I Just Got My Apple (MacBook) Mojo Back

I can’t believe it’s two years since I last posted on this blog. Wow! It’s not even as though there’s been nothing to write about. In fact, that’s been the problem. There has simply been too much to write about but unfortunately for readers here, most of what I have been writing has been on other topics in other blogs.

So why now, you may ask. Well, quite simply, I just got my Apple mojo back. You remember that feeling you had when you bought your first mainstream Apple product - with me it was my 2007 MacBook Pro with Leopard (OS X 10.5). I just got that same feeling for the first time in years. After eight years of being a MacBook Air devotee, I have gone back to my MBP roots and splashed out on a 2017 15” MacBook Pro.

Which is quite simply, a thing of absolute beauty! And it goes like the clappers!

2017 MacBook Pro 15" i7 2.90 512Gb/16Gb (Space Grey)

I love the MBA - I wrote about my first one back in August 2011 and its replacement in December 2015. But recently I faced a similar situation to what I encountered in 2015. My needs have outgrown the capability of the MBA; specifically the limited 8Gb memory, the restriction of the 256Gb onboard SSD and the slow Thunderbolt 2 bus. Even a year ago this wasn’t too much of an issue, but these days I find myself spending too much time looking at spinning beach balls and listening to the fans thrashing furiously. A year ago, I was really using the MBA as a mobile device - playing music, processing photos and some office work. Now, I’m more desk-bound. I’m still doing all the above, along with web development, a lot more writing and office work and more intensive photographic editing.

I half-heartedly started looking for a replacement machine about two months ago and was torn between the new MBA or a 13in MBP. With a minimum specification of 16 and 512 Gb of RAM and SSD space, this started to push the price up towards crazy money which I couldn’t justify. So I started looking at the refurb market and plumped on an Apple refurbed 2017 13in MBP before I checked out the eBay market and found a new 15in 2017 MBP for a similar price. In the heat of the moment I bought it - and that deal will soon be going to eBay for arbitration; I’ve still not received the laptop after three weeks and the seller is not responding. Caveat emptor!

Having rashly gone out and bought a bunch of accessories designed to fit a 15in MBP I was kind of stuck in that direction, but luckily found a refurb from a reputable outfit that was only £150 more expensive than the no-show.

The new box came via DPD within 24 hours and my Apple mojo was packaged with it. It took a day to set up - one of the most painless transfers I’ve ever done and it is performing flawlessly.

The MPB is connected to my old Thunderbolt 1 Belkin hub which isn’t the fastest box in the world, but I can’t afford a TB 3 replacement just yet. But it works. My photos and mail are now back on the internal SSD having been off-loaded onto external flash drives previously, and that helps speed things up considerably, although obviously with the trade-off of using up space on the SSD.

Apple Harvest HQ - November 2018

Of course, it's early days, and I've not yet tried using the laptop as a laptop as it's been tethered to my desk while I iron out any migration issues. The keyboard which has caused a fair amount of controversy remains untested, and the much-vaunted toolbar (by Apple) is just a little too far out of reach to have had any major use. (Personally, I'm looking forward to playing with the toolbar in earnest).

Next time, I'll have a look at some of the other changes that have impacted Apple Harvest HQ in the last couple of years.

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That Moment When...You Think Your SSD is Dead

I use Power Manager to automatically start (and power down) my new MacBook Air at various times on weekdays and with a different schedule at the weekend. Recently, however, the system has got stuck during the boot process and the first thing I see on the screen is the Apple logo with the half completed status bar underneath. I expect to see a fully operational Mac. Usually, it's enough to restart the machine, but today was different.

Today nothing happened on the restart. Nothing, nada, nil, The speakers attached to the device lit up briefly and then the laptop powered right back down again. And again.

I tried various power up options, safe boot - nothing, clear PRAM - nothing, Diagnostics - nothing. Eventually I tried the Recovery mode and that worked, so my first port of call was Disk Utility. Running First Aid on the flash drive indicated that it was OK, but subsequently running the tool on the start-up partition repeatedly failed. I was starting to get a bit nervous, especially given this was a four month old MBA.

Since I run a reasonably effective back-up routine, with a weekly clone in addition to a default Time Machine backup I decided that I could afford to be a bit aggressive in trying to resolve the problem so I opted to reformat the flash drive partition. This also repeatedly failed. I was beginning to think that a visit to the repair shop was on the cards, especially as I was running out of time before having to leave for work.

