It is that time of year again. The leaves are turning and the pumpkins are dotting the streets. With the World Series underway folks are starting to look towards Cowboy Christmas along with the 2007 National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. Here's a roundup of the gift shows going on around Rodeo Time.

• The Las Vegas Convention Center hosts the Cowboy Christmas Gift Show which is open 10AM - 5PMdaily from December 6 through December 15 at the Las Vegas Convention Center this show bills itself as "longest running and ONLY “Original” gift show of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo"
• My personal favorite the Ariat Country Christmas Western Gift Expo returns for the 14th year at the Sands Convention Center and runs from December 6 - December 16. Their site doesn't give hours but it's safe to assume they will be similar daytime hours.

What a week it's been and it is only Wednesday. This holiday-shortened week is turning out to be a fantastic week in tech and elsewhere. (For those of you in less fortunate states Friday is Nevada Day which we celebrate by not going to work and having parades instead). Where to start?

One of the first great moments was Google's announcements Tuesday evening of the availability of IMAP availability in Gmail and the hosted Google Apps. It makes my recent decision to move to Google Apps Premium look even smarter. About the same time the annual support agreement on my mail server is up. Sure a lot harder to think about keeping the annual expense when I get all that and more from Google Apps. It was just last week that a colleague reluctantly got .Mac to have IMAP mail for their iPhone as they grew tired of the pop-Gmail re-downloading too often.

And of course there is the world of sport. Colorado State's impressive upset of UNLV (though why UNLV was favored is beyond even the most seasoned Las Vegan). Today, though, the Colorado Rockies begin their first ever World Series and could well be four games away from the season of a generation.

On a personal note I began to play with You Tube for the first time. It is a very satisfying experience and one I'm sure I'll be repeating. Read more about A terrific week in tech

I'll freely admit that I was pretty nervous. The combination of a 13-game loosing streak and UNLV being a 2-point favorite for UNLV's homecoming game Saturday evening made for a real possibility that UNLV would beat the Rams for the first time in years. Sure there were all sorts of things that one can point to showing why CSU should win the game. The fact remains that CSU lost several games that they should have won in the midst of this streak. However, the Rams' 48-23 victory makes it a little easier to go to the office on Monday. The Rams' slide has raised the speculation around Coach Sonny Lubick's possible retirement. It is ironic given that what has made Lubick so successful is that his teams always have heart. Only once in the 13-game streak did the team seem defeated by their own lack of motivation. And that game, last week against Air Force, now seems a one-time event. Whatever happens the Sonny Lubick bobble head on my desk will remain proudly in place.

A couple of disclaimers to start with. First I've already been called an Apple apologist for the analysis I'm about to present here. That argument may makes it easier to dismiss what I have to say but it isn't the case and in fact I still get much of my search traffic to this site from my criticisms of Apple which I'm derided for on Apple fan sites. Second, I'm the owner of an iPhone and at one time I may have had ringtones on it that weren't Apple sanctioned, rather weren't RIAA-sanctioned but we'll get to that in a minute.

Background

To be certain Apple is a publicly traded company. As such it has one real motive at the end of the day. Like all companies in a capitalist society it is in the business of making money for share holders. There are companies that pursue this goal in different ways but the profit motive is what keeps the board in place and Steve Jobs in the CEO chair. Read more about Apple's "evil" iPhone update