Configuring new Apple laptop purchase

[lukasz]

Yeah the 11" MBA screen was a challenge for a few days, but surprisingly I got used to it. Glad you settled on something quickly. Not like you can really go wrong.

[Too Tall]

Get yourself some rechargeable bAtteries for that kb and trackpad. Keep the charger close.

(The royal) WE do not love that wireless KB. Does anyone make a real live docking station for this thing where I can leave the monitor, kb and printer attached?

[suzyj]

(The royal) WE do not love that wireless KB. Does anyone make a real live docking station for this thing where I can leave the monitor, kb and printer attached?

Apple do.

Apple - Thunderbolt Display - More pixels and more possibilities.

[SteveP]

tt,
i just picked up a pc jr so im looking to sell my commodore 63 ( saved some $$ by not upgrading to the 64 ).
it runs windows 8 but kinda slow, video is not awesome ... 24 colors though.
you will love it.
make me an offer.

[Craig Ryan]

We've always had macs, both at home and school. Susan just moved down to the smallest air and loves it. I still use the small MBP that's about 4 years old. When the time comes I'm going smaller also. We run an airport extreme a couple of iPads and phones, and it all goes lickity split. I bought more iCloud space and don't really use hard drives except about once a year. At school in my art room I have a cart with MBP's. We use Creative Suite daily and the only problems we ever have are external (network). If I was going to set up a work area with a monitor I'd get a mac mini and a monitor, but you may have a good deal going.

At this point any doc I make is in Pages, any photo I take runs through iCloud and iPhoto. It's all so seamless I don't mind if a few bells and whistles are missing.

Of course you're back from shopping now and have probably bought something anyway! When I first started teaching, or actually shortly after that, I had an Apple II in my room. I made my own grade book with 5 inch floppies in the spreadsheet on that thing.

[j44ke]

Henge makes docks for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops. You can plug in the laptop when you need it and leave all your peripherals connected when you don't. Henge Docks | Docking Stations for Apple Notebook Computers

I like connected drives for back up, not wireless. The goal of a backup is to get a precise copy, and wireless isn't precise. Super Duper mentioned elsewhere here is what I use. I do a weekly backup and a weekly update to that backup. I do Time Machine backups too, but I've seen too many corrupted sparse files out of Time Machine to trust it in the long run. Periodically I archive my current Time Machine sparse file and redo it from zero just to keep things clean. Time Machine does work well for transferring files between computers, like when you buy a new computer and need to get things set up, or for doing a hard drive wipe & OS reinstall with minimal downtime. But Time Machine seems prone to errors over time, and those errors make Time Machine relatively worthless as a back up system. Thus Super Duper.

I don't like Apple's Time Capsule hard drives, partly because they are wireless but also because the drives have had problems with dependability. The drives I've had good success with are LaCie D2 drives and G-Tech G-Drives. Knock on wood, I have a fleet of those and no problems.

I'd agree that a 4 year old iMac will need some additions to work well with the current OS. 4 GB is a good start for RAM if it doesn't already have that much. I'd put in as much as the machine allows. I've had very good luck with RamJet. Their stuff is priced competitively and I have never gotten a bad module. I do know people who have gotten bad modules (2 people) but RamJet has replaced it immediately. Mac Memory | Mac RAM | Apple Memory | Apple RAM for Mac | Ramjet.com

The one caveat I'd offer about the Air is that its design is focused on battery life. That means things that consume batteries are stepped down from the latest and greatest power-hungry processors and graphics cards. Which means potentially that the effective life of the Air is shorter than a MacBook Pro or iMac. My Air is from 2009, and there now are things that will make it cough. Some streaming videos in HD will chatter and stutter. Eventually, like my original iPad, there will be things it just will not do. A MacBook Pro, because it is not primarily concerned with battery life, may be spec'd for higher power internals and thus may effectively last longer. iMacs longer still.