I closed down the MBA and shoved it in my bag and headed off to the office for the day. There isn't an Apple Store in Prague yet, and although there are Apple certified resellers and repair outfits, my MBA is my most valuable possession here, and I really did not like the idea of parting with it for even a couple of days. So I was determined to fix the problem myself.

During my breaks in the office I tried a few more tricks, and eventually I managed to format the flash drive completely, not just the start-up partition. Of course, this wiped the disk completely so the next time the machine restarted I was presented with an icon of a question mark in a folder. Unfortunately I couldn't get access to the guest WiFi in the office as it needs a browser to log in which meant an internet recovery was not going to happen. So, for the rest of the working day, I was stuck. I got copies of my invoices, proof of purchase and Apple Care documents printed out, just in case, and eventually headed off home. It was Friday, and I had visions of a long night ahead.

Once back at the Pent-Palace (my nickname for Apple Harvest HQ for this trip) I switched on the laptop and launched it into Recovery mode once more. To my relief it worked without any problems. I checked the flash drive again and no errors were reported. An empty partition was already set up and I chose to restore the most recent backup. Everything went according to plan (prayer?) and about three hours later the contents were restored. I rebooted and things started looking good.

But there's always a catch. Once I hooked up the OWA Thunderbolt 2 dock, which included access to a 4 Tb external drive, Ethernet network and second monitor and rebooted both screens were blank. I tried again with the same outcome. Booting into the laptop without connecting the dock was fine, and then reconnecting the dock was fine. So, theoretically, all the hardware was working, all the cables were fine, and all the software was fine.

In the end, I decided to let it be and left things to settle down overnight. First thing in the morning, I rebooted with everything connected and lo and behold - it all worked perfectly.

The bad news is that I have no idea what caused the problem in the first place. Any console logs are long since destroyed. The only clue was in disk utility which seemed to hint that there was a corrupt directory entry on the start up partition, but as to what caused it, I have no idea.

But happily I didn't need to call on the engineers and I didn't even lose any sleep over the problem.

2015 And All That (or Out with the Old, In with the New)

I can't believe it's been six months since my last post on the Apple Harvest blog - I do apologise! It's not like Apple have been slumbering since last June, and it's most certainly not because nothing has been going on at Apple Harvest HQ(s)...far from it. There's a shed load of new kit to write about and a few excellent iOS and OS X apps to boot. The problem is knowing where to start...how about a list or two? Hardware first...

• MacBook Air (early 2015)
• OWC Thunderbolt 2 Hub
• New Magic Mouse, Keyboard and TrackPad
• 4th Generation Apple TV
• 2Tb TimeCapsule
• Apple Watch Dock
• Wireless Charging Devices

...and some of the software:

• Dragon Systems PowerManager
• TunaBelly TGPro
• The Room 3
• El Capitan
• iOS9
• Watch OS2
• TV OS
• Cloud Magic

...that should be enough to get started with over the next few posts! Let's just hope my accountant and bank manager aren't reading this. My long suffering girlfriend is already in the know, but she does at least get most of the hand-me-downs to try and ease the pain!

The Apple Harvest HQ returned to Prague in October this year - although I'm going to be doing quite a lot of additional travelling over the next few months. My early 2011 MBA has put in a stellar performance over the years and to be fair, it still got a lot of casual use left in it. But the 4Gb memory constraint is beginning to cause me problems and I knew an upgrade was on the cards. I just wasn't sure what to replace it with, or more critically when! In the end, I decided to stay with the 13" 256Gb MBA, with 8Gb of memory, and bumped up the processor to the 2.2GHz i7.

I would have liked to have had the luxury of waiting until the new lines were unleashed sometime in the new year, but nothing was going to be able to fix the memory issue which is also causing the fans to work overtime given the loads I was putting onto the processor. I also had a time constrained discount that I wanted to make use of (about 6% so nothing to be sneezed at!), and while Apple do have a limited presence in the Czech Republic it was a lot easier to deal with the purchase while in the UK over the Christmas period.

