For Immediate Release:

Spunky MacHack stays on Calendar Despite Apple WWDC Move

Dearborn, Michigan - March 25, 2003 - Where does a 600-pound gorilla sit? Anywhere it wants is the punch line to that one.

What does a small, focused and vital programmers' conference do when Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference suddenly reschedules to an adjacent date?

MacHack, the Advanced Developers Hands-On Conference, keeps its date and tries to make things work for all attendees.

Leadership and management of MacHack announced today that it was retaining its traditional dates in the third week in June, and will meet June 19-21 as scheduled.

"Speakers, sessions, travel plans, people have had arrangements in place for months now," Dave Koziol, conference chairman said. "Our dates may make it difficult for some to attend both conferences, and we intend to work with them to find ways for them to continue to participate. MacHack offers many things to attendees beyond what they can learn at WWDC. There is plenty of expertise in a lot of areas committed to a strong MacHack."

MacHack organizers intend to continue offering attendees the unique experience that the show has rendered to developers since the early days of Macintosh success with System 3.2. The show continues to garner fierce loyalty from its supporters.

Miro Jurisic, a five-year attendee of the show, said "I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for MacHack, and I don't want to lose that opportunity to learn and interact. I would reschedule every other event in order to attend MacHack."

MacHack traditionally consists of three days of intense sessions and off-the-cuff development of innovative programs that are showcased at the Friday night "Best Hack Contest."

Avi Drissman, this year's MacHack Sessions chairman, said the experiences at MacHack allow developers to truly reap the benefits of Apple hardware and software, and give expert users a chance to go beyond customary marketed capabilities of Apple products.

"What Apple says at the Worldwide Developer Conference is all nice theory, how things should work; what our sessions do is delve into how things _do_ work. Sessions like these provide the return on investment for companies and individuals," Drissman said.

Technical papers formatted in academic style are also part of the MacHack experience. Each year, 10 or more formal papers give in depth looks at current developer issues. This year's papers already under development include safeguarding use of commercial wireless networks, hacking possibilities of Mac OS X, extending Palm OS 5, and building POSIX features in a Mac way.

Scott Boyd, co-founder of The MacHax Group, and ringleader of the annual Best Hack Contest, loves the creative chaos of the contest, and the long-term friendships that result.

"Nowhere but MacHack can you sit down with and get to know such an amazing array of experts who so freely share what they know," Boyd said. "There's nothing like working with talented people to pull off a great hack!"

Past entries have ranged from the bizarre and twisted to the simply-useful. Rendering the whole screen in ASCII in real-time, a shooting gallery of icons during boot time, NetBunny, Pong in Open Firmware, and even Undo in the Finder (back when that was unheard of).

"Collaboration in an environment where there's always somebody with the right answer, mixed with a bit of caffeinated, sleep-deprived time pressure, is a sure-fire way to make friends, cement working relationships, and have a blast," said Boyd.

This year's MacHack will continue the proud tradition of wackiness and intensity that attendees have praised since the early days of Juggler and MultiFinder.

Up to date information on the conference can be found at http://www.machack.com