Interview on The DV Show

I was contacted a week or two ago by Brian Alves of the DV Show podcast inviting me on to the show to discuss ScreenCastsOnline and screencasting in general. The audio of the interview is now available on the DV Show podcast site - Direct Link I didn't realise until the second before we started recording that Brian actually had a live Ustream session underway plus a live chatroom for questions but I managed to post a quick tweet and thankfully some friendly twitter friends popped up on the chat room to provide some moral support. Thanks to Brian for inviting me on and I hope you enjoy the interview!

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A Viewer Writes....

Thought this might be interesting to anyone else with similar thoughts, my response to someone asking about my stance on the MacBook Air now the new MacBook Pros are out...

Hi Don, I have an opportunity to purchase a brand new in the box Mac Book Air 1.86Gz 2GB RAM with 128MB Solid State drive. While I do a lot of traveling (oil worker), it would be perfect for that side of things (light) I also like to encode a lot of videos for watching. Most of these are done on my 3.06GHz iMac, so maybe not that many.

The MBA will take ages encoding - not it's intended usage but you probably know that!

So, when I look at this cost and then compare it to say a 2.4Ghz MacBook Pro with 4GB Ram and 250GB SATA 7200 drive, I’m thinking this would be a more useful machine, albeit heavier. Having said all that, I know you have the big Mac Pro and use the MBA quite al lot (I think) for your SC’s and when you travel to your respective Places for podcasts, Mac World’s etc. I just wondered given what the newer machines have if you would have gotten the newer MBP’s or still have Gone with the MBA.

That's a hard one? I love the MacBook Air as long as I don't use it for things that it's not really designed to accommodate. As a general purpose, travelling machine, it's fantastic. Used it for on the road emails, surfing, presentations, etc. and it's been fine. I also use it a lot for couch surfing. With it being so light it's great and is no problem to leave on the coffee table and lift up with one hand when the mood takes me. The 802n connection means it's pretty speedy. Sleeping and waking by closing the lid is fine and the full size backlit keyboard is great for low light situations.

The final item is ports and connections, do you find you have to take a bunch of additional equipment with you like, hubs, super drives, etc which tend To come standard on the MPP.

Ports can be a problem. I did buy a MBA superdrive but that was for a specific issue with a show I was doing. Don't think I've ever used it since! I once had an issue where I wanted to use a wired network connection and a USB headset so I needed a hub. When I use the MBA on my desk, I have a separate hub setup with my USB audio and network permenantly connected. I do carry a spare mini jack to mini jack audio cable as the clearance for the audio port is limited. You do need to buy special adapters for VGA and DVI connections for plugging it into projectors

So, if you have a sec, would be real interested in hearing from someone with your perspective, that has one, and mixes with people who have the higher end laptops.

However, I've recently been thinking of possibly swapping over to a new 15" MacBook Pro mainly for the boost in screen resolution. With working on a large monitor setup, it's quite difficult adapting to 1280x720 on the MBA. The performance boost would be great but I'm really not sure I need that level of performance in a laptop and would really miss the portability of the MBA. So I'm undecided at the moment. What I don't need is an additional laptop so I'd have to sell the MBA and I'd hate to part with it!

Thanks again, and regards Mike. PS – Really like the screencasts, as a recent switcher, I have learned a bunch from them.

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PC World - Kudos!

I blogged a few weeks ago about what looked like a new Apple implant in my local PC World, which was undergoing a complete redesign and refurbishment. To my delight, it looks like they are almost finished, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. As can be seen from the hurriedly snapped iPhone photo below, the implant is based on an actual Apple store with nice smart benches, the kit nicely arranged and even what looks like a mini genius bar.

