Pre-Macworld Thoughts

Well, it's the last minute before Macworld Expo starts, so here's a few bits for you:

• If you want to get a first-hand feel for what's going on, check out the Macworld Expo 2007 Flickr Pool and Twitter Macworld channel. I'll be contributing to the latter but not the former, as sadly, I don't have any way to get photos off my camera (grrr) (it's a long, dull story).

• If you want to come to my Web Designer/Developers BoF on Wednesday, it's in room 306.

• At some point, try to find a picture of the speaker swag bag (I can't post the pic I just took because, well, see above). I thought that the Microsoft Search Champs bag I got last year was impressive (pic 1, pic 2); this one makes that one look like nothin'.

• Sadly, AIM on my BlackBerry is acting up the last few days, but I should have fairly regular access to both my Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk IM accounts. If you need to reach me, those are probably your best bets.

• I have to get up at an ungodly early hour to get a keynote seat, so I'm off to bed now. Tomorrow (well, later today at this point), we'll know what's new and cool.

Update: Courtesy of Tom, you can now see a picture of the bag. Thank you, sweetie!

Dr. Charles Seiter, R.I.P.

It's with great sadness that we note the passing of our friend Charles Seiter, after a long illness. Charlie was, in many ways, responsible for us moving to Healdsburg in the first place.

I first met Charlie back in the mid-Nineties, when we were both Contributing Editors at Macworld. I contributed to a book called Yahoo! Unplugged in 1995, and after that he asked me to co-write another book with him, Macworld Web Essentials.

I remember him at one of Macworld's offsite editorial retreats, in the bar. Karaoke happened, and Charlie took the stage and did a punk rendition of Willie Nelson's "Crazy." Kind of in the style of early Cramps. It was especially funny and cool because he always dressed as an academic, often in coat and tie. He dressed that way because that's who he was; he worked for many years in the sciences and in academia. He was the only person at Macworld for many years who could review things like Mathematica. But he always had a punk-rock sensibility.

In 1999, I'd written a couple of books back-to-back, and wasn't really good company. So Dori told me to get the heck out of Dodge and take a vacation. I came to Healdsburg to visit Charlie and his wife Loretta. Of course, I'd never have come to Healdsburg if they hadn't been here. A couple of days later, I called up Dori and told her I wanted to move, and a year later we made that dream real. He changed our lives immensely. I thanked him then, and I thank him again now.

He was a brilliant, funny, warm man. He'll be missed.