Pardon our French, here, but holy crap! Or should that be "le crap sacré"? Whatever. Regardless of which vaguely offensive interjection we choose and in what language it's butchered, our intent is simply to convey a sense of utter shock and paralyzing disbelief that Apple is finally going for the competition's throat with a knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred marketing campaign that is obviously and unapologetically designed to swipe new Mac customers from the ranks of the Wintel hordes. As faithful viewer Cbee was first to point out, Apple's new "Real People" ad campaign features, well, real people-- talking about why they kicked their Windows systems to the curb and went all Mac-happy instead. An official Apple press release calls it the company's "largest ad campaign since 'Think Different'" and states that the first "Real People" TV spots premiered yesterday on a handful of cable networks. (Amazingly enough, despite our massive daily television infusions, the AtAT staff didn't spot one all day, but there's a better-than-slim chance we've got one kicking around in the TiVo. In the meantime, thank heaven for QuickTime.)

So if you were still wondering just what Apple was up to when it solicited feedback from ex- and soon-to-be-ex-Windows users with its "Hey PC users, we'd love to hear from you" web links last March, wonder no more; eight of the people who shared their tales of Mac migration with Apple are now sharing them with the rest of the world, too, in thirty-second bursts of televisual Wintel smackdown straight from the mouths of not just writers and DJs, but also programmers and Windows LAN administrators. Those of you who always thought it'd be a red letter day when Apple dared to use the phrase "Blue Screen of Death" in a TV commercial, it's time to take a red Sharpie to the ol' Word of the Day calendar, 'cause the time is finally upon us. Excited? You're darn skippy we're excited; this is the ad campaign we've been waiting for since dinosaurs roamed the earth. Or at least since beige was still cool.

Better still, this apparently goes way beyond being just a simple ad campaign: it qualifies as a "major strategic push." How do we know? Because faithful viewer Paul R. Ferro (who spotted one of the new ads on the Discovery Channel, thus independently confirming that the commercials are indeed out there doing their thing and it's not all just a cruel gag thrown together by Apple's PR department) noticed that not only is the "Real People" spiel the mondo focus of Apple's home page, but it's also got its own tab in the navigation header. Take a gander if you don't believe us; there it is, "Switch," right between "Store" and "iTools." "Switch" shares top billing right alongside such heavy hitters as "Support" and "Mac OS X." Click the link and you'll find dozens of subpages targeted at fed-up Wintel users, including testimonials from people who have already made the jump, frequently asked questions allaying their fears about the problems of migration, and details on how they can transfer their files and email to their shiny new Macs once they take the plunge. Clearly this is a big priority, and Apple's thirst for Wintel switchers has jumped a few dozen notches on the Unquenchable-o-meter.

Ooooh, we're just all tingly. Great things are afoot. It'll be interesting to see how this "Convert the Heathens" initiative plays out in the retail stores, which CNET reports may soon be homes to actual honest-to-goodness Wintel boxes just to show potential switchers just how much better Macs are by comparison. Stevenote-style bake-offs, anyone? Sure, the presence of a few PCs may well disrupt the otherwise clean lines of the Apple retail experience, but hey, a little bad feng shui is a small price to pay for bringing a few more Windoids over to the One True Faith. And isn't it nice to see Apple pitching Macs to the other side for a change, instead of leaving it up to us unpaid wild-eyed zealots all the time?

Not that we expected improvements to become obvious overnight or anything, but it's been quite a while since Apple lost its hold on its once-mighty lead in the education computing market and vowed to take it back again. So why don't we feel a whole lot better about Apple's position in the schools? Well, partly it's because of the occasional worrisome article-- like the one in The Chronicle of Higher Education (pointed out to us by faithful viewer, educator, and AtAT Dad Joe Miller) about how Dartmouth College, once a stronghold of Mac activity, is increasingly becoming Windows turf. It's a good article and recommended reading, but if you're the type who stresses over issues like Apple's shrinking share of the education market, keep the antacid of your choice within arm's reach.

