My how things have changed. The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is this week already. I didn’t think about it until this morning. Sure, I knew it was in early August this year. I knew that it would show off the next Mac OS X (aka Leopard). But unlike previous years where I poured over rumor sites or participated in online discussion forums speculating what was coming, this year I just didn’t pay it any mind. Too busy in Salesforce.

I purchased my current desktop Mac, a dual 2 Ghz G5, immediately following a WWDC Stevenote 3 years ago. I watched that keynote at an Apple Store. Sure, now if it’s webcast and I don’t have anything else going on I’d watch it, but I so can’t picture myself getting in my car and driving anywhere to watch a keynote anymore. My G5 is nearly 3 years old and I really don’t have an upgrade itch that needs scratching. I use my G5 to sync my iPod. It has all my fonts and Adobe Creative Suite CS 2 and Acrobat 7 Pro. That’s about it. I run Mail and Firefox on it when I need something specific or I’m sent a file that needs to be opened on the Mac.

In my 15 years as a computer owner and enthusiast, this is the first time that I will have a computer past its Apple Care warranty expiration. If something major on this thing goes, I may have no choice. That’s why I’m hoping that Apple is ready to announce its Intel desktop line as some sites are rumoring. Not that I would consider one now. But I may be ready by generation 2 or 3. By then all applications should run natively. The money I’d save on transferring my Adobe and font licenses to the PC will be worth it alone, and I’d have the best of both worlds. I’m simply no longer an Apple “early adopter,” I guess. I might even look seriously at the MacBook Pro when this Dell Inspiron gives up the ghost in the next couple of years. More likely, I will go for an ultra portable Intel mobile Core 2 Duo with a good external monitor. This 17″ screen is nice, but I didn’t know I would have a job that required some travel when I bought it. Lugging this 12 lb. beast around is no fun.

I find I’m far more interested in mobile technologies and practical applications than hardware platform wars. The Mac magazines, when I look at them, bore me to tears and my subscriptions have long since expired. Same with many of the Mac news and fan sites, although I still have them in my Newsgator subscription feeds.

Ironically, I was looking around for WWDC news this morning when I noticed that Quicken has been upgraded to 2007 versions. The article I read was talking about the Mac version, but that led me to read about the PC version of Quicken which I’ve been running for the past few years. I liked what I saw, so I ended up upgrading. Only $30, and it has some nice improvements which I’ll blog about in a separate entry.