Here we are again in the calm before the storm. Very little seems to be happening in the usually turbulent world of Apple Computer, as all the players are presumably scrambling around doing the holiday thing. There are trees to be trimmed, gifts to be wrapped, cookies to be baked, and, for the truly late, cards to be written and sent. (Guess what the AtAT staff's going to be doing tonight?) Hence, we're experiencing a lull in the action that's a Christmastime tradition here at AtAT-- between all this holiday activity and Macworld Expo coming up in two weeks, we're sitting in the middle of one of those information droughts that has most Mac news sites posting almost nothing but product release notices and fluff pieces. It's tranquil, like the falling snow... but that doesn't mean we have to like it.

Yes, we thrive on drama, and we get antsy when things aren't churning down in Cupertino. Luckily, we've got the disastrous state of our holiday shopping to keep us occupied. See, most of the friends and family on our list live in remote, far-flung corners of the earth (for example, Chicago) and so we have to ship almost all of our gifts from Boston. That means our deadline is considerably earlier than Christmas Eve. (Ah, for the good old days when we could pick up some last-minute presents at The Alley, which was open on Christmas day...) Luckily, shopping for the Mac users on our list is easier than ever these days, what with all these new-fangled games available. The "New Apple" claims to be psyched about Mac games, and we're really starting to believe it-- they've even got a high-profile Game Page on their web site, which we found courtesy of the MacGamer's Ledge.

There's a lot going on in the world of Mac games right now, and Apple's done a commendable job of staying on top of it all. Watch the Halo demo in QuickTime, read how to simulate Apple's campus in SimCity 3000, and visit links to all kinds of upcoming mayhem like Unreal Tournament and Aliens Vs. Predator. And if you're looking for gift ideas, there are plenty listed on Apple's page. (Who wants to get us a copy of Star Wars: Episode I Racer?) Yessiree, games are great stocking stuffers, and a nice way to burn off a little nervous energy as well. So while you're waiting for something dramatic to happen at One Infinite Loop, make your own drama: buy some games and experience a little bloodshed. (And if you head down to the local mall at this frenzied time of year to buy them, we guarantee you'll see real bloodshed before you even get in the door...)

Of course, while Apple generally produces the best drama, every once in a while another company manages to pull off something exciting. How about MetaCreations? Here's a company with a huge stable of creative graphics products, including several that the AtAT staff uses to produce this show: Bryce, Kai's Power Tools, Painter, Expression, and lots more. So what do they do? They announce that they're now planning to "focus solely on e-commerce visualization solutions for the web." Uhhhh... okay. That didn't come from out of left field; that came from out of the sports bar two blocks down.

So now the company's going to throw all its weight behind its MetaStream 3D web technology (basically, if you download and install a plug-in, you can stream 3D objects into your web browser-- oooooo), and the future of all those kick-ass graphics products is up in the air. According to the company's press release, MetaCreations "no longer sees the professional graphics business as offering growth as compared to its e-commerce visualization opportunities." Now, call us crazy (and we know you do!), but ditching Painter and Bryce to work on Yet Another Browser Plug-In strikes us as just a bit bizarre. Are people really going to want to download a plug-in just so they can look at a 3D model of that inflatable couch before they buy it online? Perhaps we just lack vision. Then again, when we tried to download and install the plug-in to try it out ourselves, all it did was crash our Mac. Hard.

Meanwhile, we admit we're a tad worried about the future of all those Metacreations graphics products, and we're not the only ones. A MacNN feature on this whole mess confirms that a hundred Metacreations employees are taking home pink slips for the holidays, the CEO of the company stepped down, and users of Bryce/Painter/etc. are all wondering just what Metacreations means by the phrase "divest its graphics software." It's a sinister phrase, and we don't like it one bit... especially since the elimination of Bryce, Carrara, Poser, and others would strike a serious blow to 3D creation on the Mac.

C'mon, folks, let's have a hearty round of applause for Microsoft! They've finally finished Windows 2000 (The Operating System Formerly Known As NT 5) and sent it off for duplication-- "right on time." Well, okay, maybe it's not right on time; in fact, by some counts, it's three years late. But that's the joy of operating system development: if it's going to be late, just rename it, and voilà! Suddenly it's ahead of schedule! Faithful viewer Jerry O'Neil pointed out a Wall Street Journal article with more details.

Now, before you get all indignant about Windows 2000's name change, don't forget-- Apple's an old pro at that game. Mac OS X's been through so many name changes and reconfigurations it's hard to believe that Apple bought NeXT a whopping three years ago. There was Rhapsody Premiere (originally due in January of 1998!) and Rhapsody Unified, which then got morphed into Customer Release 1 and 2, with different feature sets and release dates. But CR1 was due in "early summer 1998," and when that date started to slip, it was recast as Mac OS X Server and slated for the end of summer. It finally shipped in March of the following year. And we're still waiting for "the real thing," now known as Mac OS X, which was originally due ages ago and now probably won't see the light of day until perhaps May of 2000. (That's just a guess, by the way.)

Sadly, this means that Apple missed a golden opportunity with Mac OS X. If it had shipped before Windows 2000, it would have had a much better chance of making inroads into enterprise settings. Now, though, Windows gets another head start-- and the beta testers seem to be very happy with Microsoft's latest "heavy duty" OS. The real test will be what happens once it becomes commercially available in February, but if we were Steve Jobs, we'd be sweating right about now-- apparently Barnes & Noble's entire online store consists of systems running a beta of Windows 2000, so that bodes well for the product's stability. And you know that by now, Windows users have had their expectations lowered so far, if Win2000 doesn't burst into flames when the CD is removed from the box, people will call it the best OS ever created.