If it ain't broke, don't fix it-- and use it every chance you get. That's the attitude that Apple's taking when it comes to the wildly successful Apple Demo Days program. For quite a while now, Apple's been taking volunteers from the Mac community and setting them up in CompUSA stores (and, more recently, Best Buy outlets as well) on special occasions like the debut of the iMac or Mac OS 8.5. The idea is to have someone in the store who knows a lot about Macs who will be able to demonstrate the product and answer questions better than the average store employee could. (Not that that's a particularly difficult task, based on our own observations...) If tapping your fiercely loyal user base for volunteers to help make your company money isn't thinking differently, we don't know what is.

So Apple Demo Days work, and Apple's turning up the volume for this holiday season. No longer content to reserve Demo Days just for product introductions, they're now planning Demo Days every single weekend from now until the end of the year, in an obvious attempt to push as many iMacs under the Christmas tree as possible. And according to MacCentral, in an effort to improve the effect of the promotion, Apple's going for consistency when choosing its volunteers; they'd prefer to sign on "individuals willing to work all 13 events," though of course they'll take other volunteers as well. If you're over 21, know the Mac like the back of your hand, and can spin a mean demo, you might want to check with your local users' group to see how you can sign up. Apparently there's even some money involved.

It's no secret that the consumer sales numbers this holiday season are extremely important to Apple, and not just financially. Sure, the profits on every iMac sold will add some welcome cash to Apple's quarterly results, but the real issue here is one of credibility. Recent reports in the media played up the fact that iMac sales slowed in September (at least when compared to August-- no surprise there) and the iMac's popularity this holiday season is what may cement its place on the "must-have" list in the media's eyes. This is also the season when Apple might be able to show that market share growth is still possible. So what's Santa got under the tree for Apple this year?

We swear, stuff changes so quickly in Apple's world, it's not too difficult to get surprised by a blast from the past. Remember a couple of years ago when Apple had plans to open a string of "Apple Café" Internet coffeehouses? This was back in the Amelio Days, we reckon, when rather than focusing on creating outstanding products, the plan for Apple's turnaround seemed to be to release uninteresting, less-reliable computers while plastering the Apple logo on barely-related third-party ventures. Had that plan stayed on course (and assuming that Apple had the cash to keep burning through), we'd all be constantly rebooting our cheaply-constructed Power Mac 4400-derived generic-looking PCMacs while sipping Apple Java and keeping warm by the fire of a flaming PowerBook 5300+ ("Still no CD-ROM drive-- but now burns 50% longer!").

Hmm, we seem to have strayed from the point before we even got there. Okay, here's the thing: back when the Apple Café idea was being put together, Apple also agreed to have their name and logo branded onto a series of educational toys. The idea was that Apple's brand name conjured up images of education, since they had the educational computer market locked up pretty tight. Never mind that toys aren't computers; the brand's the thing. (Had this plan progressed, we wonder if we'd eventually have seen Apple Chalk and Apple Cafeteria Food?) If none of this rings a bell, you should feel lucky that things never got very far with these ideas. Anyway, the reason we bring it up is that the company who wanted to use the Apple brand on their educational toys was Marvel Enterprises (the same folks who came out with all those cool comic books), and they've just settled the financial issue of whether or not they actually had to pay Apple for the use of the name, since those educational toys never came out.

According to a Reuters story, things went like this: Marvel originally agreed to pay at least $3 million in royalties to Apple for the use of the name and logo, but soon after the agreement, Apple's "financial difficulties" made Marvel rethink the wisdom of connecting their products with Apple. They actually tried to get back their $1 million advance payment, but Apple held firm and said Marvel still owed them the remaining $2 million, whether they used the name or not. This was recently settled, and Marvel had to cough up another $1.5 million. And thus ends that debacle. Whew. Now excuse us, but it's getting chilly in here-- time to throw another 5300 on the fire.

Things are a little slow right now on "Redmond Justice;" courtroom proceedings involve philosophical arguments about whether the "integration" of Internet Explorer and Windows helps or hurts the consumer. Not overly thrilling, at least not in a soap-operatic sense. The good news, however, is that things are heating up in another Microsoft-related lawsuit (that legal department must be logging a lot of hours these days). Remember how our old friend Sun sued Microsoft for contract violation? When Microsoft shipped a bastardized version of Java that effectively crippled the language's whole cross-platform appeal, Sun dragged Microsoft into court. That lawsuit certainly hasn't caused nearly as much noise as "Redmond Justice," but it's progressing nicely and things are getting interesting.

According to InfoWorld Electric, Sun's been granted another preliminary injunction in the case. The first, granted last March, required that Microsoft remove the "Java-Compatible" logo from all of its products that used the tainted Java-- including Internet Explorer and its Software Development Kit for Java. This latest one is even more severe, however: Judge Ronald Whyte has ordered Microsoft to actually change its products so that they can pass a Sun Java compatibility test. In order to do that, Microsoft would have to redo its Java Virtual Machine and incorporate it into IE, Windows 98, Visual J++, and anything else that currently uses the non-compliant Java. Analysts are calling this prospect a "logistical nightmare," especially if Microsoft only has 90 days in which to comply.

Of course, the technically-simpler solution would be to keep the tainted Java but remove all references to "Java" from the products. That creates an interesting marketing scenario, however-- after all, how do you sell Visual J++ if you can't call it a Java programming environment? Perhaps Microsoft can just trademark a new name for their "unique" implementation: "Internet Explorer 4.0-- now fully Javahh™-compliant!" Maybe no one will read the fine print...