I’m a color hound. I own every kind of color utility for the Mac and dozens of bookmarks for sites with color wheels, color schemes, themes, backgrounds, and more. Instant Color Themes creates color schemes in a very unique way. For example, enter ‘city sidewalk’, and get schemes from photos of city sidewalks.

Let Yahoo pick your color scheme! Enter a word or phrase and I’ll grab 5 related images from Yahoo Images, and get the 6 most prominent colors from each.

I entered ‘Steve Jobs.’ The six color schemes were mostly black or gray. I entered ‘Mac’ and the color schemes were silver or blue. ‘Sunset’ and ‘Midnight’ returned predictable results, respectively. You get the idea.

This is becoming a scary trend. Microsoft apologist Rob Enderle gets so much wrong so often that when he finally praises Apple I know something is going very wrong.

At the beginning of the PC revolution around 1984, PCs were focused on individuals… Shortly thereafter, Apple created the Lisa computer, which was targeted at the enterprise market. It failed spectacularly, while the Mac actually did rather well in business for the next five years…

Interesting, except it’s all wrong. Come on, Rob, tell us. Is the enterprise ready for Apple’s Snow Leopard Macs?

I think we are in the forefront of an adjustment where users take back some power and begin to define their solutions again. Changes like this seldom benefit the entrenched vendor, and Apple appears unusually well positioned to take advantage of the situation.

See? Scary.

Not Mac news but a fun read: Technopundit Rob Enderle on Apple’s Steve Jobs and Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer (writing from a convention with 5,000 of his closest friends in Las Vegas).

On Jobs:

Jobs is like a master craftsman. The first things he did when he took over at Apple were get rid of the bozos (underperformers), massively simplify the company and its products, and force tightly integrated products that approach—and sometimes surpass—amazing.

On Ballmer:

Ballmer is a master salesman. One of the first things he did when he took over at Microsoft was meet with his top people and realign the company against distinct customer groups. To Ballmer, the customer is the IT Buyer for most of the company, someone else worries about the user, and excellence is defined by financial performance as defined by sales volume.

Enderle’s Epiphany:

Both companies could work (together) to hold off the bigger threat that Google represents and use each other’s strengths to overcome the other’s weaknesses.

Somehow Google’s advertising and Android vaporware threaten Microsoft and Apple.

In the leapfrog war between Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom and Apple’s Aperture, a new winner. For now. Think of Apple’s new Aperture 3 as iPhoto with performance enhancing drugs. Jeffrey Mincey’s summary in Mac360:

Aperture 3 fits well between iPhoto and the Lightroom-Photoshop duo. Worth the upgrade price, for sure, but be prepared to spend some time learning where Apple put all the pieces.

I’ve been using Aperture 3 all weekend. It’s much busier than iPhoto, yes, but the speed and tools make it great. Mixing digital still images in a presentation with HD movies, including audio, is stunning.

Now I need a new camera.

One of my all time favorite Mac applications was Microsoft’s Entourage. It was sweet about 10 years ago, but hasn’t aged well. I feel like I left the Titanic just before the last voyage. I switched. Microsoft is killing Entourage and giving Mac users Outlook. From Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit (MacBU):

Outlook for Mac, will replace Entourage for Mac. MacBU is providing this early information to meet the planning needs of enterprise customers. For current Entourage users, Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition is available today, providing performance and reliability improvements and enabling users to sync Tasks, Notes and Categories.

Translated, “Don’t freak out, keep buying Entourage because we have warehouses full of it.” Microsoft goes on to describe all the wonderful features and benefits of the Entourage that exists now right after telling Mac users it won’t exist in the future, but that a new version is on the way next month. Way to go, Microsoft.

Outlook for Mac releasing in the next version reflects the team’s commitment to further develop the Mac’s leading productivity suite. This new application will deliver significant changes — ultimately allowing for increased productivity across platforms, which continues to be the top request of enterprise customers.

If you’re an enterprise which runs a mix of Exchange, Outlook, and Entourage then this is good news. For the Mac users who like Entourage, get ready for something even more complex, less friendly, and less than the Windows counterpart. But not until late 2010.

Not wanting to be stiffed by Microsoft again, I switched to Mail, iCal, Address Book, and other utility friends already.

What’s interesting about Microsoft’s Press Release regarding Entourage’s demise and Outlooks rebirth on the Mac is how much effort went into selling what’s there already in Entourage today, while announcing what’s coming in Outlook for Mac in 2010, while announcing Microsoft Office 2008 Business Edition which will be available in September, 2009.

What’s wrong with this picture? In September, 2009 I should be able to buy a 2010 Chevy or Ford. Why, in 2009 does Microsoft still insist on selling a product saddled with the date 2008 in the name?

Why do I even bother to ask? And, why is Microsoft announcing all this now? Because Mac OS X Snow Leopard will come with Exchange-compatible versions of Mail and iCal next month. They don’t want to lose more Entourage customers to Apple.

Bummers, huh?