Macworld 2009 roundup

As many of you know, I recently returned from the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco. I’ve attended pretty much every year. This year’s event was preceded by the announcement that it would be Apple’s last year at the show, after 25 years, and that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would not be delivering the keynote (which was due to his ill health). While much was made in the press about this, it didn’t hamper the enthusiasm at the show. It was still the ultimate gathering place for hardware and software developers, and professionals in the Macintosh community to meet, network, and learn. For UGUtech, it is all those things, as well as a place for the Apple Consultants Network to hold their annual business meeting, training events and networking. It’s an extremely productive trip for my business, as it gives me the chance to meet developers and engineers face to face, see their new and updated offering, and learn about new developments for my clients. This year was no exception, and I learned a lot for both myself and my clients. I even volunteered to staffMarketCircle’s booth for an afternoon, where they were showing Daylite, Daylite Touch, and Billings. It was a great experience where I had the chance to test my knowledge and skills of MarketCircle’s applications, what they do, and how they work, all to a steady stream of interested attendees.

While the future of Macworld 2010 is up in the air, due to both industry trends away from trade shows and Apple’s pull-out, I feel strongly that there is a chance of a good Macworld 2010 without Apple, or that some other meeting ground for the Apple and Mac community will take its place. If there’s another one, I’ll likely be there.

Daylite Touch and Daylite 3.9

On Monday Jan 4th I attended a Daylite Partners meeting hosted by MarketCircle, makers of Daylite. They gave us a sneek peek and tech demo on their new project, Daylite Touch. DT is a companion application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows mobile integration with Daylite. Tasks, appointments, projects, and contacts are all synced over wifi or mobile networks. It will be a paid add-on, and will require the soon be released free upgrade to Daylite 3.9, which in itself is full of massive improvements in syncing accuracy and speed. These improvements are due mainly to the fact that DL 3.9 no longer uses the OpenBasedatabase engine as its back end; it has been replaced withPostgreSQL, and much more powerful and modern database. What that means to you is speed, stability, better sync, and no more having to put license codes in each copy of Daylite… it all goes into just Daylite server!

Watch an interview with Marketcircle CEO Alykhan Jetha, founder of MarketCircle, as he explains Daylite Touch from the Macworld show floor

LightSpeed 3

I also attended a training and product announcement for LightSpeed partners and resellers. If you’re not familiar with it, LightSpeed is the most fantastic Point of Sale (POS) applications for small business out there, Mac or Windows (LS is Mac only). It has been called “the point-of-sale (POS) software that has more in common with iTunes than with any business software you’ve ever seen” ( — MacVoices).

I am a LightSpeed partner, and was there to learn about their new 3.0 release. In short, there were a lot of welcome improvements, like a new POS screen, designed for faster transactions, multisotre integration, supports for debit cards and USB PIN pad hardware, and a completely rebuilt WebStore 2.0.Listen to an interview with Xsilva CEO and founder Dax Dasilva as he talks about Lightspeed on MacVoices, and DO take a quick look at the LightSpeed quick tour video.