Recycled Computing

2010 MacBook Air Thoughts: Third Time's a Charm

- 2010.11.10

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Short link: http://bit.ly/bCzQD0

I'm feeling a little better about the MacBook Air.

I recently ran across Toshiba Rolls Out Blade X-gale SSD Modules, Makes MacBook Air Storage Look a Little Less Proprietary on Engadget. It looks like other manufacturers will be producing SSD drives to fit into the Macbook Air, so the possibility of larger (than 128 GB drives) is possible, although Toshiba's 256 GB would seem to be too tall.*

I want to clear up some poor communication on my part, before my inbox suffers another massive assault. I do want a new MacBook Air. After all, I own a 12" Powerbook G4 laptop.

I like small computers and really don't have the need to lug around the equivalent of a desktop in a laptop. I like to write, surf the Web, watch a movie, and listen to music.

The fact that the MacBook Air has a camera and would allow me to video chat with my daughter is even cooler. Sort of coolness squared.

I know that Apple is moving towards portable computing big time. And I recognize the logic in making sealed units that consumers shouldn't open. But excuse me if I'm a little nostalgic for the Pismos of the past.

I Am a Tinkerer

One of my readers accused me of being a "tinkerer". You're right. I am a tinkerer.

When the parking brake lever on my wife's 2006 Saab 9-3 "refused the office" and would not release, I was able to disconnect the cable to the rear wheels and drive it to the dealership. Without my tinkering, I would have an immobile auto and a towing fee.

Sometimes a minimum mechanical ability is useful.

External FireWire and USB enclosures for notebook drives But let's switch to something less controversial and more in the meme of "Recycled Computers". What do you do with those tiny hard drives that you take out of the elderly computers that you bring back to life? By tiny, I mean I had a 13 GB drive from my Pismo and a 10 GB drive from an Clamshell iBook.

Cripes, my iPod touch has a 16 GB capacity!

I went out and bought the cheapest IDE hard drive encloses I could find. I bought a FireWire enclosure for my PowerPC Macs (I partitioned it and have both Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard installed on it, so I can boot from either) and a USB 2.0 enclosure for my children's Intel-based Macbooks.

If anything goes wrong with any of my machines, I can boot from an external drive and try to tinker with the computer. And now I think I'm going to have to buy a piece of software to defrag Mac drives....

* Editor's note: Also see First SSD Upgrade Kits for New MacBook Air Boast 30% Performance Increase - 256 GB is possible, although PhotoFast does not yet appear to have a distributor. dk

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