Archive for the ‘Apple (Mac)’ Category:
17 inch MacBook Pro shipping late January
`17 inch MacBook pro
At last week’s MacWorld Expo, Apple announced they would be shipping a new 17-inch MacBook Pro laptop near the end of January. Rumors had been circulating prior to the announcement that Apple would be announcing a quad core processor laptop, but this was not it. The new MacBook Pro is built around a “unibody chassis”, that is, it is carved from a single block of aluminum. Pricing will start around $2,800.
Battery Life
The big news was its battery life. Apple states its battery is rated to last “up to” 7 or 8 hours on a single charge, and that it may be recharged up to 1,000 times. (Compare this to other laptops which may only hold a 3 or 4 hour charge with a recharge life of 200 to 300 charges.) You can watch Apple’s video regarding its battery design below.
Apple rates the battery for 200 charges per year, so at 1,000 charges the battery will need replacing in 5 years. Of course users who frequently save to the hard drive will have to charge the battery more frequently. If you use your laptop on weekends, you may find yourself recharging the battery for than 200 times per year, too.
Still, this is a pretty big boost in battery life, but, once the battery’s lifetime ends, you won’t be able to change the battery yourself. You will have to take it to an Apple store or authorized reseller for replacement. This might be difficult for owners who live in remote areas. The battery costs about $160.
Admittedly, not everyone runs on their batteries every day. Deskbound MacBooks will find themselves plugged into a wall outlet.
Weight
The 17 inch MacBook Pro is also one of the heaviest MacBooks on the market. With its battery being 40% larger than previous batteries, and its block of aluminum chassis, it weighs a full pound more than the 15 inch MacBook Pro, but is still within the same weight range as other laptops in its class.
Blu-ray?
MacBook fans who were hoping for a Blu-ray DVD drive for high def video or data storage will have to wait a little bit longer. There is no Blu-ray in this MacBook, and there is no option available for one as at upgrade at time of purchase either (at this time).
Solid State Drive
The $2,800 model has a standard 320 GB (gigabyte) Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive, but two solid state drive upgrade options are available for $500 (128 GB) and $900 (256 GB). Though smaller in capacity, the solid state drives (SSD) provide greater durability and shock resistance over the standard SATA drives. Standard drives have moving parts, but sold state drives have no moving parts. Solid state drives are similar to the flash memory chips found in the digital cameras, or to the drives found in some iPods.
Memory (RAM)
The Apple MacBook Pro 17-inch model comes with a full 4 GB of RAM, and can be upgraded to 8 GB of RAM for an additional $1,200. So if you add the large solid state drive and the full 8 GB of RAM your new MacBook will cost about $5,000.
Most people will find the 4 GB of RAM sufficient, but for the frequent traveller I would recommend adding the solid state drive for its sheer durability. More on the 17-inch MacBook Pro below:
| 17-inch Tech Specs Height: 0.98 inch (2.50 cm) Width: 15.47 inches (39.3 cm) Depth: 10.51 inches (26.7 cm) Weight: 6.6 pounds (2.99 kg)Display: 17-inch (viewable) LED-backlit glossy widescreen 1920 by 1200 pixelsBattery: Built-in lithium-polymer Up to 8 hours of wireless productivityConnections and Expansion: MagSafe power port Gigabit Ethernet port One FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps) Three USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps) Mini DisplayPort Audio line in Audio line out ExpressCard/34 slot Security cable lock slot |
Included Software: Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard Time Machine iChat Safari Photo Booth Front Row Boot Camp iLife ’09
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Subscribe to the comments for this postNews Stories I Passed On This Week
How’s that for a headline? There were a few stories that popped up the past few days that I could have written about, but, ultimately, I decided not to write about them …. until now.
Two stories were Apple related:
Mac Sales Slow (Tuesday, Dec. 16)
The Wall Street Journal and various other news sources reported a drop in sales of Mac computers in November 2008. According to the NPD Group, computer sales overall increased by 2 to 7% over the previous year, but Mac sales dropped by 1%. Though they did note that it desktop Mac sales dropped by 35% its sales of laptops compensated for it.
