tech, news, productivity, views and stuff
Huffington Post has posted a series of Facebook safety tips.
Who’s watching your moves on Facebook? Employers, stalkers, federal agents, and even insurance companies have been known to scan Facebook profiles for information. Just as troubling are reports of Facebook account hackers, who put users at risk for identity fraud. Even if you safeguard personal information with a “Friends Only” setting, there is a chance you’ve friended someone whom you barely know or have never met.
Finally managed to get my hands on a real life 11.6″ MacBook Air at my local Apple Store (trying to remember what I did before there were lots of these in the UK). So there I was in the shop and I touched, used and felt the weight of the 11.6″ MacBook Air, I have to admit I pretty much well ignored the 13″ model as I have see the previous version, and to be honest if I was going with a 13″ MacBook, I would go for the MacBook Pro.
So back to the smaller MacBook Air brethren. The first thing that struck me, was how gorgeous the screen was, the high resolution makes for a really sharp display. As I started Safari (very snappy) and entered an URL, I noticed how nice the keyboard was too. One of the problems I have with small laptops (and I have used a fair few in my time) is that the keyboards can be too small for anything expect peck and touch typing. The MacBook Air keyboard felt full size and I could quite easily see myself typing up long blog posts and other things using it. I was impressed with the speed of the Air, for something that isn’t really a true powerhouse when it comes to processing power and memory.
Having lifted it up, it was lighter than I thought it was going to be. It felt much smaller and lighter than the iPad even though it is 50% heavier.
I do quite like it, would like to get one, but probably won’t as at £849 it’s a little expensive for what for me would be more of a toy than a serious workhorse.
You have to just love the way that Apple package their “toys”. Unpacking the Apple TV was a really wonderful experience… can’t believe I just said that.
Slide the box open, tip out the Apple TV. Remove the clear plastic and then a strip of black plastic film that protects it and the ports. Underneath was the remote, in at an angle so the box can be smaller and under that tightly tied was the power cord.
I connected the Apple TV to my TV and then using the remote connected it to the wireless network. After turning on Home Sharing it found my iMac on the network and I could easily play content from it. Now with my faster broadband I will have no worries about renting movies on the Apple TV, though not sure how often I will do that at £4.49 a pop… Disappointed that we in the UK don’t have TV episodes, hopefully at a later time. No BBC iPlayer either!
Well the rumours proved correct with the Apple event on the 20th October with the release of iLife ’11, details of OS X 10.7 Lion and new MacBook Air models.
We got a new 13.3″ MacBook Air and a nice little 11.6″ model.
For me the 11.6″ model is a true portable Mac, almost a netbook. I really like the idea of that.
Slightly pricy though at £849 for the low end model.
Yes, I have gone out and bought one…
Took me a while to find in the Apple Store as the box is tiny compared to the previous model… very minimalist packaging!
Still in the box at the moment….
Once more the rumour mill gets going and lots of talk about a possible new version of iLife been released on the 20th October.
It certainly would be the right time for an update.
Lots of talk too about iDVD going and been replaced with an iPhone App creation tool.
Looking forward to the event.
I wrote last week about how using my Airport Extreme with my new FTTC broadband.
I said then:
EyeTV has an iPad and iPhone App which have worked really well on my home network, but so far I have not had any luck accessing it away from home, even though it is correctly configured.
However I thought this was because:
I do believe though this is because of the remote network I was on. I have yet to try on a public wifi network and I suspect I will have better luck then.
Well when I was in a good 3G area I gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised that not only did it work, but the quality was pretty good too.
Not sure how it will fit in with my 3G data cap, but now and again it will prove useful I think.
Rory Cellan-Jones has written an insightful blog piece on how Facebook knows more about you than you know and even if you have never been on Facebook.
If you hate the idea of social networking and have never been on Facebook, then Facebook knows nothing about you. Correct? So how come when you set up a profile on the social network for the first time, it can suggest friends for you?
This echoes some of the stuff I have been talking about how I am concerned is that my privacy is affected by what other people post about me… in other words no matter how careful I am, other people are posting information and photographs about me all over the web.
Now part of that is because it is my job, if I give a presentation at a big conference, that will be online.
However when someone posts photos of when I was 14 on Facebook I have no control over those photos nor who sees them!
There are rumours floating about regarding a new MacBook Air.
Macrumors says
…the new MacBook Air will offer an 11.6-inch display, down from the 13.3-inch display found in the current model.
and
…the new models will do away with existing options for a conventional hard-disk drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD) in favor something described as an “SSD Card” that lacks a traditional drive enclosure and more closely resembles a stick of RAM, yet is not easily user-replaceable.
This sounds like the really portable MacBook that I expected when the first MacBook Air came out. A true Apple netbook….
Back then I said
Key new product announced at the keynote was the MacBook Air, a small light MacBook.
I do like small computers, great fan of the 10″Sony VAIO laptops, however this is slightly bigger than I would like, and I can’t see how that would survive travelling by air or train.
Don’t get me wrong I think it’s very stylish, well designed, but doesn’t meet my needs for a small portable computer for use at conferences, on the train and in coffee shops.
I also talked about the lack on built-in 3G, something that most portable laptops at the time were coming with.
However something has changed since then.
The iPad.
The iPad is now that portable computer that I take with me to conferences, use on the train and in coffee shops. The iPad has built in 3G and has a great battery life.
What will the MacBook Air offer that can’t be done on the iPad? Well I know stuff like printing and saving and moving files for instance….
This rumoured MacBook Air sounds like the device that Apple should have released back in 2008.
In an interesting experiment and use of social media, the Greater Manchester Police used Twitter for 24 hours to tweet every incident that they had to deal with.
More from GMP.