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 had to run to the Apple store yesterday to pick up iLife '08, and while I was trying to be noticed by an apple store helper (this was one of those stores without a register counter at all, you get rung up where ever are), I saw the Apple International Power Adapter set. While I've already got a really handy little multi-prong doo-dad, I figured, well I need to charge more than one thing at a time usually. Plus in thinking of 360|Flex Europe, I'd have my MacBook Pro with me, and having a not small adapter to worry about would suck. So.....

I picked this up. It's pretty clever and makes the Apple power brick even more useful. I usually carry the long cord, and the plug only nubbin with me, so now, based on the country I'll be visiting, I just need to carry one more plug only nubbin.

The box comes with a total of 6 adapters, 2 more US plug only nubbins, then the standard assortment of Europe, Asia, Australia, and the UK.

I'm sure there are plenty of cheaper alternatives, but I'm a nut for OEM, gear that looks like the rest of my stuff.

This also works well since I have a trip to Japan coming up, so now I'll be charging my blackberry and my laptop at the same time.

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 sitting in SJC waiting for my flight back to Denver, thought I should catch up on blog writing and reading. I've been onsite at newly un-stealthed Ribbit, working with them on some really cool stuff. As I've said, it's a great project, great team, etc. I'm having a good time working on this project. Esria is a great group of guys to consult for (even if they are from canadia :P ), I'm really glad they were able to get me in on this project.

I had twitter track 'ribbit', and watching the posts fly around yesterday was cool. So much excitement, so many people talking about ideas, implementations, speculations, etc. It was very neat to watch.

 It's kind of cool to be with them as they come out of stealth, never experienced that before. News crews coming by, people coming in off the street to talk about business opportunities, etc. it's very exciting, I'm thrilled for Chuckstar and the team. If you haven't done so, go sign up for the beta, the possibilities for Ribbit are endless. Screw that old, click to call (which launches Skype), or tools, that aren't developer friendly. I can see blogs with voicemail, 'Click to call' that does just that, no external tools or apps needed, you click, an your browser starts to ring, how freakin' cool! Go sign up!

In working with Ribbit, I'm getting a chance to really stretch and grow my abilities, something I've been craving since like... forever. I'm getting to get my hands dirty in the API that'll be released soon, building services and tools around it. it's very exciting!

Work on 360|Flex of course hasn't stopped, it never does. Tom and I announced our plans for giving something back to the community, a plan I'm very excited about, since giving what we can back in as many ways as we can, is a core tenet of 360Conferences. We're also looking into another really cool thing to announce, hoping we can announce it soon, I think it'll be a lot of fun. You'll just have to wait and see, it'll be cool though, it always is :)

I've been in San Jose this week at Ribbit, and am currently sitting in SJC, waiting for a delayed flight to DIA, just in time for some serious snowing that's going on in the Denver area today and tomorrow. Yippy! It'd be nice if it meant I got to go skiing, however it does not, so it isn't.

Nicole had a minor accident on her way to an airport in Wisconsin so I'm heading home (she made her flight!) to see her for the weekend. Then back to San Jose for another week.

I'm really enjoying Ribbit. It's only been a week, but the project is very cool, the people are great. Knowing two of them going in doesn't hurt either, Hey Chuckstar, hey Pete! Ribbit has some cool stuff cooking, including a cool "coming out party" Not in that way! If you haven't signed up, you should, it's cool stuff, I'm very excited to be a part of it, and look forward to the challenges ahead.

Oh yeah, if you're not coming to the party this coming Thursday, you should feel bad for yourself, I think it's gonna rock, and am STOKED that I'll be in town for it. Ain't no party like a SilVaFUG/Ribbit party cuz a SilVaFUG/Ribbit party don't stop!

Sorry for being so quiet, on all fronts. Between moving, leaving one project, flying to CA for another, I've been a bit busy the past few days.

Right now I'm in Mountain View working on a really cool project with some great guys, many of whom I've worked with before so that's a plus! The move went... well it went, mostly craptastically downhill very fast. The movers were two hours late, dropped our fridge (rendering it barely usable), Best Buy installer decided to be a dill hole and wouldn't help us stack or install our washer dryer. He pushed the washer into the closet but wouldn't touch the dryer, and stole the stainless steal braided hoses that we paid extra for. The builder mucked up the cabling so bad that our unit has no cable line, so we've had no cable, telephone, or internet since we moved, and might have it today. On top of all that one of the dogs, refuses to use the open staircase from the main floor to the bedroom level, which is also where the stairs to the deck are, which is where we're setting up a dog run... guess where he's using the rest room..

