam, Tonya, and the MacNotables will be back together at the Macworld booth (#408) for another go at making Chuck Joiner crazy.
• Thursday, January 11th: In the morning, Tonya will be bringing Tristan (who turns 8 on Tuesday!) to the show floor for the first time ever, undoubtedly a shocking experience. Meanwhile, at 9 AM, Adam will be joining Andy Ihnatko, Dan Frakes, and Ted Landau for another trivia-filled MacBrainiac Challenge [9] against a slate of Macintosh developers. Then at 11 AM, Adam will be talking about iPhoto at the Peachpit booth (#1001), both in terms of features and bugs in iPhoto 6, and what's new in iPhoto 7, should Apple see fit to ship it at the show. At 1:15 PM, Jeff Carlson will be speaking on "Graduate from iMovie HD to Final Cut Pro [10]" as part of the Users Conference. At 3:00 PM, Jeff will be at the Peachpit booth (#1001) talking about iMovie and answering questions about iLife and whatever other topics come up. At 4:30 PM, Adam and/or Tonya will rejoin the MacNotables at the Macworld booth (#408) for one last hurrah - since it's likely to be a somewhat different group each time, don't assume that you can get by with listening in only once. Then, at 6 PM, Adam will once again be leading a herd of Mac geeks across San Francisco to the annual Netter's Dinner; meet at the top of the escalators leading down to South Hall.
• Friday, January 12th: Come see if Adam's voice has survived the show during back-to-back Expo wrap-up shows, first at 1 PM with Jim Dalrymple of Macworld and again at 2 PM, with Shawn King of Your Mac Life and Chris Breen of Macworld. Both panels are at the Macworld booth stage (#408).

[1]: http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/events/20SFO07A/SN432506
[2]: http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/events/20SFO07A/exposition/CC121367
[3]: http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/events/20SFO07A/conference
[4]: http://www.seanet.com/~jonpugh/nettersdinner.html
[5]: http://www.ilenesmachine.com/partylist.shtml
[6]: http://www.mugcenter.com/macworld/sf2007/ugu.html
[7]: http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/events/20SFO07A/exposition/tracksessions/Taste+of+the+Conference/QMONYA04TU1C
[8]: http://homepage.mac.com/ugab/mwsf07lounge.html
[9]: http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/events/20SFO07A/SN432506/tracksessions/Feature+Presentations/QMONYA04SZBL
[10]: http://www.macworldexpo.com/dev/20/events/20SFO07A/conference/tracksessions/Create/QMONYA04SX55

Permanent article URL: http://db.tidbits.com/article/8789
This is a specially formatted version of this TidBITS article that removes colors, and optionally removes images; it's designed to minimize the use of ink and paper.
Unless otherwise noted, this article is copyright © 2006 TidBITS Publishing, Inc.. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. Reuse governed by this Creative Commons License: http://www.tidbits.com/terms/.