H&R Block

is the publisher of TaxCut, the leading tax preparation software for the Mac according to recent Macworld Magazine reviews. This year TaxCut has a Platinum version with more features. The show special price for a Platimum download is $24.95 which will probably be good at least through the weekend. The price includes one free State return and one free eFile.

That wraps up Macworld Expo SF 2003. We enjoyed this Macworld, our first in San Francisco. It was nice to see Adobe and Macromedia booths again but Quark which makes Quark Express the leading publishing software was MIA again. The crowds were good and we await IDG's official attendance announcement.

Looking forward to Macworld Expo NYC 2003 this summer (7/14-18/03), it is still uncertain as to whether Apple will participate. Apple threatened to pull out when the venue for the summer event was moved back to Boston for 2004.

-- TGIF, January 10 --

[Update 5p PT] Safari Update 1.0 Beta (v51) 1-10-03: From Apple, "This Safari Update is recommended for all Safari users." The creation date is 1/10/03 and the version number is 0.8.1.

[Update 4:30p PT] Macworld Keynote and Power of X as QuickTime Movies on demand are now available:

Steve Jobs' Keynote Address

Phil Schiller's "Power of X"

[Andy King]

Macworld Expo SF Show Floor Report 2: After working with the new PowerBook G4s at Apple's booth in South Moscone we headed to the smaller booths in North Moscone. We normally visit the smaller booths last but we've found that a lot of the undiscovered gems are hidden there. North Moscone also houses the game area. It's only a coincidence that media support from the media center is in North Moscone as well.

This is this reporter's first San Francisco Macworld. While we always have been told that it is much bigger than the summer Macworld Expo in New York, it doesn't seem significantly so to us. One does have to cross Howard Street (actually or under it) to visit the whole show but New York's Javits Center seems to be so much larger. We haven't measured either or looked up their specs so it's just an impression. The crowd here seems to be not as thick either. It's much easier here than in New York to get around to all the booths without bumping into people or being bowled over--maybe it's a better layout.

"Rhoda Draws a Crowd." Out of sheer curiosity, we had to visit this booth first. Rhoda Grossman, pictured at top right, was entertaining the crowd by digitally drawing caricatures (bottom right) using her digital tablet, PowerBook 2000 (Pismo) and Painter 7. Rhoda is the lady in the hot pink hat.

IRS. Yes, the real U.S. government Internal Revenue Service actually has a booth at MWSF. We instinctively shied away from getting too close. It was hard to do that surrepticiously because NO ONE went near the booth while we observed it. Hmmm....