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Trouble in paradise: VMware Fusion + MBAir + Firefox
I've mentioned previously my admiration for
Firefox 3,
VMware Fusion, and the
MacBook Air -- the last with some limits, since its elegantly stripped-down design makes it great for traveling but too limited (in disk space and ports) to be a "main" computer.
These three elements are very good individually and even better together, with one exception. Since the release of Firefox 3, I've found that running it at the same time I'm running Windows programs under Fusion, on the MBAir, frequently leads to a video-corruption problem that makes the screen look like this:
It doesn't happen if I'm using Firefox without Fusion, or using Fusion without (native Mac) Firefox. Unfortunately, Firefox and Fusion (which allows you to run any Windows program) are two programs I use all the time. When they're running at the same time and I am switching from one to another, sooner or later I will have this problem. It doesn't cause lost data, but it means a tedious chore of closing down and backing out of programs when you can't see what's on the screen. The menu bars still are visible, and work, but you have to guess-remember what the on-screen dialogue box is saying as you close each program.
VMware claims this is an (acknowledged) Apple video bug in the MBAir, and that Apple will some day fix it. I haven't asked Apple's side of the story. I mention it just for the record, as the one and only serious instability issue I've had with the MBAir, and as part of the continuing quest for de-bugging our technological lives.
Mac nerds only: becoming a believer on the battery front
I mentioned earlier that I was using a pricey (~$300) battery extender, from QuickerTek, to make up for one of the MacBook Air's biggest limitations: that you can't swap its battery out. The device in question is the square thing on the left in the photo below. And, yes, that's the Windows XP welcome screen, running very nicely on the Mac under VMware Fusion. If you squint, you can even see the icons for Zoot and Brainstorm, my trusty PC programs. Outlook and X1 are in there too.
Latest data point: during travel yesterday I used the MB Air away from an electric plug, but with this battery extender, for ten straight hours and was nowhere close to using up the power. Details after the jump, but my experience is: for a price, this is a way to eliminate all questions about whether you can get enough working time out of the MBA.
Continue reading "Mac nerds only: becoming a believer on the battery front" »
The next three points about MacBook Air
As promised recently, the ongoing MacAir report will unfold in compact, digestible three-point installments. (Index to previous installments here.) Today's three points:
1) Is the MacAir suitable as your "real" computer? No.
OK: that's a spoiled-sounding thing to say. What I mean is that this machine is optimized for ease, convenience, and elegance as a portable computer, at the expense of features that would make it better for day-in, day-out stuck at the office use.
Most obvious illustration: this is one of the very few modern computers with no CD/DVD drive at all. (Unlike its closest PC counterpart, the new Lenovo ThinkPad X300.) You can work around that with a convenient utility to read from another machine's DVD drive, over a network -- but that means you have to have another machine. Similarly: you can work around the absence of an Ethernet port (with a separate dongle), and the presence of only one USB port, and the absence of a microphone jack. But they are workarounds, and there is no getting around the limit on the hard drive, which holds a maximum of 80GB. Not a huge amount, by today's desktop computer standards.
The MacAir remains elegant and beautiful; it has stood up well to travel (protected by this neoprene sleeve); I have no complaints about fit or finish or any other mechanical feature. But just as some resort properties are suitable mainly for those who can consider them "second homes," this is suitable mainly for people who can consider it a second computer. Though a nice one....
2) What about that battery life?
Continue reading "The next three points about MacBook Air" »
My three computers (MacBook Air saga, cont..)
Three months into my use and ownership of both a MacBook Air and a Mac Mini, and nearly 30 years into my use and ownership of computers in the CP/M -> DOS -> Windows lineage, I keep waiting for the moment to give a "complete" and panoramic view of the pluses and minuses of each approach.
That moment will never come. So I will resume the piecemeal descriptions offered before (here and in previous installments).
For reference: my three-working-computer setup here at Beijing HQ, in a posed but not entirely unrepresentative configuration. On the left: venerable Thinkpad T60 running Vista and a zillion Windows-style programs. On the right: the MacBook Air in all its svelteness. In between, a Mac Mini, connected to a big flat-panel display and a Mac-style aluminum keyboard.
I still use all of them, through day by day the trend is, ratchet-like, in the Mac direction. I wouldn't be embarrassed to have a multi-system life for quite a while ahead, since each has its strengths --and since I don't regard this as a religious or cultural all-or-nothing decision. As soon as I even think about trying to present the ins and outs of each system, I get nervous about what a long chore that would be. (Also, I know that David Alison's excellent blog has over the last few months chronicled in exquisite detail every shift, surprise, irritation, how-to, and satisfaction he has gone through during his switch to the Mac.)
So I'll make this manageable by doling out three or four points per post, which cumulatively may someday represent the complete Mac/PC almanac so many people dream of.
Today's three points:
Continue reading "My three computers (MacBook Air saga, cont..)" »
MacBook Air #5: the Air comes home
Beijing Metro line #1. Guomao station, March 6 2008. Illuminated sign roughly 3' x 8':
The MacBook Air, made in China (like virtually all other laptops and notebooks), comes back to its birthplace.
