Countdown to Macworld: Day 3

Philip Blog, News

Seven more days to go. Remember to tweet your birthday greetings (tagged #smile10) and your Facebook comments. Every day until the opening day of Macworld, we'll be giving out some prizes to random tweeters and commenters. Today's prize is the coveted Smile coffee mug.

Another great photo from the archive below. In 2005, Brian Bucknam joined the regular Macworld booth team. Brian is an awesome developer who has worked with us for years. He's also great at the booth, with his combination of expertise and calm demeanor. In this photo, that's Brian on the right, along with Philip, Jean, Greg and Sean (right to left). In the background, you can see that Circus Ponies was our neighbor that year. They made quite an impression with their popcorn machine!

Macworld 2005


Countdown to Macworld: Day 2

Philip Blog, News

We are counting down the days to our 10th Macworld, where we'll be celebrating our 10th Anniversary.

Here's a photo from our second Macworld — 2004 in San Francisco. That's when we released PDFpen 1.0. PDFpen has come a LONG way since then. In 2009, we won a Macworld Eddy Award for PDFpen and in 2012, PDFpen for iPad won Best of Show!

It was my first Macworld working with SmileOnMyMac (as we were known then). The community and excitement that I experienced those four days got me hooked. I said to my sister at the time, “I think it could be a lot of fun to work in the Mac business.” I had no idea how much fun!

At the booth with Greg is Sean Newman, our good friend and regular Macworld booth staff through 2009.

Remember to tweet your birthday greetings (tagged #smile10) and your Facebook comments. Every day until the opening day of Macworld, we'll be giving out some prizes to random tweeters and commenters.

Trivia: This was the first and only appearance of the original SmileOnMyMac logo at Macworld.

Greg and Sean Macworld 2004


Macworld 2013: Smile’s 10th Birthday!

Philip Blog, News

Smile was founded in 2003 by Philip Goward and Greg Scown. The two first met at Macworld San Francisco that year. (My sister Judy introduced them, in fact!) They decided to develop DiscLabel together and exhibit at Macworld New York that fall. DiscLabel won Best of Show, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Now in 2013, we are celebrating the 10th anniversary AND the 10th Macworld we've exhibited at. We know that not everyone can be at Macworld to wish us a happy birthday in person, but we would love to have your tweets (tagged #smile10) and Facebook comments. Every day until the opening day of Macworld, we'll be giving out some prizes to random tweeters and commenters! 

On Day 10, January 30 (Macworld Eve!), we'll be giving away a bundle with all the prizes from the previous nine days!

Greg and Philip at Macworld NY 2003


Sydney Meetup; MacMania Begins

Philip Blog, macmania, MUGS, Smileworthy

The MacTalk meetup in Sydney was great. Harts Pub in The Rocks was packed with local and not-so-local Mac geeks eager to meet Leo Laporte, Don McAllister and Allison Sheridan. Leo, in particular, was swarmed with fans.

I met several interesting folks. Here’s Chloe Tse, a 3D artist and huge TWiT fan. If there was a prize for best t-shirt, Chloe would have won.

Allister Jenks wins the prize for traveling the greatest distance just to hang out with us. He lives in Wellington, New Zealand. A loyal NosillaCastaway, he was happy to meet Allison Sheridan.

 

Here’s a photo of Leo. On his left is Steven Sommer, just one of the many local Sydney Mac geeks we enjoyed talking to.

But MacMania is not all fun and games! We had our first day of sessions. Don McAllister kicked off the conference with a thorough survey of reading in the age of digital books. A veritable show-and-tell, Don brought along multiple Kindles and other e-readers to discuss their pros and cons. Of course Don has the new iPad mini, and those of us not lucky enough to get one before the cruise had a chance to see Don’s.

Tomorrow we’ll be in Melbourne. I hear we’ll have a meetup with local Mac geeks there. I know we have a meetup with some koalas at the Koala Sanctuary.


Greetings from Sydney

Philip Blog, Live, macmania, Photos, Podcasts, Public Appearances

Sydney Apple StoreIt's Jean here in Sydney, Australia, in advance of joining up with this year's MacMania cruise. It's going to be a great conference, with chief TWiT Leo Laporte, Don McAllister of ScreenCastsOnline, Allison Sheridan of Nosillacast, Sal Soghoian, the Apple Product Manager of AppleScript and Automator fame, among others. 

This will be my third MacMania cruise. The first two were very rewarding experiences, both professionally (I learned a lot and got to meet lots of nice Smile fans) and personally (I've made many good friends–when you are trapped together on a boat, it helps to be friendly!). This cruise departs from Sydney on November 7, and will visit several ports in Australia and New Caledonia. The conference sessions take place while the ship is at sea; on this cruise we have 7 days at sea, so we will be learning a lot.

The highlight is a solar eclipse on November 14. Along with the Mac group, there is another conference, Cosmic Trails, sponsored by Sky and Telescope. I'll also be attending some of their sessions. I look forward to meeting some astronomy geeks and learning more about the Sun, the stars and the universe. 

The local Sydney Mac geeks from MacTalk have organized a meet-up for November 6 at Harts Pub at 7 pm. I'd love to meet any Sydneysider Smile fans, so if you are in the area, please come out and have a schooner with the MacMania gang and meet some of your favorite podcasters. grin