<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><?xml-stylesheet title="XSL_formatting" type="text/xsl" href="rss_style.xsl" ?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
<channel>
        <title>ZDNet Blogs</title>
        <link>http://blogs.zdnet.com</link>
        <description>ZDNet Blogs Focus: MacBook Air</description>
<item>
<title>FirmTek targets MacBook Air owners with hub for FireWire, eSATA</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1560</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:27:25 -0700</pubDate>
<dc:creator>David Morgenstern</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1560</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Announced on Monday at the NAB expo, the SeriTek/SpyderHUB is a small 4-ounce storage hub for FireWire and eSATA drives. Based on its spec sheet, the device will provide a wide range of capabilities including eSATA booting for Mac OS X, and hardware-based striping. While the price has yet to be revealed, the hub will be attractive to MacBook users, especially for the interface-deficient MacBook Air. Macs will connect to the hub with either a USB2 or a FireWire 800 connection. The hub comes with 2 eSATA ports and another FireWire 800 port for hard drives. Of course, the MacBook Air comes with only a single USB2 connector and that's it. The concept is that users will use 802.11n for networking and ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 23: Lovin' the F8 key</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1332</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:43:49 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1332</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Apple's new, low-throw, "chiclet" style keyboard arrived to great controversy. First in the MacBook, then again when it was adopted as the defacto standard USB keyboard for all Macs, replacing the clear lucite and white 109-key keyboard. People derided the new keyboard design because of its flat and wide keytops, cramped feel, lower key travel and even because of the changes to the layout, specifically the function keys. There were even comparisons to the chiclet keyboard from the IBM PC jr. I blogged about the differences between the new slim-line USB keyboard and the discontinued 109-key Apple keyboard back in July 2007, when the new "iMac keyboard" was first leaked: Volume controls were moved from above the numeric keypad to the F10, F11 ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air: Motion sensor 'bizarrely' enabled with solid-state disk option</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1334</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:40:20 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>David Morgenstern</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1334</guid>
<description><![CDATA[MacBook Air owners will find that Apple's motion-sensing technology     to protect hard disk drives in notebooks     is enabled even on models with the solid-state disk option. In his blog, developer Wil Shipley called the protection "bizarre." More bizarrely, if I drop the Air a foot (onto a soft, fluffy pillow on my bed     I'm not an idiot) the sudden motion sensor will still shut down the SSD (tell it to park its heads?) and stop processing for a second. I think that's pretty funny. Hey, hardware guys: "SSD stands for SOLID-STATE DISK." I admit there could still be problems I don't know about with dropping SSDs, and I'm just being snide. I'm sorry, hardware guys. Still friends? Buy you a ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>Will the MacBook Air ruin the MacBook Pro?</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1333</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:27:43 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>David Morgenstern</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1333</guid>
<description><![CDATA[New owners of the MacBook Air are putting the controversial ultralight Mac through its paces in actual, real-world workflows. And the results are upbeat. At the same time, the solid results from the ultralight spark questions about the redesign of the MacBook Pro     whenever Cupertino decides to refresh the top-of-the-line machine. What will be the balance of performance and mobility in the new professional machine? Longtime Mac developer and pen-computing pioneer David Dunham this week posted several posts on his blog about his MacBook Air experience. He's the programmer/owner of A Sharp. He noted in a blog post of first impressions that he was dreading checking its speed. He said that Xbench 1.3 benchmarking software reported that his MacBook Pro came in ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 22: Argh! Recessed headphone jack</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1330</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 21 Feb 2008 06:50:30 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1330</guid>
<description><![CDATA[It's almost as if Apple didn't learn anything from the recessed headphone jack fiasco with iPhone. The MacBook Air, my friends, also has a recessed headphone jack. While it's not nearly as bad as the headphone jack on the iPhone, the MBA's headphone jack is similarly recessed preventing a good number of headphones from fitting. (iPhone's recessed jack has never been officially explained but theories exist.) I noticed this last week attempting to record the first PowerPage podcast on the MBA when my favorite DJ headphones (Technics RP-DH1200's) wouldn't fit into the teensy jack. Granted the Technics have a largish, 45 degree angled connector on the male end of the plug     but they fit fine into my MacBook Pro! Apple addresses the ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 20: Cutting the cord</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1320</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:49:45 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1320</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Yesterday, I blogged about traveling light and paring down my computer bag down to a MacBook Air in a simple sleeve. Today I want to ween myself off wired network connections. For some, going 100 percent wireless borders on blasphemy (with its inherent security issues, lack of hot spots, usurious fees, etc.) but for this journalist pure wireless is the way to go. The absolute icing on the cake was last week's announcement that Starbucks was switching to AT&T for WiFi Internet access in all of their 7,000 U.S. stores. Glen Fleishman thinks that the switch could be a harbinger of a larger deal between Starbucks and Apple to woo iPhone customers: I think... that we'll see the 3G iPhone rolled out as ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 19: Traveling light</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1318</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:35:46 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1318</guid>