Christmas Market in Prague Old Town Square

Of course, when you think about it, the change from a 2011 MBA to the most recent 2015 model is a major upgrade. People have been whinging about the mediocre improvements between successive models, but since 2011 the MBA has got significantly better battery life, gone from USB 2.0 to USB 3.0, Thunderbolt 1 to Thunderbolt 2, has faster SSD storage, more efficient processors (1.8GHz i7-2677M - Sandy Bridge to 2.2GHz i7-5650U - Broadwell (real geeks can see here for a comparison) and HD Graphics 3000 to HD Graphics 6000) and faster memory (1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM to 1600 MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM) as well as an improvement in wireless. with 802.11ac compatibility now built in. For some reason, handoff never worked out of the box with the 2011 MBA although it could be persuaded to (see Fruity Tips #2), but that's no longer anything to worry about with the new model.

Once the decision was made I made the order on the morning I left Prague. It arrived at my home in the UK first thing the next morning, less than 24 hours later. I cloned the old machine with Carbon Copy Cloner and by lunchtime I had a new working MBA. Over the course of the next few hours I had a few tweaks to make - there are always a few little things that don't work quite the way they're expected to, but then again, some things that were broken suddenly appear to work on a different machine.

The real test will be when I get back to Prague at the end of this week and plug into my Apple Harvest HQ rig in my apartment, but all the issues that I'd had problems with have happily disappeared - the new MBA is operating at a much lower temperature and the fans are usually silent. Most importantly, the beach ball doesn't seem to be making so many appearances, especially when iTunes, Safari and Photos are running alongside each other - a common scenario which was becoming unmanageable on the old machine.

Now, what to do when Apple announce the next generation MBA in the spring? Well, the moral of the story is that maybe there's no need to wait to get the newest and shiniest box on the shelf. I'm expecting this baby to last at least another four years!

Happy New Year!

I Love It, I Love It Not....The New MacBook

I really can't make up my mind about the new MacBook. As I watched the keynote when Apple first introduced it I was amazed, dazzled, and I decided I really, really wanted one. And then I went off the idea as I thought about the implications for a road warrior user like me of only having a single port. And now I'm back in love with it, even though I don't think it's the right machine for me.

I get the MacBook - I understand what the design team was trying to do here. I've read lots of reviews and comments, and I don't think many people do get it. This is the immediate future of mobile computing - the power of a laptop wrapped up as a slightly oversized iPad. Dare I say, this is a Chromebook for the real world - where the majority of people don't have wireless access on a 24/7 basis and as such must have some local storage mechanisms for both their apps and their data. This is the iPad for proper content creation as well as consumption. This is the laptop for a normal person, who doesn't really need much in the way of processor power (regardless of what they think or are led to believe), who isn't going to be wired up to a surfeit of accessories, who wants a beautiful retina display, and who isn't going to have easy access to the electricity grid during the course of the day.

Even in my world, where I class myself as a power user, I spend most of my time doing the things that a normal person does. I read and write emails, I surf the web, I listen to music and watch film and TV, play a few games, edit my photos, and do office type work including writing and balancing the books. I do these things for most of the day. I rarely need to do more than two of these things simultaneously. I'm virtually incapable of even attempting to do three or more of these things simultaneously without passing out.

But there are lots of people out there trying to tell me that the new MacBook is woefully underpowered, that not having at least two ports (in addition to a power socket) make it useless, and basically that no-one should buy it because it can't do any of the things I never actually do anyway like editing video. These people are little more than computer snobs - self proclaimed technical 'experts' who quote specifications without understanding them, who have never used a computer to do anything beyond the list of activities that everyone else does, and who have never worked in anything remotely resembling the real IT world.

So, if I think this is such a wonderful machine, why isn't it for me? Simply because I do need something more. As regular readers will know, I spend much of my time on the road, but once I get to my destination I'm usually there for some time. I need a laptop that is light, extensible, with a reasonable amount of screen real estate. The 13" MacBook Air fits this requirement perfectly. When I'm at my base I use the Kanex Thunderbolt adapter which provides USB 3.0 and Ethenet ports along with a powered 10 way USB hub. I also use the Logitech 780 solar powered keyboard. If I'm out and about, I simply unplug the adapter and power and I'm good to go. I have a 4Tb disk that is connected to the USB port on the Kanex (this is partitioned as an iTunes disk, a Time Machine disk and a clone of the MBA drive). The USB hub connects a Mobee charger for my mouse, the keyboard dongle, my fitbit sync dongle and my Griffin PowerMate, and a spare slot takes a card reader when necessary - and leaves me 3 ports for charging my iDevices. It's basically a desktop system for when I'm home from home. And it works. But I do think that asking the new MacBook to cope with all that load maybe a step to far!