They had the whole range on display (baring the new notebooks of course and possibly the MacMini) and as can be seen, a nice big plasma in the rear wall displaying a Leopard desktop. Now if they keep on top of the machine configurations (i.e Set them up to right click via the mouse, etc) and have some knowledgeable staff around to man the mini genius bar, this could be a really smart move by Apple to shift even more kit. On a side note, there was a Dell branded area a bit further along but this just looked like another part of the store. The Apple area looks a bit special compared to that. Kudos to PC World - please don't let the Apple implant fall into rack and ruin! Technorati Tags: Apple, PC World

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New Notebooks Event

Some pretty neat stuff was announced at Apples "Spotlight on Notebooks" event yesterday. Every man and his dog has various observations, here are just some random thoughts of mine. Apple, please, please allow us Apple TV users to access a live stream of these events. It's so tiring to have 5 browser sessions and three chat rooms open to follow the news. I was absolutely knacked by the end of it! That photo of the University students showing macs - I'm sure that was of a Mac user group at a campus not an actual class - bit naughty showing that. I stand corrected, it was a class of Journalists according to Stephen in the comments - my bad! The absence of an $800 notebook was a suprise but it shouldn't have been as Apple never said there would be - the rumour sites getting it wrong again. Reducing the price of the white MacBook to $999 - meh! In fact, the price of a white MacBook has gone up in the UK store - fantastic - not! The "Precision Aluminium Unibody Enclosure" - fascinating to hear Jony Ive describe this and it is a big deal from Apple but looks like we missed it first time round. This is the same technique that Apple have been using for 9 months to manufacture the MacBook Air but we never realised and they never told us! With all the speculation about the 'solid brick" manufacturing process around, no one thought to examine the MBA more closely and put two and two together. Now Apple have heralded this as a new cutting edge innovation - well it's certainly innovative but hardly new. I have to say that as a MBA owner, the laptop is one of the most solidly put together and beautifully finished notebooks I've ever owned. The feel and rigidity of the MBA is astounding in such a small unit. If they've transferred these attributes to the MacBook and MacBook Pro then they'll feel even better than they look. New MacBook - Gorgeous! Not too concerned with the absence of Firewire 400 from these consumer units. The biggest issue is not that it won't support external Firewire Hard drives (external USB drives are OK of course) but it causes a problem for consumers with DV camcorders as these typically support Firewire. Of course, the answer is simple - Apple would suggest that it's probably time to move to a new camcorder - one of those nice, inexpensive, HD Consumer camcorders, you know, the ones with AVCHD. Yes, the new ones that connect via USB2 and supported by iMovie08 and Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro. Problem solved and a non-issue - ahem! MacBook Pros - The graphics chips in these look smoking hot. Very nice indeed. New Trackpads - Use the trackpad as a button - genius. The biggest criticism of my MBA is that the button on the trackpad is too small. They've fixed this and made the trackpad 30% bigger. I've since heard you can also assign a portion of the trackpad as a right button as well. The addition of the extra gestures is just another step towards more and more gesture based actions. As Andy Inhatko says "Evolution not revolution" Update to MacBook Air - New graphics are welcome but I'm not sure if I'll take the hit of upgrading my existing my MBA. Unless anyone makes me an offer I can't refuse for my existing MBA! So on the whole, a good solid range of products, nor sure on the pricing but Apple know a whole lot better than I do. Will I make the jump and upgrade or replace with a new notebook. Nah, I'd love to of course and get my hands on a new MacBook pro but my MBA is fine for my mobile computing needs at the moment. Besides which, Apple is clearing the deck for some new product announcements at Macworld 2009, some new consumer based products I would bet. So I'll keep my hand in my pocket for now and see what happens in January. Update: See my other posting about the implications of DisplayPort! Technorati Tags: Apple, mac

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Ahem - I Told You So!

Now I'm not one for blowing my own trumpet (OK well sometimes) but I'd just like to draw your attention to a prediction I made back in September 2007, yes over a year ago. It follows my successful prediction of the iPhone back in September 2006, 4 months before the announcement of the iPhone at MacWorld 2007 - There Will Be No Real Video iPod! - Sept 2006 which unfortunately went pretty much unnoticed but was validated with the launch of the iPhone, taking many people by surprise. This time it's the fact that I correctly predicted that Apple would not release an update to the Cinema Displays until it had DisplayPort technology primed and ready to go. - Ah! So that's why..... Sept 2007! I think I nailed that one too with the announcement of the first update of the Cinema Display with Displayport technology yesterday (Oct 2008) and also the fact that Apple will be introducing DisplayPort technology across it's entire range of new notebooks (and presumably desktops when refreshed). I thank you! PS My predictions for MacWorld 2009, I'll get back to you on that! Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, Displayport

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