Seems that roughly every 4 years I consider which laptop to buy and use. In 2008 I switched from a Panasonic CF-W2 to a Macbook Air. At the time I was on my second Panasonic and I had been using each for roughly 4 years. The CF-W2s were lightweight, rugged and chock full of features. In 2012 I considered switching from my Macbook Air but instead bought a replacement one. That was four years ago and I have now been on a Macbook for 8 years. My current Macbook Air is showing signs of aging. The...

Seems that roughly every 4 years I consider which laptop to buy and use. In 2008 I switched from a Panasonic CF-W2 to a Macbook Air. At the time I was on my second Panasonic and I had been using each for roughly 4 years. The CF-W2s were lightweight, rugged and chock full of features. In 2012 I considered switching from my Macbook Air but instead bought a replacement one. That was four years ago and I have now been on a Macbook for 8 years. My current Macbook Air is showing signs of aging. The...

It’s been about a week since I made the big switch from a Windows laptop to a MacBook. Here is a quick update for all of you who are still holdouts. If you need Exchange integration (like I do), I can highly recommend Parallels 4.0. As the screenshot shows, Parallel’s “Coherence” mode lets Windows apps appear like native apps in the dock. It is also possible to associate file extensions in Finder with Windows apps, allowing me to launch Excel by double-clicking a .xls file. The clipboard work...

It’s been about a week since I made the big switch from a Windows laptop to a MacBook. Here is a quick update for all of you who are still holdouts. If you need Exchange integration (like I do), I can highly recommend Parallels 4.0. As the screenshot shows, Parallel’s “Coherence” mode lets Windows apps appear like native apps in the dock. It is also possible to associate file extensions in Finder with Windows apps, allowing me to launch Excel by double-clicking a .xls file. The clipboard work...

On Friday at GEL 2009, I met Thomas Deng, a co-founder of DeviceVM which makes Splashtop. Then on Saturday, I noticed a ZDNet story on Techmeme about Presto. Both Splashtop and Presto are so-called instant-on solutions which are essentially miniature Linux distros that boot in a couple of seconds and give you a web browser with Internet access and a few other goodies. My comment to Thomas was something like “that’s impressive” when I found out how many PCs had shipped with Splashtop. But then...

On Friday at GEL 2009, I met Thomas Deng, a co-founder of DeviceVM which makes Splashtop. Then on Saturday, I noticed a ZDNet story on Techmeme about Presto. Both Splashtop and Presto are so-called instant-on solutions which are essentially miniature Linux distros that boot in a couple of seconds and give you a web browser with Internet access and a few other goodies. My comment to Thomas was something like “that’s impressive” when I found out how many PCs had shipped with Splashtop. But then...