So for now, I'll lust over the 12" Retina MacBook from a safe distance and just wait for the day when the MBA gets a retina update and goes fanless!

Power to the People! Battery Highs and Woes...

Amongst all the amazing technology advances that have taken place during my lifetime, it’s easy to forget that the majority of gadgets need electrical power and that portable gadgets need portable power supplies - batteries. Battery technology has improved over the years, but not at the same sort of rate as, say, CPU chip technology.

Devices last much longer than they used these days, but it is questionable about how much of that improvement is because of the battery and how much is down to the more efficient components.

I’ve been a bit concerned about the battery in the MacBook Air for a few months now. I tend to keep a close eye on my laptop batteries, recalibrating them once a month and never going more than 12 hours without removing them from a mains outlet. But the internal battery of the 2011 MBA has been steadily going downhill for the past 12 months. According to my coconutBattery records the battery had gone through 96 full recharge cycles and was down to 68% of its original capacity - meaning I was struggling to get more than a couple of hours out of it when on the road, even running with just about everything turned off - no wireless, bluetooth, single applications, low brightness, etc. Apple’s published battery life for the 13” i7 model was 7 hours. To add to my concern, the battery health status always read “Check Battery”.

Since my AppleCare agreement for the MBA was coming to an end in the summer, I decided to take it in to the Leicester Highcross AppleStore for a health check. It’s a four hour round trip for me so I booked a genius bar appointment for 11:15 a few days previously with a comment about the problem and the likely outcome - a new battery. AppleCare doesn’t support replacement batteries unless they are deemed to have “manufacturing defects” so I wasn’t expecting a free battery - but figured the labour costs might be covered.

On arrival at Highcross I managed to get myself registered fairly quickly despite the place being in chaos. Almost all their support systems had crashed so they were relying on bits of paper and good memories. Luckily the extended diagnostics suite that the Apple techs use was available and within a few minutes confirmed that my battery was indeed “pooped”. My 68% was well over-optimistic - the diagnostic indicated a figure below 60% of capacity.

Because of the systems problem they couldn’t check the part numbers required and therefore couldn’t tell if they had one in stock, but they did say that they’d replace it free! I left the laptop with them and went for a walk for a couple of hours as they suggested.

By the time I got back all the systems were back on line and no batteries for that model were in stock, but one had been ordered for me and they’d mail me when it was available. I got an email the next evening, went back to the store the following day and 90 minutes later had a new fully functioning battery. Which, by the way, should have cost £114.83, including fitting and VAT!!

I was travelling yesterday so got the chance to put the MBA through its paces. In a normal operational mode - that is, with wireless, bluetooth and multiple apps running, I got two and half hours of use and there were still nearly three and a half hours left on the clock - a threefold improvement. In fact the time remaining indicator was increasing, so I may well have been approaching the 7 hour mark if I’d still been checking it.

In the next post, I’ll talk about the battery monitors that I use - coconutBattery, Watts, and BatteryDiag. Until then, thank you Apple - you have completely vindicated my decision to take out AppleCare!

Bulk Out Your MacBook Air Storage Without Adding Bulk

The biggest problem with the MacBook Air is the fact that you have to make a commitment to your selected configuration the moment that you order it. Once you've chosen your memory and storage allocations at the time of purchase you are lumbered with them. Especially memory - so the best advice is to max out the memory up front. Although you can't increase the on-board SSD storage you do at least have some other options.

The easiest and most flexible way to add storage to a MacBook Air is plug in an external hard drive. USB 2, USB 3 and Thunderbolt drives are now available in all sorts of sizes and colours, not to mention weights, depending on whether you want portable or desktop models.

There is also an increasing number of wireless drives now hitting the market - generally in much smaller capacities than wired drives, but at least there's one less cable to have to think about.

USB flashdrives and SD cards provide yet another option, again generally in relatively low capacities, but these have the downside of sticking out of the laptop and taking up valuable ports.

Over the years I've tried just about everything. Different options for different scenarios, but I've long wanted a simple, cost effective and permanent solution to increase the maximum 256GB SSD drive space on my 13" 2011 MBA. And now I've found one!

