I have a Seagate 250GB drive that I was using for Time Machine. Locally it was great Then Apple updated the AIR port base station. SWEET.

I've got two macs, a MBP and a MBA. The MBA uses a smaller 40gb drive hung off the Airport station, and backs up like a champ. I've got history back several weeks at any given time.

The MacBook Pro however has had zero luck! First I wasn't able to get the initial 126gb back up to complete. I read an article about starting the back up on the network, then completing it over USB to speed it up. Then reconnect to the network for all future backing up. NO LUCK.

Then I gave it a night to do a full back up over the wire, this morning it looked good. A few smaller back ups took place through out the morning.

I enter time machine, and all that is there is "now" no other days or anything. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. The MBA runs hourly, does it's thing and is done, but the MBP just won't get a good back up going. I'd rather not have to always think about ejecting a USB ext disk but may have to. WEAK

it's well known that Steve J didn't think any more than 1 USB port was needed on a laptop, never mind that Dell's ship with like 8, whatever.

For those with USB port EVDO cards, all that's needed is a USB extension, since to date, I think only 1 EVDO modem actually fits.

For those of us sporting ExpressCard... well we're SOL, sorta. I found one Amazon, after seeing a similar thing mentioned on engadget.

I tried it out on the MBA as soon as it arrived, seems to work well, you'll want to be careful since now your facny EVDO modem is just laying out on the desk, or your knee or where ever.

So my AIR will now never be adrift without the intertubes, except in Europe where EVDO doesn't exist :(

I still wouldn't buy one with my own money. It's just too specialized.

Tom and I ordered them for using at the conferences. We typically use our personal machines, which is great, but mine is a MBP, and his is some kind of 12 ton windoze thing, neither are light by any means.

So this way we can carry a little less weight for checking people in, looking things up, doing keynotes, etc.

The other upside, for me is travel. My wife and I are staying in Italy a week beyond 360|Flex Europe and blogging and surfing the web will be much nicer without a 3 or 4 lb MBP. I'll be in Japan in May, again, a lighter machine will rock.

Plus, my MBP is my dev machine, it's much more important and when I travel I sometimes worry about it, losing it or being damaged, would really impact my work.

So my thoughts...

it's nice. it's too small to work on all day, but as a second machine, it's pretty nice. I won't say how light it is, because I knew it was light, and those reviewers who repeat the obvious are kinda lame. Battery run time, easy to argue, weight, kinda hard, I figured Steve wasn't fudging.

Combined with .mac I think it really comes into it's own as a second machine. I moved all my conference stuff to .mac and created aliases in my regular docs folders. I have my iDisk available offline so the files are always there. So far it's pretty smooth. I like it.

I definitely doesn't feel powerful enough to do development, and the Hard drive (we opted for SSD) is WAY too small for that. My MBP has my code, CF and Flex, my iTunes library, my iPhoto library (not really that big), and gb's and gb's of other data, no way 64gb, or even 80, could handle it.

The battery seems ok, I've yet to run it down. The power adapter is pretty whack. It's yet another brick to carry (should I take both machines) and it seems like the plug could easily have been a flat spot in the body to accommodate a standard mag safe plug, but this way consumers have to buy additional plugs, more $.

The fancy multi-touch trackpad.... haven't used it. Firefox doesn't recognize it (obviously) and I can't fit my photos on it, and using it in the Finder, just makes my icons all the wrong size. So I'm not too bummed my MBP doesn't have that feature.

It does boot fast, i'll give it that.

My final verdict (for now at least) it's a good second laptop for travel (we should all be so lucky to have that kind of coin) and presentations, it's no way a primary developer laptop. It may very well work ok for someone who doesn't compile code, or run photoshop often. We're leasing these two, so we can have some write offs for 360Conferences, plus if they suck, we'll buy them for the 1$ fee (cuz we're paying so bloody much) and use them as conference terminals for whatever.