<description><![CDATA[I finally did it. After almost 20 days of using the MacBook Air I'm now carrying just the MBA sans accessories. Like Linus with his blanket, I started by carrying the MBA in a padded sleeve case inside my regular bag for the first two weeks. This almost eliminated the the two pound (give or take) advantage of carrying the 3 pound MBA over its larger cousins. Any bag I carry ends up being a virtual tub for whatever I think that I may need with me. It's a catchall for every accessory, magazine, peripheral and other pointless item that I pick up in my travels. And the larger the bag, the more junk it attracts. All these extra items really add ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 15: Temperature benchmarks</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1312</link>
<pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 2008 06:21:26 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1312</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A big concern for anyone using a notebook computer for any length of time is the heat it generates. It actually came to a head a few years ago when the lawyers at most notebook computer manufacturers replaced the term "laptop" with "notebook" for fear of litigation. Apple recommends that their notebook computers only be used on a flat, stable surface     not on your lap. They go so far as saying the following on their MacBook care Web site and in the user guide: When you   re using your MacBook or charging the battery, it's normal for the bottom of the case to get warm. For prolonged use, place your MacBook on a flat, stable surface. Do not place your MacBook on ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 13: Installing 10.5.2</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1302</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:49:55 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1302</guid>
<description><![CDATA[I generally wait at least 72 hours before installing any operating system updates from Apple but yesterday's announcement of 10.5.2 made me throw caution to the wind. I figured that I had a solid backup (as Apple recommends) and I wanted to see if the new update from Cupertino would play nice with the MacBook Air. The Mac OS 10.5.2 Update weighs in at a hefty 341MB and is available via Software Update. A 10.5.2 Combo update (343MB) is available as a standalone download that will update both 10.5.0 and 10.5.1 and is convenient for IT folk and people that may be updating multiple Macs. (I don't have any HP printers so I skipped the 84MB driver update.) I highly recommend running ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 12: Tackling the storage issue</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1292</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:02:54 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1292</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Being somewhat of a data packrat, the MacBook Air's tiny 80GB hard drive was probably its biggest problem for me. I got accustomed to having a fairly heavy Aperture (20GB) and iTunes library (30GB) at my fingertips on my MacBook Pro's spacious 320GB HDD. The teensy MBA hard drive makes this impossible. Read more about data thinning strategies: Putting your HDD on an 80GB diet (Redux) 06 Feb 2008 Putting your HDD on an 80GB diet - 16 Jan 2008 The reality is that, just like Apple taught us with the advent of flash-based iPods, you don't need to have all your music with you all the time. The same is true for photos and data, and heck, applications for that matter. I've already ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 9: Is the SSD overhyped?</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1288</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 08 Feb 2008 06:38:00 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1288</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Boy I am I glad I didn't pony up an extra US$1,000 for the Solid State Drive (SSD) option in my MacBook Air. While the temptation was there, sticker shock at the upgrade price led me to stick with the traditional HDD option. The MBA hard drive has its share of problems: it's small, slow, PATA, etc. (but that's a topic for another blog post.) According to benchmarks posted by ArsTechnica the flash/SSD option in the MacBook Air may not be all that it's cracked up to be. In their tests they pitted the MacBook Air HDD against the pricey SSD model and the results are surprising. The MBA SSD took 28.5 seconds to boot, 12 seconds faster than the HDD model ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air SSD - Is it worth the money?</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1230</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:56:08 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Adrian Kingsley-Hughes</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1230</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Is the $1,300 solid state drive (SSD) for the MacBook Air worth the money?  Doesn't seem so. Ars Technica have published a review where they put an SSD-equipped MacBook Air up against one packing a standard hard drive and found marginal performance gains - certainly not gains that are worth the additional hefty price tag. Boot times, while not "instant on" aren't too shabby, but again the MacBook Pro beats the MacBook Air SSD: No, the SSD Air is not "instant-on." Unfortunately, it took 28.5 seconds to boot. Fortunately, that's still 12 seconds faster than the HDD model and 11.5 seconds faster than the Santa Rosa MacBook. It was still 2.5 seconds slower than the Santa Rosa MacBook Pro, however. The bottom line ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 7: The best sleeve case</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1280</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:18:19 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1280</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The MacBook Air is so tiny that you'll be tempted to just toss it into a portfolio, briefcase, backpack or whatever you happen to be carrying at the time   but I have to caution against this. With miniaturization come inevitable tradeoffs in durability and ruggedness. The MBA should never be mistaken for a Panasonic ToughBook and will not be able to take the abuse that even a normal five pound notebook can withstand. That being said, a quality padded sleeve is a requirement for the MacBook Air. Like some of you, I got swept up in the hyperbole surrounding the MBA announcement in San Francisco last month and couldn't resist plunking down my US$30 for the AirMail sleeve from Manila Mac. It's ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>Putting your HDD on an 80GB diet (Redux)</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1279</link>
