Archives for

MacBook Air Overview

January 17, 2008 by Peter in Apple, Computing, Notebook, Portable Computing | 1 Comment


MacBook Air - side view

As many already know, Apple introduced a new notebook to their lineup on Tuesday. The MacBook Air is a sub-portable, very thin and light, and fills a niche that Apple has not yet competed in.  There has been a lot of text already on the unit, so I thought I would give both a quick overview and some links to other sites to make reading up on it a bit easier. 

Overview

  • Thin thin thin, from .16-.76″ (40-194mm) – it slopes to thinness on all edges to make it look even thinner than it is
  • Light, only 3 pounds (1.36kg)
  • 13.3″ LED backlit screen with 1280 x 800 resolution – nice widescreen display, same as the current MacBooks
  • 1.6Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor – shrunk down specially for the Air
  • 80gb 1.8″ hard drive – same drive as in the iPod Classic
  • Full size keyboard – backlit with ambient sensor, too!
  • Large multi-touch trackpad – multi-touch gesturing a la iPhone, very interesting to see where this goes
  • 802.11n wifi support
  • Bluetooth 2.0
  • Comes with Leopard and iLife ’08 (as do all MacBooks)
  • $1899 CDN
  • The “uber-Air”, 1.8Ghz with a 64gb SSD instead of a hard drive is available for $3248 CDN – ya, sure….;)

Pros

  • Size and weight
  • Style
  • Multi-touch trackpad
  • LED backlit screen
  • Backlit keyboard

Cons

  • Price – the curse of early adoption
  • Performance – would have been nice to get more for the price, but still decent
  • Battery not removable – not usually an issue as most people don’t carry spares, but it should be mentioned
  • RAM not upgradable – again not a huge deal as it comes with 2gb
  • Tiny mono speaker – this is kind of annoying but I can understand why they did it
  • No built-in drive – thin costs, especially this thin.  At least there’s an external for $99

Unknowns

  • Sturdiness – it is made of aluminum which will no doubt help, but it’s so thin I have to wonder about warping and how delicate it is
  • Heat – there is a fan inside but metal does conduct, so I’m wondering about heat sitting on my lap
  • Scratches/Scuffs – again, it’s aluminum so I’m curious.

Competitive Products 

My Thoughts

Well, first off, I ordered one so that pretty much says what my final opinion is on it.  There are competitive products out there (see above) but the Macs themselves do have one thing going for them that the rest don’t – they can run OS X and XP (and Linux of course) if desired.  That leaves room for a lot of flexibility, to say the least.  When comparing the MacBook Air, Pro and standard with each other it basically comes down to size (and price in the case of the Pro).  The Air is considerably lighter than both the Macbook and the MacBook Pro, which for me is a major factor.  I expect to be carrying this thing around in a backpack frequently when taking pictures, being out and about, etc. and it’s funny how a few pounds can make a big difference.  Not to mention an inch or more of thickness when the pack already has a camera, lenses, and more.

Overall I am going with the Air because of its size and because it’s a Mac, it’s that simple.  I want convenience and flexibility and for that I’m willing to give up a few cycles on a processor and I guess a few hundred dollars.  A fringe benefit is that this thing is slick looking and sometimes that is justification as well since I probably won’t get tired of looking at it or showing it off for quite some time!

Linkage

I’ve been told my Air will ship on Feb. 6th and should arrive by the 13th.  As soon as I have it in my hands I’ll post my impressions, photos and whatever else I can think of ;).

Beer Camp 2008

January 14, 2008 by Peter in Conference | Leave a comment

Mmmm Beer

Duane Storey has just posted about an idea that looks great – put a bunch of large brains together in a room, mush them together to make one GIANT brain and take a concept from seed to fruit in a single weekend. He’s calling it Beer Camp 2008 and it sounds like a great place to collaborate, recharge and be creative. Sounds like a perfect way to spend 3 days with no sleep (well, one that doesn’t involve poker at least), and something people might write about later as “the place where it all started” ;)

We can dream, right? Click over to Duane’s blog and read all about Beer Camp 2008.

December 25, 2007

December 25, 2007 by Peter in Family | 1 Comment

Merry Christmas

I don’t blog often.  I admit it.  I’m usually “too busy” to post and when I do have time I always feel I have nothing interesting to say.  Some people write what they feel, puking their emotions onto a web page.  I don’t do that either, at least until now.  

My mother’s family lost their Patriarch, her brother, my Uncle Emil, this year.  Emil was the picture of family to me in many ways – especially the extended Condrau family (my mother’s maiden name).  If there was a gathering of any kind, be it family picnic or (more significantly) the Christmas Eve celebration Emil was guaranteed to be there front and center.  To not have him here this year left a giant hole in my Christmas spirit, as I’m sure it did for a lot of us.  Nothing much was said about it, but you just knew he was a major part of everyone’s thoughts.  This was very apparent when it came to the tradition of singing Christmas carols.  Caroling is as big a part of the family gathering as Santa’s arrival and, although people joke about a huge lack of singing talent all around, it is always well received and the missed notes are forgotten quickly.  But for me this year I was not ready, loathing the thought of participating.  To play the music for the part of Christmas that is Emil, to play without him – I wasn’t ready for that.  But I also wasn’t ready for it NOT to be there, so playing won out in the end.

I have played guitar for the carols for as long as I can remember, and oftentimes it is myself and one or maybe two others that do so.  It is fairly typical to be drowned out by the singers, and usually it is a good thing since the guitar key never matches them anyway ;).  One or two guitars vs. 20+ loud and proud Condrau singers – we never stood a chance. This year, however, something amazing happened.

When I arrived at the hall, guitar cases in tow, I saw more than our two guitars there.  In fact there were 4 more.  When it came time to play for the carolers, not only did we have the rare opportunity to play on an actual stage we were suddenly a group of six (Mike, Corinne, Chris, Jeff, Terry and myself).  No one spoke of how unique this was until later, when Darlene (Emil’s daughter) and Donna (Emil’s niece) both came to me and thanked us for making it a special experience this year.  This was not planned, not meant to be of any significance.  But six spontaneously decided to show up and play, to scream out how important it was to be there and to put an exclamation mark on Emil’s tradition.

Until Sunday this year was all about panic and rush.  All about making sure that the dinner was prepared, the gifts were bought, and no one was missed.  Sunday didn’t change the fact that all of this still had to happen.  But the feeling that I had when playing and seeing multiple generations of the extended Condrau clan, arm and arm in front of me, made me forget about everything that defined stress and tension.  The Christmas spirit sang to me in 6 different keys, and it was magic.

Thank you, Emil, for showing the Condraus (and everyone else) how to sing.  I never want it any other way.

← Older posts
Newer posts →