I'm here at the Gnomedex conference in Seattle today, and I'll update this post with items during the day. Also see this earlier post about the first session.

Guy Kawasaki, former Apple evangelist, observing all the Macs in the crowd: "I can't tell you how good it feels to stand up here and see all those Apple logos shining in the audience. Most of the time I speak, it's a mere 5 percent of people who have Macs. If only the rest of the world were like this, the world would be a better place. Of course, saying that in Seattle is somewhat -- anyway."

11:43 a.m.: Kawasaki stressed the importance of desktop publishing in Apple's evolution, then added: "I think that Pagemaker was a gift from God to Apple Computer. ... If it wasn't for Pagemaker, we would all be listening to cassette tapes and Walkmans today and all of our phones would have keyboards -- and you could pick any carrier and you could change the battery." Also, he added with a grin, an application would be a real application, not just a Safari application.

1:27 p.m. "This conference seems to have changed from being about new and shiny objects to being more about what are we going to do with all this stuff, and how do we make a difference in terms of technology," -- Steve Gillmor, during his "Bad Sinatra" show on stage here at Gnomedex during lunch.

That does, indeed, seem to be the direction of this year's Gnomedex -- focusing less on what's next and more on what to do with it. Just now, for example, Justin Kan, the entrepreneur who broadcasts his life on Justin.tv, was talking about the project, and Robert Steele, the speaker from the morning, raised the possibility of getting cameras on people near Darfur, to spotlight the crisis there.

Justin Kan at Gnomedex today.

4 p.m.: Jason Calacanis, the Internet entrepreneur who sold Weblogs Inc. to AOL, offers his take on blog comments: "What we do in the blogosphere is like being at Carnegie Hall, and somebody does this incredible, epic performance on stage, and then we say, 'Will the five stupidest, drunkest, mentally disabled people come on stage and now critique the virtuoso performance.' They all get the same amount of billing and time."

5 p.m.: There was broader attention on the Gnomedex conference last year because it was keynoted by John Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidate. But inside the tech industry, in particular, the two-day conference is widely respected for its candid conversations and relative lack of product plugs. People pay as much as $499 to attend.

So when Calacanis started talking on stage this afternoon about his latest venture, search engine Mahalo, the reaction from the crowd was swift.

"This is an ad!" said Dave Winer, of the widely read Scripting News blog, from the back of the room. "Jason, why do we pay for this conference?"

Calacanis: "Yes, I'm sorry it's related to the work I do. ... I think that it's kind of relevant, and people want to hear about it. If they don't, I'll get off the stage."

They allowed him to continue. Later, in response to a comment from the audience, he said "mahalo," which is the Hawaiian word for thank you.

"That," he quickly added, "was a lower-case mahalo."