Picture of new Macbook Pro

If you want to have a look at the new Macbook Pro you can go over to
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/09/17/rumor-german-retailer-might-have-new-macbook-pro/
to see what is believed to be an authentic apple released picture of the new macbook pro.

Enjoy!

Rumors of what Apple will release today

I have just noticed that the Apple store has gone down. Yes, folks its time to get the rumors circulating again. What will apple release today?

It is almost certain that they will release a new lineup of Macbooks. Some pictures have been floating around on the internet and they do seem authentic enough. It appears that the new macbooks and macbook pros will be made from pure aluminium with the new manufacturing process designed by apple called 'the brick'. No technical details of this process is available yet but it appears to be in line with the new environmental conscious drive they are making.

What is also rumored is that the entire Macbook range will include nVidia GPUs. Apparently from what I have read, the Macbook Pro's may actually include two GPUs in SLI configuration. This will definitely be a strong incentive to ditch that old pc and switch over completely to mac.

I am biting my nails in anticipation and will update the blog the moment I find out for myself.

Firewire target disk mode

Target disk mode is a very simple and effective way of accessing or migrating files over to a new mac. I actually use to to access my Macbook from my iMac since it is really a fast access method (400 mbps) and requires no configuration to set up (plug in the cable and hold T on the mac you want to make the target). After the target mac turned on, the drives in it will appear as a removable firewire drives on the other mac. You can then drag files between the macs as if it were directly connected to your mac. Security remains in tact though so you would have to have the correct login credential to access files in the home folder.

I find it a very simple and effective way of moving files to and from my macbook when connected to my iMac. For people switching to a mac or upgrading to a new mac this make the process of migtating files effortless. The built in migration assistant will take all of your data on the old mac and move it to the new one. Even all of your settings will remain intact on the new mac if you use this method.

Just one more feature that makes a Mac a Mac.

My thoughts on the finder

With Tiger, Apple introduced something called coverflow to all finder windows. I cannow tell you how much I enjoy this feature.

Let me make the following case. Say that you are in your office and have to quickly look for a document lying on your desk. Do you go through all of the titles of the documents to find it or do you glance the documents to find the one you are looking for? You glace them. This is the way in which coverflow makes it very quick to find the document you are looking for. The scroll button on the mouse acts as a convenient and quick way to browse through the documents and coverflow draws them in very near real time. It recognizes most document formats in addition to photos, videos, drawings etc. It really is a pleasure to work with.

The finder interface is simple en effective but there is one thing missing in my view. It really needs to have a folder tree view for simpler navigation of deeper folder structures. That said, it is not as necessary on a mac to have deep folders to effectively file documents since spotlight becomes a iron tool in instantly finding documents no matter where they are filed. Another important thing to remember is that you always have quickview under your finger and can instantly enlarge any file you see in finder to reveal its content without having to open it in the application used to create it.

One other difference between the finder and explorer is the way in which you have to copy and move files. It is actually a little difficult to move files to other folders since you don't have a folder tree on the side. You have to either have two windows open to do the move or rely on copy and paste.

I can therefore give the experience as a whole 8 1/2 out of 10.

My views on Address Book

I am just trying to get my thoughts together. I will add them in a
moment.

I have been using apple address book for a number of years and it is the only address book I need. I find it simple enough to add information, sync information with various devices like my cellphone and palm tungsten T through isync, instantly find information, change information etc.

It also now searches directories on your company network like LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory.

There is very little that I would change in the application. One nifty feature is the ability to add small photos of the people in your address book. An iPhone makes this step incredibly simple as it is synced back to the computer after adding it with the built-in camera.

My views on Spaces

I have never used any type of virtual desktop manager before using
spaces. I loved expose and still do but have discovered that it is far
simpler using spaces to manage open windows. I use to have a 22"
external display connected to my macbook pro to increase my desktop
real estate. I have discovered that it is not really necessary if you
use spaces. In essence, spaces provides you with a number of
additional desktops to place your windows on. If you want to view
another open window you simply have to move to the space in which it
is open. MacOS Leopard have taken an existing technology and made it
so integral into MacOS that you wonder how you every worked without
it. The moment I sit in front of a pc without spaces it feels
restricted and irritating.

You can find additional information on spaces at
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spaces.html

My views on Time machine

One of the cornerstone technologies in MacOs Leopard is called Time Machine. This is one of 300+ new features built into MacOs Leopard. All of the features can be found at http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/

The way I see it, the biggest problem with doing backups is actually taking the time to do it. During a backup you normally can't do anything other on your computer. Most often, you will do a complete backup of your system onto an external hard drive or file server on your network which can take far longer than 60 minutes depending on the amount of data you want to backup. It simply doesn't make sense to back up everything again if only a small number of files have changes since your last back. The other problem is that traditional backups only take place once a week, once every three weeks, every two months or almost never. With time machine every time you connect to your external drive a backup is done automatically in the background. The ideal is having your macbook, imac or mac pro permanently connected to your external drive. Changes to files are backed up every hour and you often don't even notice it taking place.

Because I want to not only describe the technical aspects but want to include some of the emotional aspects of using macs I want to describe the feeling you get from having a perfect backup copy of all your files, all of the time. You do feel a lot safer, you know that changes you make can always be turned back because time machine keeps all of the previous copies of the same file, so all of the changes made can be followed through time up to the present moment, you know that you can take your macbook on holiday without worrying that rain, fire,theft or accidentally dropping the macbook will destroy not only it, but all of your data. You can now safely store all of those holiday photos without the fear of losing all your your important information. I will touch on the ipod with camera connector in later posts since I have tried it myself and want you to know some of the distinct drawbacks to this method. I can just maybe hint that battery life is a big problem when offloading pictures from your memory card to you iPod directly.

If you want to bring back a file, photo or anything else you had on the mac you enter time machine by tapping the icon. It then opens up a number of windows from different times in the past. You can then move back in time to the file you want to bring back. Select the file and tap restore to bring that file back to the current time. You can also restore entire harddrives from a backup if you have a drive failure. To do this you can boot the mac from the MacOs Leopard installation disk.

Another very useful feature is that you can essentially use time machine as a near line storage method. Let me give you an example, if you have taken 1000 photos on your last trip to Cape Town and have already burned the photos to DVD, you can wipe them to free up some space provided that you did connect to your time machine external drive before doing this. If after two weeks you now want to use those photos, it is far quicker to retrieve them from time machine than from DVD. You may be asking why save them on DVD in the first place. Time machine will add new copies of files without touching the old files until it has filled up the harddrive. At this point it will ask you if you would like to replace the oldest backups to make room for new ones. You can decline, but then need to provide another drive to continue using time machine. If you do accept, the oldest backs will be wiped out to make room for more backups.

Time capsule is a very nice addition to time machine. It provides a wireless backup option which is especially wonderful if you are using a mac notebook.

You can find additional information on time machine at
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html