Moving and having to travel for work, is crazy hectic when done all the same week, I'll be glad when I'm back home setting up the home office, getting things done there.

On the plus side of travel, I had jack in the box for dinner last night :)

My wife and I have entered contract on a new home. We're moving on up... to Denver. Leaving the 'burbs (Highlands Ranch) behind. Our offer was accepted on Saturday. Of course there's no pictures yet, mainly because when we went up Saturday to look around, we didn't know that our offer had been accepted.

I'll probably go up this week sometime to take some pics as well as a few measurements, we'll be putting a small artificial grass dog run up on the deck for Terrance and Phillip.

We're crazy excited! We close in less than a month, hopefully in only two weeks or so.

Ours is the one next to the pool, which isn't built yet, and won't be for some time.

Having no kids the burbs isn't really the place for us in the first place, so it'll be a nice change (increasing) of pace, to be where other people actually go out after 9pm, or enjoy a night out for drinks with out kids around.... Ah I can't wait!

MAX is always fun. DevCon under Macromedia was fun too.

Sessions: Too many. There's having choice, then there's having choice paralysis. Particularly when said choices might be across the entire McCormick from each other. Some one said that on Tuesday, the 1:30pm had 51 sessions. 50! I'm thinking it may be time to split out some of the tools into their own events, make MAX longer, or be more selective of speakers. Something's gotta change it's just too hard to learn something when you're sitting in a session, debating internally whether you should stick it out and see if it's worth your time, or bail and walk somewhere else to try another session. Which of course could mean a 10 minute walk, to a session that's full. BTW this time, there was no wall sitting allowed, what's up with that?

Parties: Of course the parties were great and fun, and free beer and wine, and yummy food, it's hard to go wrong. I was a little surprised that the keynotes had no "big name" talent to talk or entertain, that was kind of a let down, I've come to expect that sort of thing. The "Adobe Event", but also not what I was expecting. It was fun, but it was onsite, and just a party. I've also become accustomed to the parties of the past, typically offsite (I know 4,000 people, but hey, you get what you want. the 4,000 attendees was a goal) and typically pretty swank. This year it was neither.

People: 4,000 people is a lot. Like a crazy a lot. Thankfully the McCormick was so spacious that it never felt too crowded, even at meal times. It was often tough to find people you knew, but in a sea of 4,000 developers and designers, only Doug McCune stands out. Few sessions I attended were too crowded, though I was a little bummed that the full ones, i couldn't just sit against the back wall (Where the Electrical power was) and enjoy, I had to squeeze into a seat in the middle somewhere... weak.

Internet: I noticed on the first day that the access points in the 170-180 blocks weren't that great, handing out local IPs, with no internet. I had hoped that by the 2nd or 3rd day, that would be fixed, it didn't seem to be. Also the hotel rooms.... WEAK (At least at the Hyatt attached to the McCormick). 9.99 a day.... oh wait 4 day pricing.... 9.99 * 4. No discount! I know that's not something Adobe had direct control over, but come on, pay a bulk rate or something... and no WiFi..? WTF isn't the McCormick supposed to be new? or at least newly renovated? wired internet with a 3 ft cord.... That's craptastic.

Vibe: huge. impersonal. With so many sessions, so many people, such a huge space. I'm not sure what "community" aspect was being hyped, but I didn't feel it. I know the "Community" helped schill registrations, maybe that's it. With such an enormous affair, the only community that came to mind for me was an ant hill. I think it's hard to have a community vibe with such a huge event. That's like saying downtown Denver is a "Community" I suppose it depends on the definition, but I wasn't feelin' it.

This all said, will I be in San Francisco in 2008 for MAX? Yeah probably. The networking opportunity (when you can find the people to network with) is great. The sessions are for the most part good. Jun's on Optimizing AS3 was super swell! If nothing else, MAX is fun to reconnect with friends, party, maybe see a session or two, party some more...

See ya in San Francisco!

So Tom and I are actively looking at Cities for our East Coast venue. What do you think?

Jeff, no worries connecticut is already on the list ;)

if you're an attendee, you should have an email with a link to our end of conference survey, if you haven't filled it out, do it! There's an iPod up for grabs, plus your voice really does count with us. We're not big, as you all know, we're not into this for our own personal glory, talk to us, "we're listening" (Get it?)

So leave a comment, get your city in the mix. Don't just say "Detroit" and leave it at that, tell me why? what's great? what's the conference space look like? Good hotels? nice weather? Remember we're looking in the February time frame.