So, faced with the sad fact that an alarming number of schools are still migrating away from the Mac, it's only natural that Apple would crank out still another Plan du Jour in hopes of stemming the bleeding. Today's scheme? Well, faithful viewer Matthew Rothenberg informs us that he's just dished the latest schoolyard dirt in a new article over at eWEEK. It seems that Apple has quietly merged its separate education sales and education marketing teams into one mighty Voltronesque 750-member mega-unit in hopes that this newly reorganized team will "be more cohesive and responsive with [Apple's] education sales and marketing efforts." Hey, stop laughing; sure, glueing two units together into a bigger outfit to make it "more responsive" may sound a tad wacky, but stranger things have happened. We're always happy to give Apple the benefit of the doubt.

Interestingly enough, this new super-team will not be headed up by the lovely and talented Cheryl Vedoe, Apple's up-'til-now head of the education marketing team who returned to Apple as its education savior back in October of 2000. Is that a reflection of someone's dissatisfaction with Ms. Vedoe's performance? We suppose it's always possible that Steve didn't get the results he'd hoped for when he told her to "regain market share beginning in 2001," but that's mere speculation. After all, Cheryl wasn't canned; she's now heading up Apple's PowerSchool division even as the company's unified education sales and marketing force is being led by one Mr. John Couch. Couch is yet another former Apple employee come home to roost; he was apparently the veep of Apple's "Personal Office Sales" division back in the Lisa days. (Heck, in our book, anyone with a name like "Couch" can't be all bad.)

Meanwhile, The Stevester isn't just delegating his way through Apple's education crisis; in classic Jobsian fashion, he's right in there in the personal touch. Faithful viewer Jens points out an Associated Press article which details Steve's visit to the state of Maine yesterday, where he teamed up with Governor Angus King to spread a little Reality Distortion Field energy in support of the state's plan to supply every junior high school kid in the state with an iBook. As you may recall, the plan's funding was jeopardized several times when Maine faced various budget shortfalls; it's "secure for the time being," but a little preemptive RDF strike never hurts.

So now we've got Vedoe cracking the whip on PowerSchool, Couch driving a newly-integrated education sales and marketing team, and Steve Himself in the trenches bending minds to his will for the good of Apple's education market share. How could this possibly not turn out for the best? (Don't answer that.)

Just a quickie, here, folks; if you're even remotely interested in Mac OS X's continuing development, the odds are good that you've been keeping at least one eyeball peeled and trained steadily on Think Secret recently. If so, then you're already aware of Think Secret's latest update on Jaguar, that lip-smacking upgrade due for delivery sometime this summer. If you somehow missed it, make sure you stop in and take a look around, because there's a ton of welcome info about integrated ODBC tools, a more flexible (and way more powerful) "Get Info" mechanism, significantly expanded network sharing options, automatically shuffling Desktop pictures, a revamped calculator app that (finally) has more features than the free calculator they hand out when you open a savings account at the local bank, translucent floating Stickies (ooooooo), and more.

We're looking forward to all that cool stuff in Jaguar-- we really are. You have no idea how much we could use a couple of translucent floating Stickies right about now. (We're easily amused.) But what's really got us grinning like maniacs despite the sleep deprivation is this screenshot, pointed out by faithful viewer jetfuel: Clarus the Dogcow is back, baby! And we're not sure, but we think she may have lost a little weight. She looks fabulous, though.

Yes, we thought we'd lost her-- or, at least, that Clarus's presence in Apple's next-generation operating system was limited to passing references in system files so obscure that even their own parents couldn't pick 'em out of a line-up. And really, having to open a doctored "localized.rsrc" file in ResEdit every single time you want to scope out Clarus always struck us as terribly unfair, especially since under Mac OS 9 she's still the high-profile mascot of the Page Setup dialog boxes. But with Jaguar, all that will change; soon, we'll be able to invoke Clarus at any time with a simple click on the Keyboard menu. Ah, life is good again.

Of course, that assumes that Clarus's presence as the icon for the new "Character Palette" in the currently seeded pre-release Jaguar build is more than just a placeholder while the graphic arts folks come up with the option's real icon. But we're not going to entertain such negative thoughts, preferring instead to walk on the sunny side of the street. Clarus lives!