[happycampyer]

tt,
i just picked up a pc jr so im looking to sell my commodore 63 ( saved some $$ by not upgrading to the 64 ).
it runs windows 8 but kinda slow, video is not awesome ... 24 colors though.
you will love it.
make me an offer.

hey, i still have an original Macintosh with the backpack carrying case that I was working on selling to tt... just need to find the floppy disk that has the OS on it... think it has MacPaint on it, too, good for all of tt's graphics needs...

[Gordon]

Zev I might give you a jingle. Thanks for the advice regarding Parallels. I'll avoid it as long as possible but there are a couple secret squirrel things that have to be windows and install from disk...blah blah blah.

Bazinga. You thought I'd drag this out eh? Just back from the store and am typing on a spanky new MBP 15" retina overkill. It came down to the fact my eyes are not comfortable seeing small(er) displays and once I spec'd a MBA up it was nearly the same price as a MBP. Got a 2 TB time machine, wireless KB and track pad. Digging the track pad but not in love with the small keyboard. I have the MBP in a stand and connect it via HDMI to my old HD Viewsonic monitor and it looks stellar. I'm in bid-ness.

Next up will be to recover my external hard drives and move the data to the Time Machine.

It is a lovely laptop. Tons to learn still.

Now I need a replacement for Dreamweaver and what's the Salon say for video editing that I can use to teach myself the basics it did come with iMovie.

Good choice! The track pad is awesome so much more versatile/functional than a mouse. RE: keyboard. You'll adapt. I have a hard time using PC keyboards now...

Congrats. I'm sure it'll serve you well.

[NYCfixie]

Zev I might give you a jingle. Thanks for the advice regarding Parallels. I'll avoid it as long as possible but there are a couple secret squirrel things that have to be windows and install from disk...blah blah blah.

VMWare Fusion has proved its worth many times over with me and my staff. We have it installed on all tech department Mac laptops and my group use it to manage windows servers, run funky proprietary SQL databases, and build test VMs for Windows servers that we then put into service on our production VMWare ESX hosts. Can't do that with Parallels because of the way Parallels creates the virtual NIC (network) cards. We have had one too many problems with the way virtual NICs are created in Parallels to trust it.

We also use Fusion on over 40 five year old iMacs in 2 computer labs. You want to talk about wonky windows stuff - we support:
Win98 era Educational Software (manufacturer out of business) on Windows XP (Microsoft ends support in 4/2014) on Fusion on Mac OSX 10.8....and it is rock solid!

If you went MBPr overkill, you really need to check out that Thunderbolt display - Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

Just get Dreamweaver for the Mac.

iMovie Books:
Apple Training Series: iMovie '11
iMovie '11 & iDVD: The Missing Manual


Before you mess around with iMovie you really owe it to yourself to check out FinalCut Pro - Free trial:
Apple - Final Cut Pro X - Overview


My background is actually in computer graphics. I am self-taught in all the technical stuff I have been doing for more than 20 years.

[NYCfixie]

It is a lovely laptop. Tons to learn still.

forgot to add...if you have Mavericks 10.9 this is a great resource:
Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mavericks Edition
by David Pogue

or the 10.8 version
Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mountain Lion Edition

[Sbti]

If you can swing the coin a really nice setup is Thunderbolt monitor from Apple and any new Apple laptop with MacOSX, Fusion, and Win7. The laptop connects to the monitor via one cable for power and video connection. The monitor has one plug to the wall for power. SSD storage on the new Apple laptops is proprietary so get as much as you can afford now.

Any idea what's next from Apple for displays? I guess the Thunderbolt has been around since Sept. 2011 and the rumor site says "don't buy".

[adamdoesit]

Any idea what's next from Apple for displays? I guess the Thunderbolt has been around since Sept. 2011 and the rumor site says "don't buy".

Supposedly, 4K displays. Whatever. With Apple stuff, I think it's best to buy what you need when you need it, and ignore the new product marketing that inevitably appears a few months later to tell you that what you have is now inadequate.