The PNY 128GB StorEDGE Expansion Module (a 64GB version also exists) is specially designed for any MacBook that sports an SD slot. It is a bit smaller than a normal SD card and has a black plastic thumbnail grip to help push and pull it in and out of the machine. Once it is in the slot all that you can see is this 2-3mm edge, so the card is, to all intent and purpose, flush with the laptop. So it can stay there - pretty much permanently - without getting in the way of anything.

StorEDGE 128GB MacBook Expansion Card

Performance is not going to be as fast as other storage media, but I copied a 30Gb iTunes library from the MBA onto the StorEDGE in under 20 minutes. But if it's performance you're after you're missing the point - this is designed as a write rarely, read frequently device. It's ideal for iTunes, iPhotos, and other media files, work archives, and the like.

I couldn't find a UK supplier sadly. It's available from the US Amazon store but they won't ship to the UK. I got mine through eBay - where it cost $149 with $22 P&P. There was an additional $40 to cover import duty, so the total cost was about £130. Having placed the order on Sunday, it arrived 9 days later, much earlier than anticipated.

[UPDATE: I've since found a UK supplier, SCAN, who have the StorEDGE 128GB in stock. They charge £95.50 including next day delivery]

It is quite a lot of money to splash out - if you or someone you know is going to the US it would be worth getting one out there. However, this is a great solution for extending a MacBook without extra wires or another box to put in your laptop bag. And bear in mind that the price difference between a 13" MBA with 128GB of storage and one with 256GB of storage is £180.

Finally, please note that this is a dedicated expansion card, designed for MacBooks and it won't fit in your camera. Do not confuse this with cheaper and lower capacity SD cards which are also available from PNY and many other manufacturers.

Review : Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock

I'm at Apple Harvest HQ enjoying the second day of my sabbatical in the glorious sunshine. I finished my last contract on Independence Day and I'm now taking a few months off to focus on all the things I want to do, rather than all the things I have previously had to do. One of which is to write, both on the Apple Harvest blog and my Process Management blog but also to get stuck into the two management books I started writing a while ago, but have never had the time and space to complete.

We've had a couple of significant deliveries here recently. Just this morning we took possession of the Mobee Magic Feet accessory charger, but more on that in the next post. The really exciting upgrade to HQ is that the 2011 MacBook Air is now attached to a Belkin Thunderbolt Express dock to max out its performance potential.

It seems that the Belkin Thunderbolt dock has been around forever without being available. It was first showcased back in September 2011, and has finally started shipping in the UK. During that time it has been through several design incarnations, several different technical specifications, and at one stage looked like it had been scrapped completely.

But the hub had finally arrived and it certainly looks the part now. It also ticks all the right boxes in terms of its technical performance - at least as far as this user is concerned. The hub provides USB 3.0 (x3), Firewire 800 (x1), Gigabyte Ethernet (x1) and pass through Thunderbolt (x1) ports, as well as audio in and out sockets. All this comes wrapped up in a little metal box which is about the size of 2 stacked DVD boxes. The hub comes with the necessary external 12W power supply - a brick about the same size as a normal laptop power adaptor.

All this comes at a price - I got mine for about £250 directly from Belkin UK and Apple on-line are selling for the same price - but it's a lot cheaper than shelling out £900 on an Apple Thunderbolt display, which still doesn't support USB 3.0 and is also considerably less portable! Caveat emptor - no Thunderbolt cable is included so be prepared to spend an additional £30-35 for that essential item.

The Thunderbolt Express hub is not an essential requirement at Apple Harvest HQ. However by connecting it with the MBA I effectively get two high performance work stations, with the new iMac in the office and the MBA/Thunderbolt hub combo in the living room. I've been able to resurrect my Moshi self powered hub (see 2011 - the Late Post) which uses a combination of  Firewire and USB to power a hub with 4 USB 2.0 and 2 Firewire ports without needing external power. I also get the 2 original MBA USB ports back and I no longer need a Thunderbolt or USB Ethernet connection.

Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock (bottom)

On the subject of internet connections, I'm getting a download speed of about 77Mbps with an upload speed of 11Mbps with my Virgin cable 120Mbps connection. This is a bit slower than the upstairs office speed but as I mentioned last time, the MBA connection is going through powerline network boxes. There is a slight hit on the USB 3.0 speed as the Belkin implementation of USB 3.0 puts a cap of 2.5Gbps against the (theoretical) 5.0Gbps standard. Nevertheless - it's still faster than USB 2.0 and one of the few ways to get USB 3.0 capability on a pre-2012 MBA.

