When we talked about Apple vs Dell last time, it was more about the companies' market value and the fact that Michael Dell may regret saying he would shut down Apple and give money back to shareholders if in charge of the Cupertino-based company. Pretty good story, that one. Now, Dell is back with a vengeance, with rumors claiming that Apple's MacBook Air may soon lose the thinnest-ever notebook crown to a currently secret Dell product...

The story goes like this - according to The New York Times, Dell owns the trademarks to a product bearing the "Adamo" code name, and even a teaser page with a bare minimum of graphics for this product was available briefly, but got removed quickly after the article related to it I mentioned above got published.

While The New York Times stopped, Endgadget got deeper, and managed to find out that "the device -- which the company plans to market as the "world's thinnest laptop" -- was slated to be released this month, but has been pushed back till at least February."

Since a product page was briefly available, as I was saying, I guess it's only a matter of weeks until Apple's MacBook Air could lose its crown, and despite the fact we're not talking about something officially confirmed by Dell, things may get really interesting in the Apple vs Dell battle...

New Macs, old Macs, we'll give you new ones, we won't give you new ones, it's our decision when and how to release new products, we won't be a part of MacWorld any longer... and so on. Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Apple from Cupertino finally decided to give you some new Macs, 2008-releases, that's even better!

When talking about new Macs, 2008 will bring us the following goodies - iMac, and Mac mini, both using NVIDIA chipsets, as rumored by a member of the InsanelyMac forums, who messed with the extension files that ship with the latest MacBooks and MacBooks Pros, discovering a few interesting pieces of code...

...and those pieces of code contain references to a "Macmini3,1" and an "iMac9,1," both labeled as 2008-releases("Mini-FL-2008" and "iMac-FL-2008").

Unfortunately, we have no trace of official news from Apple, apart from its claims that future notebooks will use NVIDIA chipsets, so for these new Macs, 2008 may be a bit too early. Anyway, sooner or later, it's good to have an extra chance for a new mini, I am sure that's what a lot of people are waiting for, so instead of a clone...an up-to-date Mac mini would be a great choice, don't you agree?

Crisis or not, you shouldn't miss the holiday special deals circling around you, as long as your boss didn't just throw you out. Even in such a bad situation, you should remember that every end leaves room for a new beginning, and so you should decide what's going to be - a fight for the future, or doing nothing and feeling sorry for yourself. Anyway, I hope everything's fine, because now we're going to talk about Apple-related holiday special deals!

First of all, I gotta tell you about a great deal coming via Macnn, a 20 percent discount on all goods from DRO Concepts. The deal goes like this: "DRO Concepts is providing a holiday discount on all orders made on the 17th and 18th of December. To receive the discount, customers must use the coupon code "MACNNHOLIDAY" upon checkout, and to ensure orders arrive by Christmas, standard shipping orders must be placed by 11PM EST on the 18th." Pretty cool, don't you agree? Wait, this is only the beginning!

Next in line, we have Speakal and its holiday special deals, namely cheaper iPanda and iPig speakers, closely followed by the cherry on top of the holiday special deals, the refurbished iPhone 3G from AT&T.

This last deal goes like this - if you don't have anything against refurbished products, you could easily grab one from AT&T with a discount of $50, so the 8GB model can be purchased for $150, while the black or white 16GB model can be purchased for $250, both on a two-year plan.

These are today's holiday special deals, I hope you'll find them useful. Happy shopping! ;)

When talking about MacWorld or - as we're going to see today - Apple Expo, I don't think the economic cooldown is killing them, but simply the shift of most customers from retail stores to online ones is doing that, and that's all. I don't think any company, no matter if it's in a delicate financial situation or money is flowing in like a river, would be interested in spending a lot of money to reach less customers than it can reach via various online stores, own website, and so on.

All the above is taking us to Apple Expo, now a dead & gone European Apple show that was expected to take place once again next year, but now, following Apple's sad announcement that it will no longer be present at Macworld Expo starting next year, and this year Steve Jobs will be missing, organizers of the European even announced its cancellation for an indefinite period...

After seeing this, I started to fear about seeing MacWorld go away, too, in a few years, since both MacWorld and Apple Expo have a history of 25 years behind and, despite official reports saying that the US event won't fade away, that's one thing we need to see for ourselves. My guess is that MacWorld will be dead & gone before 2012. What's yours?

Today, I am seriously disappointed. No, it's not the economic crisis, since I am not building cars, car parts, I don't even own any shares, and I am not pessimistic when I think about the future, unless I get some really bad news about things to come, and one of them is related to the MacWorld Expo keynote I was expecting to see next month...

As we all know, the MacWorld Conference and Expo is the largest trade show dedicated to the Apple Macintosh taking place in the United States... but that's going to change, no matter if we like it or not. Why? Just saying that MacWorld 2009 will be less interesting than the previous one is not enough, because things are looking much worse. How's that?

Well, here's the bad news, since Apple announced that its 2009 Expo will be its last, and the worst part of it - no MacWorld Expo keynote, at least as one last goodbye from Steve Jobs to all those coming to Macworld for Apple, and nothing else... Is this the end? For me, MacWorld without Apple is like Superman in a pink suit, and I know I am not the only one thinking like this!

Drawing the line, 2009's MacWorld will take place in San Francisco, between the 5th and 9th of January, and the keynote address will be delivered by Apple executive Philip Schiller. Add this to the fact that Adobe has also bailed out, and you'll get a pretty sad MacWorld Expo keynote, and maybe even one of the last MacWorld Expo to ever happen...