It's only April, and people are already getting jazzed about next July's MacWorld Expo. (We know we're pumped about going.) And the buzz is only getting busier now that, as MacCentral points out, the keynote is titled "Steve Jobs and Special Guest."

Blimey! Speculation runs rampant as to the identity of the mystery guest. Probably the most obvious explanation is that perhaps Apple expects to name a permanent CEO by then, and the Expo is the natural event at which to introduce him/her. If not a new CEO, perhaps a new boardmember will be inaugurated, or the head of some large corporation may be brought out to announce a new partnership. Our money's on Larry Ellison of Oracle, Apple board member and Steve's best friend, who will be trotted out to announce and demonstrate the Mac NC. Or, it could just be another lame celebrity tie-in, otherwise known as "a feeble attempt to relate." If it comes to that, we hope it's Drew Carey; there's no bigger crowd-pleaser than a big, funny geek in glasses.

Whoever the mystery guest is, AtAT will be in the keynote audience to witness the spectacle. Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait. But if it's Bill Gates, we'll be sorely disappointed. (Unless, of course, some of the more rabid elements of the audience take it into their heads to get "rowdy." We, of course, would never sink to such a level. Much.)

In what is undoubtedly the most embarrassing failed product demo since Larry Ellison's nonfunctional NC, this morning Bill Gates was caught with his OS down. He was in the middle of showing the upcoming Windows 98 to a large Comdex crowd when suddenly the whole thing came crashing down around his ears. The seedy details may all be found in an InfoWorld Electric article.

Gates was apparently demoing Windows 98's support for a USB-attached scanner when everything went kablooey. What we find particularly telling about this little fracas is that we highly doubt that Gates was giving this demo without it having been scripted and rehearsed many times before the show. If, in such a controlled environment, Windows 98 is still unstable enough to publicly embarrass the richest man on the planet, that doesn't bode too well for the stability of the shipping product. Since it's slated for release on June 25th, that only allows perhaps six more weeks worth of work on it before it has to be sent to duplication. Even product manager Chris Capossela admitted that they "still have a lot of work to do," as he quickly worked to restore the system after the crash. And that only tells us that it's business as usual in Microsoftland: ship a product loaded with bugs and guarantee upgrades for years to come. Geez, a ZDNet article even lists some of the problems that Microsoft apparently hopes to fix-- like "the product's complexity." Good luck. Isn't that the sort of thing you want to catch in the design phase?

Incidentally, we still haven't heard of any features that make us particularly interested in checking out Windows 98. Multiple monitors? Yawn-- been there, done that. USB support? Well, okay-- now all you need is a USB-equipped computer; and Macs will support USB soon, too. Being able to use a web browser as the interface to your file system? Yecch. Call us when NT 5.0 is ready to ship and we'll take another look-- until then, we'll be waiting for Allegro and Sonata.

Well, whaddaya know... We never would have guessed that the reaction to yesterday's commercial suggestion would be so positive! Thanx to all of you who expressed your approval of our little script, and those of you who went so far as to recommend that we consider a career in advertising are far too kind. (And possibly slightly delusional, though that's entirely a judgement call.)

A couple of important points were made, however. First of all, Dave Bursik mentions that Apple should be "cautious" about using the Y2K issue in ads, since, of course, it doesn't matter that your operating system is compliant if none of your applications are. However, this is much less of a problem on the Mac platform, as any applications that use the standard Mac Toolbox calls should work just fine. We think Apple has enough of an advantage in this area to play it up in ads. Secondly, Jered Heeschen feels that "Think Millennium" is "too pretentious," and suggests "Think Ahead" instead-- which we think is brilliant.

Faithful viewer Daniel P. Wade, however, has a suggestion for a Y2K-centric Apple commercial that we think takes the cake:

Ad opens with REM's 'End of the world as we know it' tune.

Shot of the chaotic office with people popping their heads over cubicles asking questions like: 'What day is it today?' '1st January 2000'. Looks down at computer and frowns: 'Oh'.

The shot settles on somebody working away, oblivious to the chaos. Then the chorus kicks in a little louder: 'It's the end of the world as we know it'. Shot changes to focus on the Apple logo on the person's computer. 'And I feel fine!'. ;)