The Belkin isn't the only Thunderbolt dock available - the Matrox DS1 is cheaper but offers less. The dock looks good, runs silently and doesn't generate much heat. For me the Belkin Thunderbolt Express hub was easily the most cost effective way to seriously hike up the performance of the MBA and will extend its workhorse life by several years. I'm hoping not to have to spend huge chunks of my life on the road in the future, but the hub is portable enough to be taken abroad for an extended stay if necessary.

If you're in a similar position and want to max out an MBA (or any other Thunderbolt compatible Mac for that matter) I'd seriously consider thinking about this as a viable option.

Managing Your Menu Bar

More and more OS X applications are using the menu bar to enable access to their settings or specific features. Even on the shiny new 27" iMac at the Apple Harvest this was becoming a real problem, but on the 13" MacBook Air things were far worse. I hate to think what it would like to use an 11" MBA! There have been a few utilities to help overcome the problem - I've been using AccessMenuBarApps for a couple of years with some success, but now there's a new kid on the block which is spot on for the job.

Bartender really solves the problem of an overcrowded menu bar using such a simple set of concepts that it's a wonder that no-one thought of doing it before. It's a beautifully executed app  and it doesn't take a lot of looking after once you have set up the initial configuration. Most importantly it allows you to take control and ownership of what goes into your menu bar (and where) rather than the apps themselves (and their developers).

Bartender in action (from developer's website)

Basically, Bartender allows you to set up a secondary menu bar which sits hidden underneath the system menu bar (or can float around wherever you wish), and allows you to decide which icons sit in the main menu or which can be delegated to the secondary bar. Icons can be hidden if they aren't used very often, and reordered any which way you want. Rather than trying to describe all the features here I suggest you download the trial version from the website and have a play. I seriously doubt that you will go for the full 4 week trial period before you commit to buying it. And when you do decide to shell out, it'll be one of the best £10.17 ($15) you'll have invested in your Mac - especially if you're a laptop owner! Astonishingly some people are whinging about the price for such a "simple" app. Seriously, if it was that simple someone would have written it a long time ago!

If you don't believe me or the developers, just take a look at some of the reviews recently published in Macworld, MacLife and Cult of Mac. If you'd prefer a video, here's one on YouTube. For reference, Bartender is no longer in beta but is fully functional and currently on V1.0.6

2011 MacBook Air - 1 Month On

I can't believe It's been over a month since my new MacBook Air was delivered. In some ways it seems like it only arrived last week, and in other's I feel like I've being using it for years. I think both perspectives are easy to explain. The latter is a testament to Apple's design and engineering consistency. Despite a new laptop (and a new OS) all the peripherals like input devices and airport devices and the great majority of software packages work just like they did on the MacBook Pro. When I'm writing something like this, it's actually quite hard to tell that I'm using a different machine other than the fact that the screen is a bit smaller.

As for the other perspective, that of still feeling like a kid at Christmas, well that's down to the fact that the upside (or downside) of a new laptop is that it's a great excuse to try new things like new accessories and new software. So a chuck of this post is going to be about those things.

But first, a few thoughts on the MacBookAir itself.

The good stuff

• The size and weight or rather the lack of them. This baby was designed to go everywhere, and it does. And when I'm carrying it around I hardly notice it's there alongside the iPad, two iPhones, the stack of papers that usually accompany me everywhere and my lunch. I even find that the MBA is light enough to use in bed on occasions; something I never did with the MBP.
• Battery life is awesome. I've never owned a fully functional laptop that could last more than a couple of hours without a recharge. I've not had a chance to really put the MBA to the test, but it has happily gone three or four hours without any problems. I don't take the MagSafe charger with me when I go into the office (which also helps keep the weight down) because I'm confident enough that the battery will last the day - admittedly it's on stand-by most of the time - but it's still an important issue for me.
• Heat and therefore fan noise haven't been an issue. The fans do kick in sometimes when I'm watching video and Time Machine kicks in, but the noise is not obtrusive, certainly not in my current environment where the temperature in the PentFlat is quite often 25-30C and the floor fan is on most of the time
• Video and screen resolution are fantastic and I've finally managed to get the laptop linked directly to the HD TV in the flat via the Thunderbolt port using a Mini Display Port to HDMI cable. Watching EyeTv and BBC iPlayer is now a great experience - sound and video sync are perfect and it means the MBA screen is available for other things like internet and mail browsing. Last week I had three screens running - BBC iPlayer on the TV, Twitter on the iPad (via AirDisplay) and Facebook on the main MBA screen. Sadly, being a bloke, I'm unable to multitask, but it still looked really cool!