Two extra Air-related points:
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The MacBook Air chronicles #4: success with VMWare
As reported a few days ago, my new MacBook Air -- while undeniably svelte and beautiful, and while having surprisingly good battery life, and while generally performing in much snappier fashion than my Vista laptop -- was giving me trouble in one big way. I had been trying to install either VMWare Fusion or Parallels, the two systems that let you run Windows programs (on an Intel-powered Mac) side by side with Mac OS X. Or that's what the two programs are supposed to do. I couldn't get either of them actually to start up a session of Windows XP. (Was I going to load Vista? Let's be serious.)
Problem now solved! And it proved not to have been VMWare's fault. I don't know about Parallels -- even though I bought that program for full $80 retail at the Apple store in New York last month (it being the only one available), I never heard back on my requests to its tech support line. But VMWare, which I downloaded as a free 30-day trial product, did reply and gave me the right answer. (Details below.*) I will with relatively good cheer pony up my $80 to register the product -- or $50, after a $30 rebate for previous purchasers of the rival Parallels.
MacBook Air running WinXP, under VMWare, with "dock" of Mac program icons at the bottom:
Continue reading "The MacBook Air chronicles #4: success with VMWare" »
MacBook Air #3: Some performance comparisons
Eventually we'll get to whatever philosophical differences separate computing on the fancy new MacBook Air ultra-light machine from computing on a classy high-end ThinkPad T60 running Vista with its latest updates. (Hint: differences less profound and sweeping than many people assume.)
Also, some of the practicalities involved in shifting the center-of-gravity of your work from one platform to another. (Hint #1: If you have a lot, lot, lot of info stored in Microsoft Outlook .PST files, as I do, a full shift is not as easy as you've been told. Hint #2: At least for me, neither VMWare Fusion nor Parallels, the two programs that let Intel-powered Macs run Windows programs, has been all that simple to configure and get running -- though I remain hopeful that I'll get one of them to work!)
Let's talk today just about numbers: ones that have gotten my attention. They involve the lost-time overhead a computer imposes on you while you wait for it to work. What I've found:
Putting the computer to 'sleep' (so you can save battery power when you step away for a while). Time from issuing command till end of disk activity and screen display, three trials:
Thinkpad T60 / Vista: 12 seconds, 13 seconds, 15 seconds, average about 13 seconds. I am excluding as an anomaly the first time I ran this test, which took 80 seconds.
MacBook Air / Leopard: 3 seconds, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, average about 3 seconds.
Continue reading "MacBook Air #3: Some performance comparisons" »
MacBook Air #2: batteries etc
I’ve only just now begun installing “real” software on my newly acquired MacBook Air.* So until now, I’ve been using the Air exclusively for online activity – and haven’t been giving it the full long-airplane-flight test to see how much time it takes to run the battery down while doing real work.
Instead, I’ve done indirect tests, like setting the Air up to play nonstop streaming audio from internet radio broadcasts while running on battery power. That way, I know that it’s continually drawing power to work the WiFi and run the speaker (yes, the speaker -- just one, and not that good). The screen, though, self-dims in a way it wouldn’t if I were sitting there typing.
Still: this has been enough to give an impression. Battery life on this machine seems “pretty good,” and the time it takes to recharge the battery is not bad at all.
Continue reading "MacBook Air #2: batteries etc" »
MacBook Air: first of a series
I didn't expect to return from my latest trip to the U.S. with a brand-new MacBook Air in my hand, but for various surprising reasons that's what I brought back.*
I have not given it a full workout yet, and the reason is related to one of the quirks of this machine: it has no CD/DVD reader and is designed to install software wirelessly, either from the Internet or via a connection to another Mac or PC. I have not yet gone through the process of installing the programs I'd like to use on it, so all I've done with it is work online. Collect email, check out the news, and, yes, compose and post this message.
More reactions to come later, about the aspects of this machine that have raised most questions. How good is the battery, really -- considering that unlike most laptops, but like iPods etc, you can't change it yourself or bring a second to swap in during a plane flight? Is its 80GB hard disk big enough for modern computing life? How well does its wifi-only approach actually work, given the absence of a CD drive and an Ethernet port? Will the remote installation process let me put Parallels or VMWare on the system, so I can run the Windows programs I really care about? All this, as I say, for another day.
For today, an aesthetic and emotional reaction: This is an astonishingly successful work of industrial design. Even industrial art. Its case is very small and thin, and seems even smaller and thinner. It is very light, and seems lighter than it is. (Maybe adrenaline rush to the arm muscles?) By the specs, the processor is not tremendously fast, but the computer feels agile and responsive -- all the more so in contrast to my Vista ThinkPad. The screen is bright and big (maybe related to battery life?), and the keyboard is full-sized and convenient. It is as beautiful a piece of machinery as I have seen in a long time.
Later: how it works when I'm trying to do something more than reach web sites. Maybe the shock of aesthetic appreciation will have worn off -- somewhat -- by then.
__
* To spell it out: these reasons do not include any baksheesh, "demo copies," or other favortistic efforts by Apple or other companies.
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