24 posts tagged “apple”

I've really been enjoying the new Airport Extreme network I've set up here at 123. In particular, I was pleased to discover that you can now stream music to multiple Airport Expresses, enabling me to flood the house with music for those times when I'm going back and forth between the upstairs and downstairs.

Airtunes-multiple-speakers

60gb, 14 months old.

$100 obo

Sent from my iPhone

Book: Show us the latest book you bought, borrowed or received.

I've been on a bit of a tech book jag lately. It started with Dreaming In Code, continued with Founders At Work, and then last weekend I bought and read this:

The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness

Steven Levy

The Powerbook Duo 230 was the first laptop I ever bought, way back in spring 1994. I really loved it, even if it didn't have a built-in floppy disk or CD-ROM drive. I used it for two and a half years, until I bought a Powerbook 1400 in December 1996.

450px-PowerBook_Duo_230

Now it seems that Apple may be re-entering the sub-notebook market, according to AppleInsider:

This new tiny MacBook, people familiar with the project say, remains in development ahead of its target launch date around the time WWDC rolls around mid-year. It will be both lighter and more compact than any other Mac portable Apple has put forth in recent years, bundling a display of similarly smaller proportions.

Also setting the new model aside from its existing counterparts, those same people say, may be the conspicuous absence of an optical disc drive. Although Apple's original plans for the notebook called for its inclusion, reports are that the daunting ergonomics have recently driven company engineers to make a concession, forming yet another parallel between the new notebook and the defunct PowerBook 2400.

At the same time, the new MacBook model is expected to introduce some features not yet available with Apple's existing notebook offerings, such as onboard NAND flash. Plans reportedly call for the notebook to be the first of the company's MacBook offerings to utilize the solid-state memory in order to improve power efficiency and facilitate near instantaneous boot times. This feature, however, had not been frozen upon last check.

If this is true, then this may end up being my next computer.

What's the best thing since sliced bread?

EyeTV 250

On the eve of Steve Jobs's keynotes, here are my predictions for what will be announced/shown tomorrow:

• iPhone/Mac nano/pocket Mac. Steve Jobs changes everything (again) with an ipod-sized device running Mac OS X and capable of handling music, photos, video,
• "iTV" Mac OS X-based set-top box with Airport Extreme Extreme (801n wireless).
  
• Leopard finder Apple leapfrogs Vista with this revolutionary next generation file management tool.
  
• airport express extreme2 w/video streaming
• iChat 4.0 that supports pocket mac and mobile video-conferencing
• MacBook Pro "thin" with 12" screen and all features, but lighter than the existing Macbooks.
  
• iLive 2007 but of course that's pretty much obligatory.
  

What we won't see: full-screen ipod video, since that will get its own event sometime in March/April.

On MacRumors today, they reported a rumor from MacScoop about a new ultra-thin MacBook Pro in the works:

The new laptop should be even thinner and weigh less than the current models in the MacBook Pro line-up. In spite of this very tiny and lightweight form-factor, the miniaturized MacBook Pro should keep its built-in optical drive and sport a dual-core processor, providing unequalled size/performance ratio in the PC industry, sources told MacScoop.

If this turns out to be true, this might end up being my next personal laptop. Once they iron out all the kinks in the form-factor. Maybe by my birthday 2007. Hopefully my Powerbook can hold out that long.

To promote the Clerks II DVD release, Apple asked Kevin Smith to do a celebrity playlist. They got more than they bargained for, as he produced a list that exceeded the capacity of Apple's software to handle. To his credit, he declined to edit it down and put it up on his own blog, unexpurgated.