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The iPad Advantage

A common question I get from people seeking my “tech recommendation” if they need an iPad – as if it were a difficult choice to make between a touch device or laptop. That is to say if they have an iPhone/iPod touch, the iPad seems redundant. If they have a laptop, the iPad will also seem redundant. It looks like they feel that if they get an iPad, they’d have to let go of one or the other.

But everyone who has talked to me about the iPad knows that I don’t believe this to be the case – far from it. They know I’m a fan of the iPad, and that I would even recommend it over a laptop – which is partly true.

The truth is that whenever a person asks “what would be a better buy: an iPad or a laptop,” my first question would always be if they already have a primary machine (desktop or laptop). If they do [have a primary machine], unless they’ve got special needs, I’d easily recommend an iPad over a laptop any day.

Why is that you ask? Read on. Read More

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MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro

One thing I wasn’t able to to when I got the MacBook Air (Air) was to make a video of it going head to head with my old 2.4GHz 15″ MacBook Pro (MBP) w/ 4GB RAM and 250GB HDD. The reason I got the Air was precisely because I had already sold [and given away] the MBP – so it was good as gone. Another reason was because the MBP was a 1st Generation unit. While it did have the comparable specs to compare the Air with, I also didn’t want to leave “room for doubt” because of its age.

Luckily, I was able to help a friend out in sourcing a brand new MBP. What’s better is that the MBP had the exact same specs as my old MBP – the only difference was the 13″ native resolution [was smaller than the 15″]. But other than that, it’s exactly the same… and it’s from the newest line of MBPs Apple released.

My previous post just showed a video of the general impression I had of the Air on it’s own, but now I present to you a legitimate head-to-head comparison video of how the Air stacks up against what’s supposed to be a more powerful MBP of the same “generation.”

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Synchronicity

Ok a lot of people have been asking for this. So for all two of you, here’s how to get your multiple Mac machine’s synced up without having to resort to a paid service (e.g. MobileMe) 😉 This is where everything is going… you mark my words.

Now for the obligatory introduction:

As you all know, computers have become more and more integrated into our everyday lives. And apart from the OS, there are some applications that we rely on almost all the time. Mail, Calendars, Addressbooks, etc. And these are constantly updated. And in the era of portable computing, keeping these devices “synchronized” is an important, but difficult task.

I’m here to give you some suggestions on how to deal with such data – because on OS X you can have near-realtime, reliable synchronization for free. Read More

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Apple Unibodies: Impressions

Thanks to a series of fortunate events, I was able to get some early Christmas gifts for Cris and myself:

And thanks to getting both; I was able to get to do a first hand comparison. Hopefully the contents of this post may prove useful to those considering getting the new Apple laptops.

Also pictures in the gallery

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Nabuhay ako muli

Been a while since I last blogged. My Macbook Pro died on me – specifically, the hard drive failed without any warning. I didn’t want to blog when not using Ecto, which supports previewing of all my custom functions (ie footnotes, markdown, etc.)

Incidentally, SpinRite was of no use since it wouldn’t work on the MacBook Pro; it would only load to a certain point then not respond to any keyboard input – hence couldn’t get to the actual testing/maintenance/recovery operations. Fortunately, Data Rescue II saved my ass – again. So I was able to recover all my data from the dying drive.

I ended up getting a 3.5″ 120GB IDE drive with external enclosure for about 3k bucks, which I installed and ran OS X from. It’s such a pain in the ass to not be able to move around when you have your laptop booting and running off a 3.5″ drive as you need it powered from a wall-wart. But the price of a similarly sized 2.5″ version is just too much.

In any case, the service center where I usually have my stuff repaired pre-ordered a replacement drive without me having to show or leave the laptop with them for a few days (the benefits of being a trustworthy customer). They let me keep and use my laptop until the new drive came and I only had to visit once – having the drive replaced within the hour.

So I’m back, and will now use the 3.5″ drive as a dedicated clone of my laptop drive – in case something like this happens a third time (or any succeeding time for that matter).