Dear Friends,

This week it’s Ed writing for Don, who is away at Apple headquarters (the mothership) in Cupertino, California. For no discernible reason, I can’t help but say “Cupertino” with a sort of surfer, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” Spicoli voice. Beyond the iconic main campus at 1 Infinite Loop, Apple is building an additional 50-acre campus in Cupertino. Cupertino is in the heart of Silicon Valley and is home to many high-tech companies besides Apple.

Don is out there to give a presentation about Small Dog Electronics to a group of Apple executives and managers. I don’t think he was nervous about the presentation; as he says, “If I can’t talk about Small Dog for forty-five minutes then I can’t talk about anything!”

After the presentation in Cupertino, Don is going over to the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Macworld is a smaller event with less press this year, since Apple isn’t headlining the event with a keynote or new product announcements. However, Macworld is still a vital event for the Apple community. Major new third-party Mac products are introduced and previewed there, seminars and classes happen there, and a constellation of Apple stars and celebrities gather there.

I get most of my Macworld-related news from Macworld Magazine (which is featuring their “2010 Best of Show winners” which you can see here), Mac|Life Magazine, and Tuaw.com. All of these sites also have active Twitter feeds with up-to-date news from Macworld.

On Tuesday morning, Apple’s online store went offline, which is typically a sign that new products would be released. For a couple of hours, the Internet was abuzz with speculation—would it be new MacBooks? A new Apple Hi-fi? A Mac mini maxi? It ended up being the release of Aperture 3, which was still exciting. I was very glad to see it—it reassured me that Apple is still committed to developing its higher-end and professional applications. Matt Klein gives a brief overview of Aperture below. Next week Kali (our in-house pro photographer) will write a much more comprehensive hands-on review.