These are really cool… and apparently authorized and licensed properly.

The first set is:

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Macworld is coming up in a couple of days, and although I will be on a plane during the breathlessly awaited keynote, I still have some thoughts on what may be coming up… about 95% of people writing online have thoughts on it, too.

After last year’s fantasy-fulfilling iPhone announcement, expectations are high for this Macworld. It seems very unlikely that Apple will top that, but here’s what I think you may see.

We’ll see hardware refreshes. Now that Apple is using Intel chips, we know a lot more about the release schedule of the processors they’re using, since Intel publishes a processor roadmap and is very vocal about new chips. Intel is in the process of pushing out new CPUs, the “Penryn” line, mobile, desktop and server, and I think we’ll see some new Apple machines using them – specifically new MacBook Pros and likely MacBooks as well, and an iMac speed bump.

The iMacs just had a significant refresh last summer and I can’t see Apple doing any major changes to them beyond giving them new CPUs. The MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, however, haven’t had any significant changes in a while. In fact, Apple followed a very clever strategy when they switched to Intel chips – they didn’t make major changes to the appearance of the machines. An end-generation PowerPC iMac or PowerBook doesn’t look much different from a first generation Intel iMac or MacBook Pro. This was a great way to subtly tell people that they were still the same machines.

The MacBook Pro/Power Book has looked the same for a long time now, and while it’s still a great looking machine, I expect that Apple will update it to bring it more in line with the appearance of the new iMac.

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This is an update of last year’s post… it wasn’t a great year for mainstream comics. Both Marvel and DC have gone down the path of satisfying long-time fans by brutally killing old characters. Both have been running long crossovers like Countdown, World War Hulk, 52 and Civil War which have ultimately served more the purpose of selling comics than telling satisfying stories.

This year’s major comics-related films have also garnered less than stellar reviews.

Given that, I don’t have a lot of new things to recommend, but there are a few things the comics fans in your life might enjoy.

Do you have a comics lover in your life who you’d like to get a holiday gift for, but haven’t got a clue what to get them? Read on, true believer.
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Amazon has six more cheap (99 cent) movie rentals for download this weekend. These prices are good until midnight Sunday November 4th. They’ve both reduced the total number of cheap movies they’re offering and reduced the amount of horror now that it’s post-Halloween.

As usual, you can direct the download of these movies to a Tivo that’s been associated with your Amazon account, or you can view them on Microsoft Windows or a supported portable device.

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Amazon has eight more cheap (99 cent) movie rentals for download this weekend. These prices are good until midnight Sunday October 28th. There’s even more horror available. I wonder if they’ll keep doing this post-Halloween?

As usual, you can direct the download of these movies to a Tivo that’s been associated with your Amazon account, or you can view them on Microsoft Windows or a supported portable device.

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Amazon has eight more cheap (99 cent) movie rentals for download this weekend. These prices are good until Sunday October 21st. It looks like they’re hitting the horror a bit for Halloween.

As usual, you can direct the download of these movies to a Tivo that’s been associated with your Amazon account, or you can view them on Microsoft Windows or a supported portable device.

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Amazon has made several movie downloads available for rental at only $0.99 via their Unbox service.

Downloaded movies can be viewed once within 30 days of the rental date. Once you start watching one, you have 24 hours to finish it. You can view them on your Windows PC, a compatible Windows mobile device, or a compatible Tivo unit (which must have a high speed Internet connection) which is registered with Amazon.

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The start of the fall TV season means lots of free stuff at the iTunes Store. Click on the link to see it at the store, and remember that some things stay free for a long time, some don’t:

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NBC and Amazon have made the pilot episodes for NBC’s new series “The Bionic Woman”, “Chuck”, “Life” and “Journeyman” available for free download. By free download, you can download them to a Windows PC and watch them on it or on TV via the TV out on your computer – or you can download them to your Series 2 Tivo (I don’t think they have Series 3 support yet). Links to the shows and an explanation of how to get them on your Tivo (it’s easy and it’s officially supported, no hackery involved) are after the cut.

NBC recently had a well-publicized kerfluffle with Apple over the iTunes Store, resulting in NBC deciding not to renew their contract to carry their TV shows on iTunes. Given that Apple can’t guarantee that those shows will be available for the whole season, they’ve decided not to offer any of NBC’s new fall programming (they wouldn’t be able to offer season subscriptions to shows).

There’s a lot of finger pointing. NBC says that Apple was inflexible in its pricing. Apple says that NBC wanted to raise the price on shows and wanted them to try to detect and prohibit pirated video and music from being loaded on iPods (which I can see no reasonable technical way to do other than requiring everything to be authenticate and DRM’ed, which is definitely well beyond “reasonable”).

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A week and a half ago I had the sad pleasure of enjoying the end of a long-running series that has entertained me for years. Yes, it was the end of Har… what’s that you say? Harry Potter?? No, no – Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law! No mention on CNN. No midnight lines at Borders. No parties with little kids dressed up wearing fake wings.

“The Death of Harvey” (available on iTunes) wraps it all up, with Harvey having to retry all the cases he’s tried over the course of his three seasons as an attorney at law, with X The Exterminator seeking Harvey’s crest for the final time, with the return of the Incredible Pottamus and that thing – that thing I sent you – and even the return of Stephen Colbert. The only thing lacking was Reducto.

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