On Tuesday during the Mac IT opening session “Why Companies Are Switching From PCs to Macs” CIO Dale Frantz from AWC gave a progress update on moving from a Total Windows shop to (when its all over) a 85% Mac to 15% PC conversion. One of the biggest changes was switching over from Active Directory to Apple’s Open Directory but it went unnoticed by AWC’s users, The only impact was everyone had to change their password when starting on Monday after the weekend swop. Justification was centered around Microsoft licensing structure and outdated hardware that could not run Vista.

 

Frantz estimated that they are about 45% there and expects to save $600,000 this year and after 3 years 2 Million dollars. The main software application that only runs in XP would have had to be re-writen for Vista but is now being ported over to Java. Frantz said one of the side benefits was that XP running with Parallels on intel iMac’s seem to be more stable than the original PC’s.

 

The biggest news came from Bruce Wolf with Royal Caribbean cruise line announced the company was building 6 new ships and all of the digital TVs are going to be hooked to either a Mac mini or Apple TV with Xserves in both the broadcast station and data center. The ship will be offering about 30 channels and each channel will have a dedicated Xserve also movies on demand. The technology needed to last for 15 years without any major changes to the ships infrastructure. Apple and Nanonation provided the solution and slides of the interface screens and test lab where shown.

A lot of people don’t know that Sinbad and I go way back… well, maybe not way back… o.k. I just met him today. Apparently he is a fellow mac geek and an all around nice guy. I sat next to him durring the Keynote, he took copious notes and “whoo-hooed” with the rest of us.

I didn’t bring up First Kid.

Time Capsule

Steve Jobs hasn’t lost his touch. While this keynote wasn’t as exciting as the iPhone announcment keynote (what is?), it was very good and a lot of fun to attend. Apple already has the keynote available for you to watch for yourself. But if you don’t have the time, I’ll sum it up for you…

This little wireless wonder is WiFi base station and a 500GB ($299) or 1TB ($499) hard drive that automatically backs up your digital stuff using Time Machine.

iPhone Software Update

This update includes a lot of what users have been asking and wating for, including “find me” mapping, web clips, and home screen customization. I can’t wait to try it all out.

iTouch Update

You iThouch users can now get Mail, Maps, Weather, Notes, and Stocks added with this latest $20 iTouch update Seems like a deal to me.

iTunes Movie Rentals and a redesigned Apple TV

You can now rent movies on iTunes for around 4 bucks. You can keep the file and watch it anytime within 30 days, but once you start watching it, it will expire in 24 hours. I personally don’t think 24 hours is enough time. I think they should extend this to 36 hours, to give people more fexiblility. Either way it’s exciting that every major studio has signed on. So that will offer users a ton of great content.

Speaking of great content. With access to HD podcasts, I’d love to see our Vacation Planning DVD show available for users to download for free. It’s also a great opportunity to offer “direct from the parks” type content to entertain and educate veiwers about our properties.

The new Apple TV will let you rent those movies in HD for around 5 bucks (same rules apply), but no computer is required. You can do it all through Apple TV. My favoirte feature though are all the photo accessibility enhancements. You can now access your .mac and Flickr photos to display in full HD glory.

MacBook Air

Though we kind of knew it was coming, it was still exciting to see the much discussed MacBook Air a reality. This thing is super thin and very light. It starts at $1799 and comes with a 13.3 inch display (LED), a full keyboard, built-in 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, built-in iSight and a full 2GB of RAM. Plus, it gives you a lot of the same gesture control you love from your iPhone right on the trackpad. Nice.

It’s only 7:30 in the morning here, and we’re in the Moscone Center all lined up for the Keynote. It started in the wee hours of the morning outside, wrapping around the building. Then around 6:00am the Apple employees arrived, and this place started coming to life.

Soon there were security guards and line monitors, the lights in the Moscone center turned on, and before we knew it we were being escorted up the escaltors to our new line here on the second floor.

For those of you keeping tabs, I’m number five in the Platinum/Super pass line. That’s right. There are at least five geekier people than me.

Everyone here at MacWorld is running around predicting what Steve will announce tomorrow. Most are predicting some sort of ultra-portable device that the crowd is calling the MacBook Air.

I think the crowd may be on to Apple this time.

In fact, Apple has uncharacteristically tipped their hat to the possibility by redirecting macbookair.com to a page that tells you to watch the keynote tomorrow to see.

It sure fits the slogan. But if it is the much discussed MacBook Air, then I’ll be a little disappointed. It’s a little like knowing what you’re getting for Christmas…

Update: macbookair.com isn’t owned by Apple after all, but by someone redirecting to Apple’s site with a creative URL.

Day one is coming to a close and my head is swimming with all things Dreamweaver CS3.  I used GoLive (as far as WISIWIG’s go) before its demise, but after todays session, I’m ready for Dreamweaver. 

I’m impressed with Dreamweaver’s integration with PhotoShop, making roundtrip image editing really easy. I have to admit too, that the HTML and CSS generated by Dreamweaver needs a lot less “tweaking” than GoLive’s code soup did.

I picked up way too much info to post here, but I’ll host a Dreamweaver session once I’m back in the office for those of you who are interested. 

We’ve arrived in San Francisco and have already scoped out the Moscone center.  It’s not too crowded yet, as they’re still setting up for tomorrow, but the geeks are arriving in mass.

If you haven’t seen them yet, Apple has hung banners everywhere that state “There’s something in the air”.  Are you excited?