I’ve been waiting for Numbers ever since it was rumored to be released in last years iWork (that never shipped). The reason: I’ve been tied to two options, the first is Google Spreadsheets for personal use and occasionally work when we 
need to collaborate on data and the other is excel. Numbers will never replace Google Spreadsheets for the collaboration side and it’s just too easy to use GS since I’m using Google Apps for my personal use. For work I primarily manage very large CSV files and I’ve been forced to use excel for these documents.
The problems with excel are long and would just waste space so I wont list them here but the top failings; it’s extremely slow running through rosetta on large sheets and it’s extremely buggy with large spreadsheets (e.g. scrolling). A couple days ago Apple announced numbers in their press conference and I downloaded the trial for iWork ‘08. As soon as I started it up I was impressed.
Similar to Keynote and Pages it’s very simple and robust but while you’re impressed with the ease and
functionality in the first few minutes the learning curve starts soon after. The learning curve for the MS Office users is rather annoying. Not annoying that Apple designed it this way but annoying that you’re habits of clunky office aren’t going to work with the iWork apps, especially Numbers. Even MS has noticed the UI of Office pre-’07 is obnoxious and that’s why they created the ribbon, something that completely resolves the UI issues of the old Office but is very hard to get used to if you’re a veteran at Office.
On to Numbers. The application is wonderful, I could see it helping out every excel lite user out there. Apple calls it
a “flexible canvas” and it’s wonderful, similar to Pages it allows for you to move anything anywhere without being tied to a grid or a table. Charts, Images and Graphs are going to make Numbers standout. Like Keynote you know whether you’re looking at a keynote presentation or a powerpoint well now you’ll know whether the spreadsheet was create in Numbers or Excel. And with it supporting Open XML it wont matter whether you send it for another user to open it in excel or create a PDF with it’s new “Interactive Print View”.
Apple has really given the common excel hater what they want in Numbers because it’s completely “revolutionized” remixed how spreadsheets are done. The shift away from what we expect form a spreadsheet program is refreshing and is going to help out a lot of people that don’t power use excel now.
For the power users of excel, don’t get too excited. It’s worth checking out since the purposes you use excel could be responsive in Numbers but some of my major functionalities are missing (for now). That one major option is “Auto Filter”. 
A missing Auto Filter option is extremely surprising to me since the ease of use is what Apple is going for and is extremely noticeable because the filtering is the same filtering in mail or any other core OS X app, very basic or too basic for me in a spreadsheet app.
For now I’m going to keep both and see what I can do with Numbers that I can’t in excel and hopefully it wont be the vice-versa.
…over 1000 hours of video will make its way onto Live for rental at about $4 a go, or for purchase (at an unstated price). Hard to imagine Xbox 360 doing for PC-free online movie downloads what all the other companies couldn’t or haven’t (we’re looking at you TiVo, Netflix, iTV, etc.), but then again Microsoft did start up with that Xbox Live music video download thing last year. Seriously though, what a coup would that be if Microsoft swooped in to make the Xbox 360 the premier digital content hub…
After finding out for sure that the Wii wont play DVDs the cost of the Wii compared to my 360 is practically the same. And if MS did something like this it would help me not have to buy an iTV or even their HD-DVD drive add-on. Wonderful rumor, I hope it’s true.
HD DVDs
Who needs HD-DVD or Blueray when you can get HD-HBO I know it’s technically the same but it sure looks awesome.
I’m watched “Revenge of the Sith” and it looked awesome. It makes me want to figure a recording scheme out so I can record these movies.
Another reason I might not be buying the HD-DVD add-on to my 360 would be because HD streaming to the X-Box 360. And rumor has it M$ will be having HD movie downloads to the 360 directly which would be sweet.
My nano broke last week after I dropped it into Avery’s little pool when I was picking here up (slipped out of my shirt pocket after the bike ride home) and I sent it back to Apple today. Hopefully they wont notice the water damage and they’ll fix it. Otherwise I really don’t know what to do about a new one.
I’m currently using Sara’s pink iPod mini. It’s adequate but I really want my own again. I tried craigslist for the first time tonight and ebay has nothing. To make it more difficult I don’t know if I want a nano again or the video version. And then the rumors of the “true” video iPod and the 8gb upgrades to the nano.
I’m leaning toward a video ipod even if a nano is ideal for the bike rides because the video would come in handy for the GL TV show lunch hour :D.
Looks awesome. Hopefully Apple will take a hint and get there rumored “tablet” out soon.YouTube – Microsoft Project origami … Read More »
February 27
Even though I am very content with my Nano I still am very excited about the next iPod rumors.
And even if it doesn’t come with Bluetooth or WiFi I would still be one of the first to order it.
Keeping on track, what iPod features would make up the ULTIMATE iPod.
Anything else?
30 Boxes was released yesterday and I was one of the lucky ones to get signed up before the “traffic overload”.
I’ve only played with it a couple times since this morning and I really like it. It’s everything I would want from a Google/Gmail calendar app. Even the open api is what I would expect from the big G but as you know they’re been lacking and slow with the release of their highly rumored app. I’d imagine the 30boxes team is very excited that Google hasn’t as of yet released the fabled competitor.
The features of 30 boxes are…there, it’s a calendar app so ease of use is the main priority and they seemed to have nailed it. Adding events is extremely easy with the “one box entry”, the click able dates, the js non pop-up windows all with simplicity of use. But there are a lot of features that are worth mentioning like the syndication options, tagging of events, searching, RSS, and buddies.
The things I didn’t notice, that I would like to see in the future. 1. A decent looking theme. It’s almost as if Google designed it. 2. You can’t edit the calendar from anywhere but the site, i.e. ical and ics uploading. You can share the cal and subscribe but you can’t edit it, as far as I know. Other then those two minuscule things I’d have to say 30 boxes is excellent and will be my main cal app for now on.
(TUAW)
Leander at the Cult of Mac blog has been feeling like Steve’s keynote from this past Tuesday just didn’t have the polish or energy that Macworld keynotes typically do. He was discussing this with a friend recently who, he says, is very much “in” at Apple, when his friend had something quite interesting to say. Namely, that “key … Read More »
January 12
If you’ve been following the keynote or been to any tech site today you might have noticed Apple has already gone Intel. And I love the catch phrase, “What’s an Intel chip doing in a Mac. A whole lot more than it ever did in a PC.”
Today they released their new iMac and the predecessor to the PowerBooks the MacBook pros. Both machines I planned on upgrading when they went to Intel but never at the same time and I emailed JasonB about how I was actually upset with this. But I’ll talk about that later.
So the iMac on Intel. Pretty cool, nothing new except the speed, so nothing really new to say other then it’s an awesome machine and I would only recommend this computer to anyone.
The Macbook Pro. The predecessor to the PowerBook. Damn It didn’t change but I’ve never wanted a Mac anymore then this one. I can’t wait for the speed of it and having the ability to boot XP on the same machine (rumored) is amazing. The power adapter invention is awesome, except Sara and I can no longer share power cables, that sucks.
iWeb and Life ‘06. I’ll definitely get it just so Sara can use iWeb she’s currently using word and exporting it to html for her eBay auctions, this would help a lot.
All the other stuff I don’t know about but I most likely will talk about them later.
…I took the opportunity over the past couple of days to stop in at various retailers in Southern New England to check out what people were saying about the Xbox 360. One thing I noticed was there is a large amount of incorrect information floating around regarding shipments of units. (One store (incorrectly) told me that ‘Microsoft won’t’ send us … Read More »
November 27