The Not So Good Stuff

• There is a problem with the microphone, at least on my 13" MBA. My girlfriend has problems hearing me when we are on FaceTime, iChat or Skype, and I know there are other folk out there having similar problems. Using my Sony earbuds with their built in microphone fixes the problem but it's not a satisfactory solution. I bought a Blue Eyeball 2.0 USB microphone/webcam and this also provides a bit of a work around, but even with this I have to be quite close to the mic to get the right input levels. It's really not clear whether this is a software or hardware issue, or even whether it's a Lion issue, but I hope the Apple guys are taking notice of the increasing number of entries and complaints on the Apple support forums
• That's it - that's the only real problem I've got to date

Cool New Stuff

I did say that some of this blog would be about some of the new bits and pieces I've acquired for the MBA.

First up is the new InCase Perforated Snap-on cover for the MBA. This is a slinky blue plastic fishnet 2 piece cover which snaps onto the lid and base of the MBA providing some protection from scratches and dirt. It's not going to protect it from a fall from any great height, but it's a sexy, lightweight and does what it is supposed to do. Even with the case on, the laptop still fits nicely into the LaRobe sleeve to provide even more protection whilst travelling.

I've already mentioned the Blue Eyeball 2.0, but the webcam, which pops out of the microphone ball, is an HD alternative to the standard resolution iSight camera on the MBA. Shame that the MBA didn't come with the HD iSight as standard but I'm guessing that there wasn't enough room in the lid for it. Actually, I'm still not sure whether it's an iSight or FaceTime camera, or whether there is any difference. What's in a name?

I love retro Flip Clocks, and after 5 years of using Macs finally found a Flip Clock screen saver only to discover it doesn't work under Lion. This morning however, I found an alternative that does work, so I'm now using a screen saver because I want to rather than because I think I ought to!

One of the downsides of reducing the screen real estate on the MBA compared to the MBP is that my top menu bar is now even more cluttered than ever. I've used NoMenuBar up until now which helps to a certain extent, but AccessMenuBarApps goes even further and is now my preferred solution.

Having spent 11 of the past 14 months in Switzerland, and with another 11 weeks still to go, I've found I have pretty much seen everything (in English) on Swiss Freeview TV at least once, and new stuff is increasingly rare. So I'm always on the look out for alternatives. iTunes is great and when I'm at home I do download a couple of TV series to bring back with me. But these take up lots of disk space, and even with external drives I find myself juggling shows around and configuration management becomes a nightmare (especially when disaster strikes). I've started to rent films rather than buy them which saves the storage problem, but it access to BBC iPlayer would solve a whole bunch of problems by streaming from that source. And I finally found a way to do get around the overseas access problem by subscribing to a VPN service called Expat Telly For 19.99 Euros for 3 months I can now watch anything on iPlayer from the UK (including ITV, Channel 4, 5 , etc.) as well as a number of other shows from NBC in the US. This works by making the UK servers think that you're logging in from a UK address and thus allows you to watch. Sadly Catchup TV has got wise to these shenanigans and blocks them, but Expat Telly works with BBC iPlayer for the time being. And since I pay for a UK and Swiss TV license I feel I should be allowed to watch what I've already paid for!

Well, that's it for this post. Hope you find something of interest or something useful. But even if you don't, come back another time. I'm sure I'll have something that will get you excited!

Out with the Hackintosh - Long Live the MacBook Air

It amazes me how many people still read my Hackintosh posts on the Apple Harvest. I first built my Hackintosh almost exactly two years ago. My last post on the subject was in June last year. So why have I stopped writing about something that people want to read about? The most important reason is purely selfish. I write about the things that I find interesting, and the things that I get excited about. If some of those things are of interest to other people then so much the better, but the Apple Harvest wasn't set up to pander to market or popular trends. There are plenty of other blogs and other media sites which are geared to that audience.

