Ed’s Note: Carleen is coming on board for us to cover Macworld this week. Her intro note and contact info below.
By Carleen Hawn: It’s that time of year again, sportsfans, when you’re sure to get bumped from a First Class upgrade list by a chic nerd in sneakers with more money to waste on his airfare as Apple fanatics the world-over make their way to SF for the annual Macworld Conference & Expo –the Apple minority’s answer to CES (also this week in Las Vegas), and the ultimate showcase for vendors of Mac OS tools and products.
This year’s program is loaded with tutorials for mastering things like Apple Script (it “thinks”!), the new Final Cut Studio (“post-production studio in a box”) and something described as Beyond the Box Advanced Mac OS X Server Techniques. (“Bring your brains. It will hurt, but it’s a good hurt.”) The speakers list looks a bit more—uh, fun: director Kevin Smith (Clerks) hosts a Q&A on the state of digital film making; Diggnation’s co-founder, Kevin Rose, kicks back (with beer!) to share his “street-wise take on ... tech, business, science, sports and entertainment” (football banter, after all), and David Pogue offers his “revue” of Mac wisdom set to showtunes.
Of course, none of this is why we go to Macworld.  Tuesday’s Stevenote is the main event, when Apple chief Steve Jobs unveils his latest bit of consumer electronics-artistry. “Christmas gifts in January,” one devotee says. This year ‘St. Steve’ is expected—again—to unveil the long-awaited ApplePhone, whatever it is called. This being my first time to Macworld, the prospect of being in on the revelation has me jazzed, but even if the phone doesn’t materialize I’ll do my best to share the best stuff here. For Macworld veterans in attendance, news tips and party invites are welcome at: carleen AT carleenhawn.com.  Macworld opens today, Jan. 9 and runs through Friday Jan. 12.
Carleen Hawn is a San Francisco-based business journalist. Her work has been published in Forbes, FastCompany, Business2.0, Outside and San Francisco.