So I zipped up some old 360|Flex folders; Atlanta, Seattle, and San Jose 1, and stuff to make some room. So far so good, I could just keep the archive file in the business folder and get in it, if I need it.

Enter the MacBook AIR (More on that next), so I figure I'll unarchive and copy those up to .mac that way I could have alias's on each machine to have nice access to the data.

Enter the error!

the archive was a monster, 1.24gb, so after a minute or so of processing, OSX tells me that it can't unarchive, error -1 not enough permissions.

Ah hell.

I rebuilt permissions, renamed the file, tried the command line unzip and zip tools, no dice...

The final solution, changing the extension to .rar That seemed to please the unarchiver, go figure.

I know I'm happy.

Saw this on TUAW

According to some research from Mindset Media, Mac owners are:

• to be perfectionists
  
• to use notebooks
• to use teeth whitening products
  
• to drive station wagons
• to pay for downloaded music
  
• to go to Starbucks
  
• care about "green" products and the environment
• to own a hybrid car
• and last but not least ... to buy 5 pairs of sneakers in a year

Holy crap! They've been following me! I mean, not 100% spot on, I don't buy 5 pair of sneakers in a year, barely even in 5 years. I don't own a hybrid, though i do drive a wagon (Audi A4 baybee!!) i do enjoy me a Frapacino from time to time, and i don't pirate music (any more). I'm down with green, so long as it doesn't cost horse power, or bring me closer to Boulder.

It's a funny little bit of "duh, that was obvious" but fun none the less.

I'm a huge Joel Spolsky fan, and after watching Project Aardvark, I started looking at Copilot.

Since my mom won't buy a Mac, and my sister can't afford one, I've had to help solve the typical PEBKAC malware troubles that plague windoze users of their calibre. CoPilot, rocks, the mac client let's me take control of their machines, and do what I can from CO to WA. Can't beat that.

The fact that the guys came up with it in a summer, was just too cool.

Now... it's free on weekends!

Can't wait to see Copilot 3.0

First thing this morning, I see that AppleInsider has some reviews from journalists from The Wall Street Journal, NewsWeek, and USA Today.

While the pro's are the typical gushy lameness "Did I mention it's thin?" Well no duh sherlock. The Con's are quite telling. Take a look, almost all make a lot of sense as a user... 3 hour battery life? Not 5... mmm so now not only can I not take it across the ocean, I can't take it across the US.

Then I see this on Engadget.

The Optional external superdrive is useless anywhere but connected to the Air. Well what kind of crap is that? I understand they're pumping more juice down the USB line to the drive, but at least make the drive able to be powered from AC, or provide a two connector adapter to combine juice...

From Engadget, "Seriously though, how many machines do you have that need an external optical drive, anyway?"

While I don't know the numbers, I'd say any customer of MCE, of which, one is me! I'll grant that we knew we'd be losing the drive, and I get along fine without. If I know I'll be away from my desk for extended periods, I'll pack up my displaced drive in it's little enclosure. however it's not really portable since it doesn't fit in the enclosure well , since the drive is so thin and made such that there aren't a great many enclosures for the slim slot load drive.

But jeez Apple throw users a bone. The external drive is sexy! I'd buy it alone before I even owned a MacBook Air.

It almost seems like Apple is trying to make the Air as single purpose as possible, further pigeon holing it as a "device" not a laptop.

MacBook Air, freaking cool, mostly.

No firewire, cool

No Ehternet, as I said, meh, i'd like it, I find it odd not to have it but whatever.

no DVI, cool.

It started out as the thing I'd be buying just as soon as I had the money saved, until details started to emerge.