<pubDate>Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:36:44 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1279</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(This is a follow-up to my original piece from 16 January 2008   Putting your HDD on an 80GB diet). As I pointed out last month: 80GB is not 80GB. It actually formats down to a paltry 74.3GB. Add to that an 11.4GB full Leopard install and you   re down to around 63GB of effective free space. The MacBook Air's tiny 80GB hard drive requires dramatic measures to fit the average user's data onto such a small platter. Here's my approach: Before migrating to the MBA, I archived my Music, Pictures, Movies and Downloads folders to a portable USB hard drive. Then I made a backup of my Applications folder to the same external USB hard drive. I recommend making a second backup to another hard drive, ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 6: Size comparisons</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1267</link>
<pubDate>Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:07:05 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1267</guid>
<description><![CDATA[After you get over the size of the packaging you can't help but to notice the size of the MacBook Air itself (it is, after all, the thinnest notebook computer in the world). After using it for six days, the size difference between the MBA and pretty much every other notebook computer is pretty dramatic. Especially when you're coming from a 15-inch MacBook Pro. One small annoyance with the MBA keyboard is the they replaced the Enter key that was to the right of the space bar with an Option key. I'm always hitting it thinking that I'm hitting Enter (like it is on the MB and MBP). I could have sworn that Jobs said that that the MBP had the ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 5: Battery observations</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1261</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:44:03 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1261</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Apple quotes the MacBook Air as having a 5 hour battery, but as with most OEM statements about battery life, it should be taken with a grain of salt. The battery life figures quoted by most manufacturers are measured under perfect, almost never practical, circumstances. They usually use a brand new battery, turn off all wireless (WiFi, bluetooth), no external peripherals connected (monitor, USB), they have the Energy Saver preferences ratcheted all the way down, keyboard backlights off and the monitor brightness set to one bar (the lowest setting.) The MacBook Air ships with a sealed 37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery and charges via a 45W MagSafe power adapter with a new right angle connector. According to Christopher Sinai's excellent coconutBattery 2.5.1 the MBA ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 4: The packaging</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1260</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:52:18 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1260</guid>
<description><![CDATA[After (finally) getting my data migrated over to the MacBook Air (hint: use Ethernet) I took yesterday off to watch the SuperBowl. The MacBook Air was the life of the party I attended and kinda has the "new gadget" novelty that the iPhone first had. Typical reactions were "ooh, I want one" and "how much did it cost?" One thing that Jobs touted about the MacBook Air during Macworld Expo was the diminutive size of the packaging, so I decided to compare the boxes of the MacBook Air, MacBook and MacBook Pro   stacked top to bottom below. The dimensions are as follows: MacBook Air (MBA)   12.25 x 14.25 x 2.25-inches   393 cubic inches MacBook (MB)   15.5 x 14.75 x 3.25   743 cu. in. MacBook Pro (MBP)   16.5 x 15.5 x 3.25   831 ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air Diary-Day 3: Migration assistance</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1253</link>
<pubDate>Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:08:17 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1253</guid>
<description><![CDATA[I received my MacBook Air on Thursday (unboxing photos here) and have spent the last few days learning a thing or two about Apple's Migration Assistant software. It's that handy little application the auto-runs when you start up a new Mac for the first time or re-install Mac OS X. The concept is simple, Migration Assistant helps you move your data from a previous Mac to a new one, and for the most part it's brilliant. The MacBook Air however is a different story. Because the MacBook Air doesn't have a Firewire port and USB doesn't support Target Disk Mode Apple had to update Migration Assistant to allow for migrations over wireless networks. The problem: it doesn't work (at least for me). I ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>MacBook Air tear-down: Look inside but don't touch?</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1249</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:38:22 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>David Morgenstern</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1249</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Mac parts and servicing site iFixit late Thursday posted its teardown of the MacBook Air. The look inside Apple's super thin notebook is revealing but shows that only upgrade Rambos will want to crack this puppy. As usual, iFixit's MacBook Air "first look" tear-down shows both the number of screws needed to attack each component inside the case, but their type and location. The article said "getting to the 'user-installable' parts is going to be a bit more challenging than usual." I've cracked open every Mac I've owned, but looking at the iFixit guide makes me wonder. The tight quarters inside the MacBook Air might make me more nervous than usual. I might wear a surgical mask so that I didn't ... ]]>
</description></item>
<item>
<title>Gallery: MacBook Air Unboxing</title>
<link>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1247</link>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:34:22 -0800</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jason D. O'Grady</dc:creator>
<guid>http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1247</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Yesterday was a very happy day for me. I ordered a MacBook Air (stock 1.6GHz configuration) about 30 minutes after the Macworld Expo keynote address wrapped up. I received an email confirmation gave me a "ship by" date of February 6 and an "delivers by" date of Feb. 11. So much for two weeks I thought. Much to my surprise I receive an email notification on January 29th informing me that my shipment Date was January 29, and that it would deliver by February 01. Oh, the joy! Apple also provided a FedEx tracking number which I used to follow its progress on FedEx.com, setting up the requesite email notification at every step of the way (of course). The path went like this: Jan ... ]]>
</description></item>
</channel>
</rss>
