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What not to do with your MacBook Air

By Nick, March 11, 2008

Here’s a quickie…

After Newsweek’s Steven Levy threw out his MacBook Air with the trash, I started thinking, what else should you not do with your MacBook Air? Here’s what I came up with in, oh, about ten minutes:

  • Use it as floatation device: As light as air? Maybe. Able to save you if you were drowning? Probably not.
  • Use it as a beverage tray: It would work as one, but it’s a little costly for use at your local Applebee’s or Chili’s.
  • Leave it on your spfa while hosting a party:Beware your uncle who doesn’t look before he sits.
  • Fry an egg on it: Computers don’t like gooey messes.
  • Use it as a frisbee: Your dog probably wouldn’t care if you played frisbee with a MacBook Air, but the MacBook Air may not be slobber-proof.
  • Dance with it: This one isn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility, but if you value your social standing at all, just don’t.
  • Use it to stabilize a wobbly table: Uhm, no.
  • A shield: What’s more important? Your personal safety or a $1800+ piece of computer equipment? The computer. Duh.
  • Whack your annoying younger sibling upside the head: For the sake of the MacBook Air, don’t do it.

Okay, I’m going to stop here before I embarrass myself further, but you get the idea. What would you recommend againt? Leave a comment!


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iPhone event roundup

By Nick, March 6, 2008

Earlier today Apple held an iPhone-oriented media event, covering topics including the iPhone in enterprise to the long-awaited SDK. Here are some of my initial thoughts on the announcements made today.

And yes, I wrote this as I followed the announcements, so they’re very, very early first impressions. wink

Enterprise

First of all, it seems strange to see Apple even discuss the enterprise market, considering their focus has been on the consumer for years and years. But considering almost every other smart phone out there is designed to be enterprise-friendly, it makes sense that Apple would do the same with the iPhone, especially since some corporate users are already using the iPhone.

Apple announced the addition of a good number of enterprise-friendly features for their next iPhone software, ranging from push email support and better calendar integration to better VPN support to the all-important Microsoft Exchange support. And as it turns out, Apple licensed the ActiveSync protocol for use on the iPhone. As Macworld reports, “With ActiveSync, the iPhone talks directly to Exchange. So the iPhone will get push e-mail, push calendaring, push contacts, global access lists, and remote wipe, all while talking to Exchange. And it’s built into the existing…
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Blu-ray wins, consumers lose

By UnnDunn, March 6, 2008

So now that Blu-ray Disc is poised to become the dominant next-generation movie format, it’s time to look to the future. A future that quite frankly, looks somewhat bleak for a number of reasons.

It’s been two weeks since Toshiba, creators and primary backers of the nascent next-generation movie disc format called HD DVD, ceased production and marketing of the technology, ceding defeat in a bitter format war raged between it and Blu-ray Disc, championed by a Sony-led consortium.

This move was widely expected following January’s announcement by Warner Home Video that it will be supporting Blu-ray Disc exclusively going forward. As the number one movie studio in the world, Warner Bros. commanded immense weight in deciding the outcome of this war, and once their announcement was made, it took less than two months for companies at every level of the home video distribution ecosystem to fall in line behind it, abandoning HD DVD in the process and leaving Toshiba holding the bag.

So now that Blu-ray Disc is poised to become the dominant next-generation movie format, it’s time to look to the future. A future that, quite frankly, looks somewhat bleak for a number of reasons.

In a Blu-ray dominated future, expect high prices, because everything about Blu-ray is far more expensive than its HD DVD counterparts. The players will be expensive thanks to costly laser pickups, complicated hardware and an even more…
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Quickies: Free newsreader roundup, Tetris for Dashboard

By Nick, March 5, 2008

A couple quick notes…

Free Mac newsreaders!

NetNewsWire is the undisputed king of the hill as far as Mac newsreaders go (especially since it went free), but there are a number of other free options out there. Fortunately for us, MacRecon published a short roundup of free Mac newsreaders. It’s worth a look, especially if you’re not too familiar with the other players in the field.

Tetris for Dashboard

Admit it. You spent hours upon hours of quality time with your original Game Boy playing Tetris. Since then you’ve moved on to bigger and batter games, but there’s still no going wrong with a game of Tetris now and then, especially if you have a few minutes of downtime. If this sounds like you, take a look at this Tetris game widget for Dashboard.

It’s Tetris as you know it (and in grayscale too!), but for your Dashboard. This widget allows you to pause and continue games, and as a nice touch, it pauses automatically when you hide Dashboard (Uh oh, boss coming! Hide it!)

The Tetris widget is still in beta, but is a free download from Apple’s Dashboard widget site. Check it out.

Do you follow Deep Thought’s Mac news on a regular basis? Subscribe to our Mac news feed.


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Adventures in troubleshooting

By Nick, March 4, 2008

Well that was a fun evening. It was an evening of twists and turns, of drama, of troubleshooting.

So this afternoon I came home after running some errands, and switched on my MacBook. I used it earlier in the day and shut it down while I was gone. When I reached the login screen, I discovered that my MacBook’s built-in keyboard and trackpad weren’t responding. Neither would accept any input whatsoever. Thinking it was a one-time glitch, I plugged in a USB mouse and restarted.

It didn’t make a difference. Same result.

I logged in with a USB keyboard and mouse and checked System Profiler to see ifmy MacBook still recognized its own keyboard and trackpad. It did. Okay, at least the computer still knew the keyboard and trackpad still existed.

To narrow it down as a software problem or hardware problem, I grabbed my Leopard DVD and booted from it.  Same result. Dead keyboard and trackpad. Sigh. Restart. Launch Safari, do a little searching, realize that others have experienced similar problems that required repair. Ugh.

At this point, thinking it was a hardware issue that would require a trip to the repair shop, I called Apple shortly before 5…
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