Other companies such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard saw a growth in sales due to the rising popularity of the ultra-portable, ultra-mobile netbooks. Mac, on the other hand, did not have a comparable product on the market.
Apple Announces Its Last Year at Macworld (Tuesday, Dec. 16)
Steve Jobs, "not to be", at MacWorld
Apple announced that 2009 is the last year the company will exhibit at the Macworld Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show. In the past the big speaker has been Steve Jobs, but he has cancelled his appearance at the Jan. 5-9, 2009 event. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote instead.
Apple is scaling back appearances at trade shows overall, but they plan on hosting their own events instead. This isn’t so surprising as other Apple products have greater popularity these days than their computers. Most notable are the iPhone and the iPod.
One was about a favorite monkey…
Monkey Tales Plagiarism Exposed
Monkey Fables and Tales
Charlie Hatton
Well, this isn’t really news, but you may recall I reviewed a blog entitled Monkey Fables and Tales back in Sept. 2008. I hadn’t looked at this blog in a few weeks recently, and when I went to read it earlier this week, I found it was gone without a trace. It turns out that the blog had been copied almost word for word from Bosten stand-up comic Charlie Hatton’s web site “Where the Hell Was I?” Charlie’s little known site had been idle for some time as he was involved in other projects. Meanwhile, Monkey Tales had become a favorite of the Entrecard link circuit which was the site of a conversation on just what became of the monkey. Charlie Hatton was a participant in the conversation.
I often wondered about Monkey Tales silence amidst so much commentary from fans. The charade may explain it all. Bloggers are now wondering if Charlie Hatton will write again. For now, you can read Charlie’s retelling of how he found out about Monkey Tales. Other stories can be found at My Dear Hard Drive, and at Lainy’s Musings and there are others. Bad, monkey, bad!
Internet Explorer Emergency Patch Released (Wed., Dec. 17)
Okay, I did write about this one. If you didn’t read it, here’s your chance to read about the Internet explorer patch and why you should get it now. And check up on your antivirus software while you’re at it.
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Apple Encourages AntiVirus Use for Macs?!
This was an article I had started on Dec. 1, but never finished. I publish it now because an interesting twist came along later.
Apple updated an article on its knowledge base site to encourage “the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities” on Mac computers:
On November 21, 2008, article HT2550 as follows:
Summary
Learn about antivirus utilities available for the Mac OS.Products Affected
Consumer Software, Mac OSApple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult. Here are some available antivirus utilities:
- Intego VirusBarrier X5, available from the Apple Online Store
License: commercial- Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 11 for Macintosh, available from the Apple Online Store
License: commercial- McAfee VirusScan for Mac
License: commercialI’ve encouraged the use of anti-virus software on Macs for a long time now. Mainly due to the possibility that Macs could become carriers of PC viruses. A Mac user could unknowingly receive an infected document and then forward it to someone else; not knowing they had just passed on an infected file.
As I said, I never published the post, but several other blogs and news outlets reported on it, most notable Brian Krebs of the Washington Post. Then came the twist, Apple pulled the report from its Knowledge Base.
I still endorse the use of antivirus software on Macs. Sure, there are few Mac viruses out there, but the number will likely grow along with their popularity; and, sure, Macs need not worry about being affected by PC viruses, but there is still the risk that a Mac user will unknowingly receive and forward an infected file. Restated, a person using a Mac might receive an infected article, and not know it was infected, and then forward it to someone else, perhaps to a PC using friend.
Don’t let your Mac be a “Typhoid Mary”. (Mary Mallon (1869-1938) was a cook who was found to be a healthy carrier of typhoid fever. She never succombed to the illness, but many people around her did).
Look into a quality antivirus program for your Mac, particularly if you share file with PC using friends. After all, not all of them are using an antivirus utility either.
Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus for Mac is available from these online retailers:
$49.95 from the Apple Store |
 $45.99 from NewEgg |
 $49.24 from Buy.com |
 $49.99 from Best Buy |
Post Comments or Questions with the link below. Keep up-to-date with Skylarking: By Email or RSS Newsfeed or on Twitter. You can also send questions with my email form.