1. black keyboard? Really? They must be going for the Dell look, not cool.
2. can't up the RAM myself? MBPs support 3 gb now, does the Air not? Can I only get the RAM I'm gonna have forever at order time? WEAK
3. Solid State drive, costs a fortune (I know they ain't cheap but I bet Dell isn't charging that much , are they?
4. 4200 rpm moving parts drive? kinda slow, but ok, not terrible since like I said, i'd want it for writing.
5. no user replace able battery? WTF Apple!? You've already taken knocks for this in the iPhone, granted their still selling like crazy but still. This is a laptop, not a "device" not a big ass iPod. It's a laptop. My 1 and some change years old MBP is on battery 2. the other started crapping out. it'd go from 30% to 0% in in 0 seconds, and I'd be SOL if I was working. No biggy, i went out and bought me a new one. There's not way I'd take my machine in for who knows how long for Apple to replace the battery, or ship it somewhere... WEAK

So the over all verdict....

I'll be waiting until MacBook Air v2. It's not like Apple batteries are ugly and they've already made them very flush and nicely blended, by not have that at the bottom?

Sorry Apple, you were THIS close to having 2,000 more of my hard earned, weakened US Dollars.

New Iphone, don't care

Some new capactiy of iPod, don't care

new iMac, don't care

new Macbook Pro, don't care too much, i'd like to get another year out my current one, at least. It's running like a champ so I'm not at all concerned, though 3gb would be nice.

new ultra portable, I hella care.

Why? Travel, and writing.

Most of the time, when I travel (other than the obvious travel FOR work) i don't do work. If I do, it's answering emails, etc. It's not compiling code and such. However I still surfe the web, and while not as often as I'd like, i write. I hope to get back into a groove of writing. I used to have a good system, i had a nice likttle iBook that I carried, and when I'd leave for lunch I'd leave the bigger dev laptop behind, and take the iBook. I had a nice smaller bag for it, that fit inside my big bag, it was great! Then I bought the MacBook Pro, sold the iBook, and writing didn't stop completely but the MBP ain't light and as time went on, it just got to be too much, I'd have to pack it back up, put it in my big bag, and haul the whole thing to lunch.

SO.... I nice ultra portable (I've thought about re-purchasing an iBook even) would be great, because lugging a heavy laptop around, not fun. However one I can still browse the intertubes and write with, and just grab and go.. THAT, i'd buy for a dollar (Robocop reference there)

The rumors out of wired, are that it wouldn't have an ethernet port, that's a little odd to me. Solid state drive, I'm cool with, no DVI, sure whatever I wouldn't use this to present at a conference, but no Ethernet?

We'll find out tomorrow morning, and I can't wait. Most of the current rumors I couldn't care less about, but an ultra portable MB... well that would part me from my cash, pretty easy.

I'm getting the powerpoint (ick) and keynote templates ready to hadn out to speakers for 360|Flex, and jeebus it was hard to do!

in this regard, i have to hand it to Microsoft. Making a power point template is not hard at all, keynote on the other hand, harder than is reasonable.

It took a ton of googling to find the right phrase, to find this little gem

The basic jist is, don't waste your time modifiying a slide, drag the divider bar above the slides pallette to reveal the hideen, "Master Slides

You'll modify these. What I did was modify the first one, and remove the others. That way, whenever the user selectd "new slide" they get the one I created.

Not Flex related, only tangentially 360|Flex related, but now, each time I'm working on our speaker preso templates, I'll have saved myself some time. I like that!

1. Quit whining

2. This might make it a little easier on your eyes.

I actually have no problem with Stacks. Icons are a little cluttery, yes, but whatever, i know what I'm looking for, I know which stack is what, so what do I care if they look like a bad implementation of 52 pickup?

I will offer one criticism, Apple should have made them customizable. This solution, while looking really nice, is definitely in the 'hack' category simply because of how you have to trick Leopard into doing what you want.

That pic is my dock. The instructions on XD are great and easy to follow, since the originals are in Japanese. A word of warning, if you end up with blue "general" leopard folders, restart. I don't know if that's the norm, or what, but only 2 out of 6 immediately looked like the drawer, the others looked like regular stacks with a blue folder as the foremost icon. After I rebooted, all was good in the world.

I definitely like the visual appearance more. The stack is still a clutter of overlapped icons, but the drawer makes it look 'contained'