There is a secondary reason for the lack of recent material on the Hackintosh. The simple fact is that I don't use it anymore. Actually, it's unusable. Some time last year, on a trip back to the UK from Zurich, I was updating the Hackintosh with the latest software upgrades, when it occurred to me that my girlfriend might be able to use it when she took her boys away for their half term break. That way we could keep up our nightly iChat conferences (the one thing that keeps me going on these long trips away from home). It was then that I noticed for the first time that, while iChat ran OK, the microphone wasn't working. I found a potential fix somewhere on the internet and attempted to implement it. Something went wrong and the Hackintosh died on the spot, but on this occasion I didn't have the time or patience to go through the whole recovery process. As a result the computer hasn't seen the light of day since (literally as it has been sitting in a drawer).

The Hackintosh for me was a largely academic exercise. I wanted to see if I could "build" one (which I could) and I wanted to see how OS X would perform on non-Apple kit (it was OK). I also wanted to try out a netbook to see whether it was really possible to use one for any length of time as a proper computer. The Hackintosh worked. It was great on the train, and fine to use around the house for the odd bit of surfing, but I seemed to spend a lot of time "fixing" it, especially as new OS X upgrades came along.

After I bought my iPad in September last year the days of the Hackintosh really did seem numbered. All the things I was doing on the Hackintosh, I could now do on the iPad, but without any of the hassle. I could surf, check mail, watch films and video, listen to music and even do basic office tasks with iWork. Anything else that I wanted to do was either going to get done on the iMac at home or on the MBP while on the road. The Hackintosh was simply not good enough to be a replacement for the MBP on a trip lasting more than one or two nights. It was certainly not going to be of any use for trips lasting five to eight weeks, overseas.

And now, it seems unlikely that the Hackintosh will ever get restored. On my last visit home earlier this month I treated myself to a new top spec MacBook Air.

It's the custom built 13inch, i7,  256Gb disk and 4Gb RAM version and it's the most beautiful laptop I've ever owned. I loved the idea of the MacBook Air from the first day they were unveiled, but I knew that it was going to be a while before they were suitable for mainstream use. In fact the Hackintosh would probably have been a better performer (for a fraction of the price), but without the usability factor. But the 2011 versions have given us a fantastic piece of hardware, with great performance, and all the ease of use of a traditional Apple laptop. My MacBook Pro has stayed at home on this current, two month long outing, and I've really not missed it at all. OK, maybe I miss the extra two inches of screen space when I'm watching Eye TV and there's a wide screen film on, but that's about it. The thing I was most concerned about was my iTunes library - just the music alone would more than fill the 256Gb MBA flash drive - but this happily sits on a 1Tb external passport disk with a small selection of songs sitting in a library on the MBA itself for when I'm out and about. I have an additional 1Tb disk which serves as a Time Machine disk, and a secondary partition where I make a scheduled, weekly Carbon Copy clone of the MBA disk.

Both these disks are usually connected through a powered USB 7 port hub, which either plugs directly into one of the MBA USB ports or into the USB port on the Airport Extreme in my flat. An Airport Express provides the link to the stereo for music and an Apple TV connects into the HD TV for viewing my movies and TV shows. And I can sit at the table on the far side of the room and be able to have full control of my media empire while still writing my blog. Like I am doing right now!

And when I go into the office in the morning I use a utility called UnDock to eject all the connected disks, close the lid and pop the MBA into my rucksack, along with the iPad and my lunch! This laptop really was designed to be carried around with you so it seems criminal not to do so. Compared to lugging the 15inch MBP around this is luxury. OK, it's luxury at a premium price, but if I can't have a bit of luxury while I'm away from the creature comforts of home but earning decent money then something has gone very wrong.

What does the future hold for the Hackintosh? I will fix it when I get back home for good at the end of November, but the Apple Harvest HQ is now Lion based, and I have my doubts about whether the Hackintosh will be able to support Lion. Maybe I'll even convert it back to a Windows box which is how it started, although I think this is highly unlikely. If it's a pain to use as an OS X box it'll be far more painful as a Windows machine! We'll see, but in the meantime please don't write to me asking if it's for sale, or on offer to a good home. It isn't! It will always be a reminder to me of what we can achieve with a bit of research, a bit of patience, a bit of confidence, and a page full of instructions that someone has painstakingly put together after months of hard work, frustration, and no financial reward. My enduring thanks and regards to the pioneering Hackintoshers!