TooTall, I do have to issue the obligatory IT guy warning that TimeCapsule is more redundancy than backup. Backup should get stored out of reach of the thieves, floods and fires that can take out your nice new MBP. It also helps when your backup system works when you're away from home. Like Noteddy said, Crashplan is good stuff. Go online just about anywhere in the world, and it'll start backing you up. Or, you can do what the kids do now, and sync your primary storage with Dropbox, so you can hit it from any browser anywhere.

Good call on the 15", btw. I like my Air for travel, but, for a big dude, I find it a bit diminutive as a primary machine.

[lukasz]

I don't think there's any harm in buying Thunderbolt. Not like your monitor will become obsolete because of the plug shape. It was kind of nice for Apple to use the mini-displayport plug, anyway. I didn't have to buy a new hdmi adapter.

[Too Tall]

Rodger on the backup storage. Time Capsule is not my failsafe and as you say it's redundancy at arms reach. Interesting thought wrt dropbox, I'd never considered it for that purpose.
Guess what aspect of this rig I immediately love the most? Lack of NOISE!!! Dead silent, fast fast fast. Trackpad is insanely good. Now I'm off to find a docking station and (gulp) consider purchase Dreamweaver. See?? I'm doing my best to not stuff Win programs where they don't belong. If it exists for Apple I'll do my best to buy and use that product. Learned a long time ago you can fight city hall but it always comes with a tab ;)

[Too Tall]

Excellent advice. Darn it that Henge looked good however it is not made to work with MBP Retina :(

Henge makes docks for MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops. You can plug in the laptop when you need it and leave all your peripherals connected when you don't. Henge Docks | Docking Stations for Apple Notebook Computers

I like connected drives for back up, not wireless. The goal of a backup is to get a precise copy, and wireless isn't precise. Super Duper mentioned elsewhere here is what I use. I do a weekly backup and a weekly update to that backup. I do Time Machine backups too, but I've seen too many corrupted sparse files out of Time Machine to trust it
in the long run. Periodically I archive my current Time Machine sparse file and redo it from zero just to keep things clean. Time Machine does work well for transferring files between computers, like when you buy a new computer and need to get things set up, or for doing a hard drive wipe & OS reinstall with minimal downtime. But Time Machine seems prone to errors over time, and those errors make Time Machine relatively worthless as a back up system. Thus Super Duper.

I don't like Apple's Time Capsule hard drives, partly because they are wireless but also because the drives have had problems with dependability. The drives I've had good success with are LaCie D2 drives and G-Tech G-Drives. Knock on wood, I have a fleet of those and no problems.

I'd agree that a 4 year old iMac will need some additions to work well with the current OS. 4 GB is a good start for RAM if it doesn't already have that much. I'd put in as much as the machine allows. I've had very good luck with RamJet. Their stuff is priced competitively and I have never gotten a bad module. I do know people who have gotten bad modules (2 people) but RamJet has replaced it immediately. Mac Memory | Mac RAM | Apple Memory | Apple RAM for Mac | Ramjet.com

The one caveat I'd offer about the Air is that its design is focused on battery life. That means things that consume batteries are stepped down from the latest and greatest power-hungry processors and graphics cards. Which means potentially that the effective life of the Air is shorter than a MacBook Pro or iMac. My Air is from 2009, and there now are things that will make it cough. Some streaming videos in HD will chatter and stutter. Eventually, like my original iPad, there will be things it just will not do. A MacBook Pro, because it is not primarily concerned with battery life, may be spec'd for higher power internals and thus may effectively last longer. iMacs longer still.

[Too Tall]

After report!

I've completed a disk image using SuperDuper to back the image directly (wireless) to the Time Capsule and it took 10 hrs. Booo. Time Capsule is going back to the store or maybe get used as my in-home media dump and will either build a nice array or buy something off the shelf that's network connected to my router. What was I thinking?!!! Getting used to the keyboard (not) hehe.

j44ke - I'm looking at raid 1: LaCie 6TB 2big Thunderbolt Series RAID Hard Drive. Something like that.

Thanks y'all are very patient to help.