May you have a blessed holiday!

Daniel Suarez has written a couple of novels that should be on every geek’s reading list. I’ve listened to Leo LaPorte go on and on about these titles for months, but I was afraid to buy them in fear of shirking my other duties to read them.  My fears were well-founded.

If you’re a techie, Daemon and Freedom™ contain the ingredients necessary to push all your geek buttons. Daemon begins as a millionaire computer genius/game developer Matthew Sobel dies of cancer leaving an AI version of himself running loose on the internet to carry out his vision of socioeconomic re-engineering of the world’s power structure. While the tech is a bit futuristic, the setting is present day and very believeable. If you’ve ever played a first-person shooter, you’ll be instantly familiar with the described “darknet” where followers of the deceased Sobel rebuild their crumbling world. Suarez does an excellent job developing the characters while not overdoing the touchy-feely stuff and I found myself very interested in the human side of the story. But let there be no doubt, these books are high-tech action thrillers and the reader is not left wanting death and destruction.

I bought Daemon on a Friday.  By Sunday, I was back on the Whispernet purchasing its sequel, Freedom™. After Daemon I wanted more and Freedom™delivered IN SPADES! Rumor has it, Suarez is working to complete the trilogy. I’ll be first in line.

Due to my non-disclosure agreement with Apple, I cannot divulge much about the latest iOS version.

So…

Over the Air Updates = GOOD!

Today’s release of the new Macbook Air lineup vaults the machines from “nice to have, but not enough machine to do any real computing” to “the future of laptops”.  I’m speaking more specifically about the new top of the line 13″ model.  With the processor upgrade to the Core i5 and i7 “Sandy Bridge” line and the addition of the Thunderbolt port, the two biggest knocks on the Air have been quashed.  Additionally, the keyboard is now backlit which, for me, was a total show stopper with the previous model.

It will be fun to see the reviews from the “experts” (guys with enough readers or money to get the new models early) who slammed the previous model for being too slow, too underpowered and with to few expansion options. As I examine the specs for this new mini-mighty 13″ model, I can only find one reason not to buy it: there’s too few Thunderbolt accessories to date.  As with any new peripheral interface, it will take the third party guys a while to catch up, but in the next couple of months we will have forgotten about today’s shortcomings.  So, why do I think the new Air defines the future of laptops?

1. Moving parts and portability don’t mix well. With no hard disk or DVD drive the Air is a true “solid state” machine.  The two most fragile components of a laptop are also the slowest. The SSD is so much faster than a spinning disk that even the previous generation Air with its much slower processor felt snappy and responsive and 256 gigs ain’t shabby.  DVD drives are going the way of the floppy disk. I can’t remember the last time I slid a disk into my MacBook Pro. Yep, more rugged, affordable and much faster…I’ll take it.
2. Core i5 & i7 = Plenty of muscle.  Let’s face it, a 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo is a bit whimpy when we’re talking about modern laptops.  While they’re adequate for the $500 Best Buy specials, we Mac users have come to expect a bit more for $1000+.  While still just dual-core, these new grinders have enough beef to handle all but the most demanding number crunching, like video encoding or 3D modeling.  Virtually everything else is quite doable.
3. Thunderbolt will make all things possible. OK, maybe I’m jumping the gun a little bit, but my mind just reels when I think about all the technology a bi-directional 10 gigabit connection makes possible. I imagine it won’t be long before we see gigabit ethernet adapters, firewire hubs, external video cards and much more to go along with the already available super-fast storage devices. The old “lack of peripheral connectivity” argument no longer holds any water at all.

Any one of these improvements alone make a MacBook Air a very desireable machine, but taken together (especially in the 13″ model) the Air could become a “MacBook Pro Killer”.

Hello again folks.  I abandoned this site a couple of years ago (um, EXACTLY two years…How weird is that?) when I decided to start MacTexan.com.  I think that decision was a bit premature.  Turns out, there’s more noobs in the Mac community than ever.  Apple has been selling Macs like Get out of Hell Free tickets.  Seems there’s still some kick left in this site and I’m just the blowhard to get things up and running again.  I’ve learned so much about the Mac since buying my first one in 2006 and I gathered most of my knowledge from sites like this one.  It’s time to give back.

Well, stay tuned.  I’m working on our first comeback tour and will be posted up in a few days.