The New MacBook Air- Is it right for You?

The new Macbook Air has been out for a little while now. I have been using mine for about one month. So, here is my thoughts on this thin little beauty.

I have always been a consumer of laptops. In the literal sense of the word. Over the last number of years I have been one of these people that gets a new laptop every 2-3 yrs. I would use a Macbook then sell it for the new latest and greatest. Luckily they hold their value pretty good.

Over the years I have used the white MacBook, a MacBook Pro 13" and 15". My previous thinking each time I upgraded was I wanted faster processor, graphics and more memory. I would inevitably upgrade their ram and hard drive almost without fail.

Before getting the MacBook Air 13", I had a MacBook Pro 13". The specs on the Pro were 2.26 GHz, 4 GB Ram and a 500gb HD. A very nice machine in it's own right.

However, after using my iPad since they debuted, I started to wonder. Do I really need the power, memory and sized hard drive of the aforementioned MacBook Pro? The answer was NO! After all, I was only using 40gb of that 500gb hard drive. Additionally, I was only using the Pro at work for certain tasks, mostly word processing(MS Office) and browsing.

So, I had decided to sell my old Pro model. About this same time the New MacBook Air debuts. Hmmm, I thought maybe this Air would fit the bill. I researched, read reviews, and went to the Apple Store repeatedly to contemplate this new line.












Ok, Ok get to what you bought already! I ended up purchasing the base 13" MacBook Air 1.86GHz, 2gb Ram, 128gb hd it retails for $1299. It comes with two USB ports, SD card slot, and a mini display port. No ethernet, but you can get a USB to ethernet dongle. I did not choose to upgrade to the 4gb model. Rare for me! After using the 2gb version in store for a while, it seems this model would be fine.

After using my Air for about a month now, I LOVE IT! It really fits the needs that I have for a laptop computer. Which as stated above, my needs were basic office tasks(word, excel, outlook), browsing, and online tasks for work. As most of my golf course tasks are now web based. Such as payroll, HR, billing, and documents.

I find it to perform as Apple has promised in terms of speed. Start up and loading apps is plenty quick due to the Flash based hard drive. It plays video very nice. Whether it is from Hulu, Netflix, Vimeo, or the hard drive.

I do not do much video or audio editing, so I cannot comment on how this Air would handle this tasks. However, I have read a number of articles by people claiming they have tried to us the Air for video and audio with success. Via apps like Adobe CS, iMovie, etc.

At first I was concerned the 128gb was going to be filled in no time flat. As I write this I am using about 30gb of storage on the MBA. I don't store many photos, movies, or videos on this machine. Those items are stored on iOS devices or my iMac. The use of cloud based storage like DropBox, iDisk(MobileMe user), Evernote, Box.net also helps to eliminate the need for large hard drives on laptops. It frees up your hard drive for the stuff you really want.

Also, the lack of an optical drive turns some people away. However, I did not realize until researching the Air that you can share a drive via your home network from a separate PC or Mac. Problem solved as far as I am concerned. I have loaded at least 6 different types of software using this method and it worked great.

If you are someone who really needs to runs windows apps then you could de that as well. I have watched videos of Windows7 and XP running on a Air via bootcamp or Parallels. Although, you may want the fully loaded Air version to give you the best performance for these applications.

Here is a list of most of the apps installed on my MBA:
iWork 09
MS Office 2011 Mac
iLife 11
Evernote
Bento 3
1 Password
iTunes 10
BusyCal
FaceTime
iShowU HD

If you are looking for a lightweight, quick, durable, long battery life laptop, take a look at the line of 2010 MacBook Air.
www.apple.com/Mac







- Posted from my iPad

The iTurf Apps Journal

Each day The iTurf Apps Journal will be "printed" This will give our followers an in depth look at all the news and rumors coming out of anything iphone, ipad, ipod and Apple.

The iTurf Apps Journal

Apple Updates iPad, iPhone and iTouch to iOS 4.2

What to see what the updates are all about, airprint, ipad multitasking, custom SMS notifications, here is iOS 4.2 in 10 mins courtesy of TIPB.com.

SunSeeker App review

iTurfapps first video review of an app and this one is a good one!! SunSeeker a must have for all turf managers. Outside the video review, there are some minor other features to this app, but the video hit the important ones. This app is fantastic and at $2.99, it is hard to say no!

I am looking for recommendations as to how to make our video reviews better. We are hear for you and want to make sure we are providing good information in our reviews.

Thank you and look forward to your comments.

iPhone Twitter Client adds Push Notification

No doubt I check in with Twitter more than email nowadays. I saw a post on Twitter from one of my followers earlier this week, "will Twitter replace email?" At a recent meeting of industry professionals I brought up an example of the use of Twitter, an industry friend had an issue with his pump station last year. He posted issues on Twitter and by the end of the day he had his station repaired, all through the help of his followers. Twitter is no doubt a powerful networking tool and has gotten more powerful.

Recently Twitter has been updated to include Push Notification. No need to continually log in to see who is responding to your DM's or making mention of you. The new Twitter client will send a push notification to your iPhone when either of these takes place. I have been utilizing Boxcar for a couple years and I am glad to see Twitter is moving in this direction. I am able to be notified when I receive a DM or a mention without having to log in and continually follow Twitter. I can remain productive and not bog down in the addictive finger swipe of looking through tweets.

Google Docs now editing on iPhone

More so than ever we as Superintendents and Turf Managers need to be more mobile. I find myself needing to access many of my important documents on the go. I know many people utilize Google Docs as a way to do this. In my opinion there are easier ways to do this, but to each their own. Google has finally announced the near release of the ability to edit your Google Docs on a mobile device, specifically the iPhone. Check out the press release below along with a short video.

Editing your Google Docs on the go
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Labels: documents, Google Apps Blog, spreadsheets
Cross posted on the Official Google Blog, Google Enterprise Blog and the Google Mobile Blog

With Google Docs, we’re always trying to make you more productive—and part of that means making it possible for you to get things done from anywhere, at anytime. That’s why we’re excited that the new documents editor now supports editing on your mobile browser. We’re rolling this out over the next few days.

That means that...
You can work on that important memo...while on the bus or train to work.
If you’re behind on a group proposal, but really want to make it to the ball game tonight, your whole team can work on it from the bleacher seats.
You can take minute-by-minute notes at a concert so you’ll always remember the setlist. And your friends can jealously follow in real-time at home.
...and the list goes on!
Take a look at this video to see mobile editing in action:

Big Announcement from Apple today!!

Apple is making a big announcement today at 10am EST. Many rumors as to what will be released, the biggie is the acquisition of the Beatles catalog. I personally hope it is more than that.

Apple Announcement