In looking for a way to integrate my Twitter contacts into my Address Book (which is my main contact management tool) I came across this nugget

Hidden OS X feature: Twitter integration

You'll need to install the Developer Tools and drag "The Twitterverse.qtz " from the /Developer/Examples/Quartz Composer/Compositions/XML/The Twitterverse/ into the preview part of the Screensaver preferences. Just enter your Twitter username and password into the options and you see a nifty display of your Twitter friends and their profiles.

You can see an image of it working here.

 OS X Integration • Twitter

Over at Hydrapinion I've mused on what I do to avoid my data becoming fragmented while I'm out of the office.

The problem is, when I'm away from the office for more than a few hours, something that happens practically every day, the information I have on my laptop and the information back home are out of sync.

 Data • Mobility

I wrote this story about the iPhone some months ago for the Mebourne PC User Group. I don't think too many people would argue that the Melbourne PC User Group is a fairly conservative group and that they're likely to not be swayed too much by a bunch of market hype. That's why I did some analysis on whether the iPhone lived up to the hype.

So, does the iPhone live up to the hype? At the end of the day, the iPhone is a well designed smartphone. However, hardware is only about 25% of the iPhone story. I think that the iPhone delivers the most nicely integrated software package on any smartphone thus far. The thing is, there's nothing the iPhone does that can't be done by any other phone. What it does do is make using a smartphone easy.

 iPhone

Macworld Expo 2009

As Bob Dylan sang in the 1960s - "the times, they are a-changin'". If the Macworld Expo 2009, Apple's last appearance at this iconic annual event, tells us anything, it tells us that Apple is a company in transition. This is a process that began a couple of years ago with Apple moving to Intel processors and changing its name. At this year's Expo that continued with Steve Jobs not even rating a mention during Phil Schiller's address.

I've heard this year's keynote presentation described as low key, subdued, boring and dull. However, when I think back to the keynote about three years ago all we got then were some new hardware announcements (well, this year we got the new unibody 17" MacBook Pro), new iLife and iWork releases and the usual "state of the union" type address such as sales data, retail store openings and the like. In other words, this was a normal keynote address. the ones we've recently had with iPhone announcements were the unusual ones.

When Apple announced the all new unibody Macbook and macBook Pro back in October 2008, it was clear that major product announcements could come at any time and that Apple wasn't going to to be tied into anyone else's schedule.

I think what we're about to see is a shift by Apple. Steve jobs is an incredible CEO. Most folks don't remember that Apple was on the brink of disappearing. Steve Jobs' return in 1997 was the beginning of a huge revival. At one stage, Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Computers, suggested that the best thing Apple could do was fold up their tent and give the remaining value of the business back to the shareholders. Today, Apple's market capitalisation exceeds Dell's by some margin.

Apple is, in my view, about to make a really big push for the hearts, minds and wallets of the business sector. The move to Intel CPUs means that folks can run a quarantined Windows installation for specific applications while retaining the operational benefits of the Mac OS.

iWork 09 now works natively with Microsoft Word files with no need to go through an export step and there's a new, online collaboration engine. Yes, I know that Pages and Numbers lack many of the high end features of Word and Excel but the features those applications have support the vast majority of users. Many people muse that most folks only use 10% of Word's capability but that everyone uses a different 10%. I reckon Pages has 80% of Word's feature set - more than enough for most users and certainly enough to compete and make for a profitable business. In any case, Apple wins the ease of use battle (in my opinion) although i actually like the Office 2007 "ribbon" (many people don't).

What we've learned from this year's Macworld Expo keynote address is that Apple is setting an agenda for the next 10 years and that they are getting serious about the business sector. Their hardware is very good, they have a great operating system and they're now backing that up with a serious push with their productivity apps. When Apple dropped the word "computer" from their name it told us that Apple wants to be more than just a computer business. We're now seeing that intention translate into a strategy and being executed.