Posts Tagged ‘laptop’

Last week, I replaced my aging 13″ MacBook Pro with a new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Here are my impressions so far…

I went for the 15″ rather than the 13″ because a) they didn’t do the Retina Display in a 13″, but more importantly, b) the new 15″ is the same weight as the 13″, so it’s just as portable and gives me a bigger screen to work on, as the 13″ was starting to grate on me a little. It is reasonably light, though the bigger size means it won’t fit in my current sleeve.

The screen looks amazing!

Getting started was easy – but only because I paid for the ethernet adapter. I simply backed up my current laptop to my Time Capsule (you do have a Time Capsule, right?), then turned it off, connected my new laptop to the Time Capsule and restored the entire system.

This worked for most things, but not quite everything – for example, I had to copy over my hosts file from a backup, as well as my system paths, and most applications needed me to login again and some thought it was a different device (well, I guess it is, but others didn’t notice a difference). All my files and applications came back and I just logged in as normal though, very smooth.

In general, I was expecting it to be faster. It has a faster processor, and SSD hard drive and more memory, so I was hoping things would open lightning quick. They open quicker than on my old laptop, but it’s not instant like the stripped down, no crap on the system demo laptops you find in the Apple Store.

The wake up time is a lot slower than my old laptop. I used to just open the lid and was able to log in, this one there is a distinct few seconds wait while it wakes up.

There is no light or battery indicator on the case. My old one had a light on the front which told me when it had actually gone to sleep, and a button I could press on the side to activate a series of five LEDs telling me how much charge was left. This one has neither.

It’s very, very thin!

I’ll reporting back after I’ve been using it a while.

I knew there was going to be a fairly painful adjustment phase as I got used to OS X but there are some things that are really bugging me.

Like bugs. For example when I close my final tab on Opera it should go back to my quick launch screen so I can access a shortcut easily. But it doesn’t, it closes the window meaning that if I want to get back to my start screen I have to close the window and open a new one.

Then it’s the little things. For example if I’m selecting a series of files to upload, I move my select file dialog to just over the file boxes to make it a lot easier. But in OS X the file dialog box jumps back to it’s old location between every file.

The image viewing is rubbish as well. On XP I just clicked an image and it opened and then I could just use the arrow keys on my keyboard to navigate through them. No such luck on OS X on any of Preview (the default application), Quick Look (the integrated OS X viewer) or Xee (a little image viewer I grabbed to try and solve the problem). Indeed OS X has nothing that can stand up to the might of IrfanView.

I’m sure I’ll figure it all out in the end and a lot of the problems I will find a workaround or just get used to. I’m sure I’ll eventually find a convenient one keystroke way to lock my screen and remember not to use the scroll bar. But until I do they’re irritating problems.

This sounds far too negative though, in general I’m quite enjoying it, much like having a fly in your drink on a tropical beach – it’s annoying but you’re still on a tropical beach.

I love spaces (same as workspaces for you unix geeks, I can’t for the life of me understand why Windows doesn’t have them), I love the fact I can get 7 hours out of the battery, I love the fact it shuts down in 2 seconds flat rather than the 2 minutes XP takes and I love gestures. Stick with it and good times are ahead.

For those of you that aren’t aware, due to some unfortunate events that have befallen my recently I now have a new laptop. This one is going to be named Tolima and is a rather shiny MacBook Pro.

I went for the higher spec 2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo with the extended hard drive and so far performance seems reasonably swish. I haven’t really put it to the test beyond some big installing but it potters along quite nicely and does some lightening fast shutting down.

The battery life is also very nice, I squeezed around 7 hours out of it last night, a small amount of that time it was on sleep but I certainly wasn’t taking it easy installing going on 20gb of programs and I began to put my life back together. It’s also not much heavier than my old laptop while squeezing another inch into the screen which makes quite a difference to the point I wish I could run it at a higher resolution than 1280.

Only time will tell if I love it or hate it but I’m planning to duel boot it anyway as 7 really is a sexy piece of work.

Richard Wisemen tweeted about this Amazon product listing recently, it’s a little travel desk which hucks onto your steering wheel so you can use your laptop while driving.

Richard was most impressed by the customer images that users have taken the time to upload but I personally think it’s the quality reviews that people have written to really let us know how effective the product is that is the real gem of the page.

Wow is this thing great! I use it as a “mini-bar” when the friends and I go out to the bars. I can quickly fix multiple shots of tequila for myself and the friends as we drive from one bar to the next. We also discovered that if you place a pillow on top of it and turn on the cruise control you can catch quick naps on the interstate. If you swerve to the left or right the rumble strips on the road wake you up in plenty of time before you get into trouble. I can now take longer trips without being tired!

Also, i am now dating a midget and she fits nicely on the steering wheel desk which allows us to experiment sexually while driving. This thing is like WD-40 or duct tape, it is a million and one uses!

This has been a total lifesaver. It allows me to prop my sheet music against the wheel, allowing me to play the guitar with both hands while driving.

It is also great for holding your food if you decide you want a full meal (but you can’t check facebook on your steak), rolling illegal products in clear view of officers, and it makes a GREAT holder for your 6 pack of beer so you don’t even have to reach in the backseat to get another (reaching behind you while driving is dangerous)

This desk leaves just enough room to control the wheel with my knee so my shoulder is free for my phone and I can type with one hand and eat my lunch with the other. Best invention EVER.

I had hoped to find a low-cost/safer alternative to a car seat for my 21-month old. I was certain this would work well–even allowing me to see her clearly while driving (I am a freak about child safety!). Imagine my utter shock when she careened into my head while backing out of the driveway. And the darn “child seat” turned over too–seemingly it moves with the streering wheel—WTF? Luckily, I slammed on the brakes, and we have sustained only mild-to-severe concussions

Do you have any idea how hard it is to read Braille books while driving? Every time I’d hit something my book would slide off my lap onto the floor and I’d lose my place. Problem solved…Thanks Laptop Steering Wheel Desk.

Definitely one for the Christmas list.

While having a dig around to try and get Leanne out of the whole she had got herself into I found an interesting trick I can do with my laptop (and perhaps with my desktop but I don’t want to try it because I’ve got a dual monitor setup and all my applications positioned just as I like them).

If I hit Ctrl+Alt and an arrow key it will change the orientation of my screen so I can turn my laptop screen on it’s side. While this is fairly common with the new crazy swirly screen laptops and indeed fancy flat screen monitors, I had no idea I could do it with such a wide range of machines includng my laptop.

Of course, being a geek, the fact that this had virtually no practical value and nor would I ever really find it useful or want to do it is irrelevant – it’s just, because I can 😉 .

I came to access the data partion of my hard drive yesterday and received a message informing me that my E: drive was not formatted and would I like to format it now?

Awwww, crap.

Having tried all the usual solutions I installed Partition Table Magic (having shelled out quite a bit for it) to fix everything. Which it didn’t. It did however mess with my partion table so that instead of booting off my main partition it now booted off the small media partition that you can use to play movies and such without booting up the full operating system.

So now I couldn’t get Windows to boot at all.

I downloaded GParted and booted into that with the LiveCD and managed to reset the flag so that it booted off the proper partition. But now the media center partition is visible for the first time and who knows what other damage has been done.

Still, I’ve got past the heart wrenching hours where I thought I was going to have to shell out for professional data recovery so things could be worse.