Thread: MacBook Air

OK. Let's not get all fanboy here. Can anybody say FOSS?

Originally Posted by earcutter

Oh man I made the mistake of looking at that iPad Air after buying the Air... What a beautiful thing that is!! Both my kids have iPads - I went with an Android - what a mistake lol.

This Air that I got, at 11" is incredibly portable - I gave up a nice screen for that portability. I understand they may be coming out with the better screens in a couple of months - I just couldn't wait lol.

Just give up already, you know eventually you will, so why bother with a fight. Here is how it is - in this new world you would be buying the latest improved gadget as soon as it is released
So, no worries, sometime next year you'll have a new macbook air with a nice 'retina' display and a new shrunken processor (the exact same design as the current ones but made with 14nm die instead of 22nm, so a bit of extra speed and less power drain).

I've tried the ipads several times, including the current air, but I type too much so I've got no choice but MBP.

Still using FOSS, though - one of the first things I do on a new computer is install homebrew, pick the various gnu compilers and a lot of math software (octave, r, fftw, blas, lapack, etc.) Afterwards I move on to figuring out the newest idiosyncrasies that apple did with standard libraries and fixes for those... It could be worse, though - microsoft - with their compiler I had to put a wrapper around fwrite to compensate for what is probably a stupid internal buffer causing it to fail on modestly sized ouput.

Originally Posted by gugi

Just give up already, you know eventually you will, so why bother with a fight. Here is how it is - in this new world you would be buying the latest improved gadget as soon as it is released
So, no worries, sometime next year you'll have a new macbook air with a nice 'retina' display and a new shrunken processor (the exact same design as the current ones but made with 14nm die instead of 22nm, so a bit of extra speed and less power drain).

I've tried the ipads several times, including the current air, but I type too much so I've got no choice but MBP.

Still using FOSS, though - one of the first things I do on a new computer is install homebrew, pick the various gnu compilers and a lot of math software (octave, r, fftw, blas, lapack, etc.) Afterwards I move on to figuring out the newest idiosyncrasies that apple did with standard libraries and fixes for those... It could be worse, though - microsoft - with their compiler I had to put a wrapper around fwrite to compensate for what is probably a stupid internal buffer causing it to fail on modestly sized ouput.

?!?!?!?
Ivan that makes absolutely no sense to me at all

David, you can get a case with a blue tooth keyboard for whatever tablet you have, then it's sort of like a mini laptop.

I made the same choice as you, more than a year ago and haven't looked back - the 11" model gives good portability and a surprisingly good viewing experience too, despite the smaller screen space. Admittedly, the screen size does occasionally meet its match on some projects where it's beneficial to have a larger screen area but fortunately, a Thunderbolt to HDMI connector from ebay allows connection to most monitors and televisions these days... Hooked up to a 32" display, the screen size is more than ample!

Interestingly, I thought the lack of a CD drive would be a deal-breaker but with the exception of a couple of occasions (Installing Windows as a dual-boot, for example...) where I used an external driver, it simply hasn't been an issue - Sign of the times perhaps.

Hope you enjoy it!

Originally Posted by gugi

Just give up already, you know eventually you will, so why bother with a fight. Here is how it is - in this new world you would be buying the latest improved gadget as soon as it is released
So, no worries, sometime next year you'll have a new macbook air with a nice 'retina' display and a new shrunken processor (the exact same design as the current ones but made with 14nm die instead of 22nm, so a bit of extra speed and less power drain).

I've tried the ipads several times, including the current air, but I type too much so I've got no choice but MBP.

Still using FOSS, though - one of the first things I do on a new computer is install homebrew, pick the various gnu compilers and a lot of math software (octave, r, fftw, blas, lapack, etc.) Afterwards I move on to figuring out the newest idiosyncrasies that apple did with standard libraries and fixes for those... It could be worse, though - microsoft - with their compiler I had to put a wrapper around fwrite to compensate for what is probably a stupid internal buffer causing it to fail on modestly sized ouput.

