Just a warning if you didn’t figure it out this is going to be a non-photography post.  But still mildly photography related since you can’t do digital photography without a good computer.  I recently got a new 2011 13″ Macbook Air.  I’ve been getting it setup with all the required software and tweaks to get it running the way I like.  I’m upgrading from an aging 15″ Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard on an Intel SSD (no sense in upgrading to Lion if I was going to buy a Macbook Air).

The Good:

• My first observation of the new MBA is it is fast… really fast.  The new Sandybridge i5 processor really makes this thing scream.  Lightroom is much faster.
• The screen is really nice.  It’s bright and very crisp thanks to the 1440×900 resolution on the 13″ panel.  This was the same resolution as my 15″ so I really don’t feel like I lost much going to a smaller screen.
• Lion… It took me about a day to get use to Mission Control but I like it better than Spaces.  The new full screen Safari in Lion is great.

The Bad:

• The glossy screen.  Most of my tech savvy friends will agree that glossy screens are bad but the MBA screen isn’t as bad as the current MBPro screens.

The Tweaks:

• Alfred: productivity app that lets you access just about every function for navigating OSX without using the mouse.  No need for launchpad just start typing the name of the app and Alfred will find it for you.
• Safari OmniBar: Makes Safari more like Chrome it combines the address and the search bar in Safari.  My browser of choice on Snow Leopard was Lion but with the full screen capable Safari this add-on makes Safari shine.
• Safari Tab Switching: Allows you to use the command+number shortcut to switch between tabs…just like Chrome
• iTerm2: way better terminal app for when the geek has to come out
• Dropbox: Cloud storage that keeps all may documents and files safe and accessible on my iPhone.
• TextMate: Great text editor
• Adium: IM client
• iStat Pro: Dashboard widget that tells you everything you want to know about your mac’s vitals

Tags: 13", Adium, Alfred, Apple, Dropbox, iStat Pro, iTerm2, Lion, MacBook Air, Review, Safari Omnibar, Safari Tab Switching, TextMate, Tweaks

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 9th, 2011 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.