Introducing the New ‘Mac Potpourri’ Column on MacPrices

FEATURE: 08.29.18- There’s been a small change to the name of this column and here’s the lowdown on why it was made.

When I first came aboard to MacPrices, initially there was no name for my column. Then, when it was decided by Steve Hildreth, this website’s publisher, to merge the defunct sister site PowerBook Central and bring over content from there to this site, my column was then called “The Press Box” reviving the name used for my column there from 2006-09.

It was exciting at first and for me, more nostalgic than anything. It certainly made sense to recycle and use a tried and true name. But that was from the past and I wanted to start fresh. As much as I loved that name and its significance — the column on the website that began my professional journalistic career — I believed it would be more appropriate to come up with a new name rather than use something that was created 12 years ago.

I came up with the name “The Press Box” because I was trying to match and find two words that stood for the P and B in www.pbcentral.com, the URL of PowerBook Central. The name I thought of was of course, a match to those two letters (which stood for PowerBook) and chosen because I felt it encompassed what I would be writing about in my column which was news, feature stories, and commentaries.

In fact, speaking of name changes, PowerBook Central was later changed to Power ‘Book Central, updated to be inclusive of all the Mac notebook computer models covered: PowerBook, iBook, MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air. Thus, the “‘Book.” Also, on this end, MacPrices was previously called PCPrices/Mac. Bet you didn’t know that piece of information! How’s that for a little history lesson about this site and its former sister one.

So, why the name “Mac Potpourri” for my new column?

Well, I was once again trying to be clever and find two words that matched the two capital letters in MacPrices, M and P, even though its web address is not abbreviated and fully spelled out. I came up with three possible names and the one that I decided on was “Mac Potpourri” because I felt it best reflected what I would be writing about in my new column here on MacPrices which is covering a plethora of various topics from different categories. The stories I write about may not necessarily revolve around price savings on Macs but will almost always be Apple centric, the maker of the computers and devices we price track here on this site.

The new name is also appropriate because as defined by Siri when asking for a definition of the word, potpourri is “a mixture of things, especially a musical or literary medley.” Does that describe my column to a tee or what? I believe it does.

When I proposed my idea to change the name of my column to reflect the new content instead of using an old name, Steve agreed with me and the change was made. For this article, he said of the change, “I think the name ‘Mac Potpourri’ is quite appropriate. Joe’s new column name reflects the wide arrange of topics he will cover for us here at MacPrices. Rather than set his sights on a specific topic or news, Joe will cover Apple subjects ranging from breaking news and rumors to personal reflections.”

Moving forward, the main page of the “Mac Potpourri” column will feature new content front and center with older posts in its own separate archive section. The content from the PowerBook Central site will be self-contained on its own webpage as “The Press Box” Archive which can be found as a link at the bottom of the column’s main page. However, due to technical reasons, the URL of the new “Mac Potpourri” webpage will remain as the original when setup for “The Press Box” when the old content was ported over and merged with this site. This minor technicality may be eventually rectified at a later date.

So how do you like the new name? Yea or nay? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Drop me a line at my email address: j.leo@macprices.net. Or login to your Facebook account and comment in the Facebook plugin below.