Actually... yeah. I do get the latest this and that - or I have in the past - but it's not for the reason you might think lol. It's not because I am "that guy" (first adapter), its because I break my hardware like a champ lol. But I really have been doing well as of late - getting older I guess lol.

First thing I do when I get a new computer is revisit the OS. Take this little 11" for example. Dude what a POS were you to try and use it like any other laptop or desktop. Hence, I remind myself of all the power user tools I can use in order to get the most out of this thing. Downloading Hebrew really takes a back seat - but forgoing "Canadian English vs USA, was a challenge lol .

Hey - what do you do in the world Ivan? What are you doing with "R?" All my friends seem to be using it - learning it. I feel as though I should learn it just to stay current. Is it really that much more than a power Excel user?? Sigh...

Originally Posted by edhewitt

?!?!?!?
Ivan that makes absolutely no sense to me at all

David, you can get a case with a blue tooth keyboard for whatever tablet you have, then it's sort of like a mini laptop.

I thought about going that way. It might have worked too, except every now and then I'll geek out and pretend I am Gugi (in that I'll manipulate some data sets). That said I am only assuming that a iPad wouldn't be as good at processing data??


For all of you reading this thinking of getting a MacBook Air 11" - Though I love mine, I don't recommend it. It takes a bit of configuring to be able to even be able to read what's on the screen lol. Moreover the display bites chunks - of course that means I'll get about an hour or two out of my battery than one were it to have a better resolution, and I value that to no end.

As said on Page One - laptops are like razors - YMMV applies .

Originally Posted by Christel

I made the same choice as you, more than a year ago and haven't looked back - the 11" model gives good portability and a surprisingly good viewing experience too, despite the smaller screen space. Admittedly, the screen size does occasionally meet its match on some projects where it's beneficial to have a larger screen area but fortunately, a Thunderbolt to HDMI connector from ebay allows connection to most monitors and televisions these days... Hooked up to a 32" display, the screen size is more than ample!

Interestingly, I thought the lack of a CD drive would be a deal-breaker but with the exception of a couple of occasions (Installing Windows as a dual-boot, for example...) where I used an external driver, it simply hasn't been an issue - Sign of the times perhaps.

Hope you enjoy it!

I like small computers - my last two before this one didn't have a CD/DVD drive. It wasn't a problem then - isn't now lol . I do have an external drive though. It looks at me begging to be used...

I am enjoying it! More than I thought actually.

You're going to love it. It's the best technology there is, IMHO. Enjoy!

For me, I don't need as much as that, though, yeah, miss "emerge" myself.

So sweet to be able to tinker all the right CFLAGS, roll your own kernel, compile all softwares with the desired features and without the cruft.

Originally Posted by earcutter

It's not because I am "that guy" (first adapter)

Is that canuck for 'early adopter'?

Originally Posted by earcutter

What are you doing with "R?" All my friends seem to be using it - learning it. I feel as though I should learn it just to stay current. Is it really that much more than a power Excel user?? Sigh...

It's basically general math software oriented towards statistics. It is orders of magnitude more powerful than Excel, but if you're only doing relatively simple/ordinary stuff you could use anything that you're already familiar with.
I don't use it much though - I mostly use octave which is the free alternative to matlab, and that's from 'matrix laboratory', so it's a general math software with algebraic orientation. Basically create matrices and then manipulate them, if your problem isn't algebraic it's not particularly useful - you could write functions and loops in any other language/interpreter just as inefficiently.
But these are just math/numerical tools for data manipulation, you have first to quantify your problem, then get data and then figure out how you need to manipulate and analyze the data to answer your questions. The tools you use are secondary and can make a difference only after you have done the rest of the job.

Originally Posted by gugi

Is that canuck for 'early adopter'?

lol! No that's David for brain fart .