computer note

I've been so busy I missed the debut of the new Mac Book Air models. There's 11.6 inch and 13 inch models. They are REALLY cool. Form factor is great and the tomorrowland design elements are Apple through and through.

The smaller model isn't much heavier than an iPad and of course it has a keyboard and runs the full Apple OS. For those pondering an iPad purchase--consider the new smaller Mac Book Air. It's about the same size, it's a computer (albeit not the only computer you'd need) and for those who write a lot, the keyboard is actually pretty nifty. Processor is not cutting edge, but the performance tests suggest the whole thing runs faster than you'd expect from the pieces. Boot to browser is less than 20 seconds--that is amazing with PC boot times in the 2 minute range these days.

I typed on one at the Apple Store and the keyboard has pretty good touch and spacing. I am a touch typist so keyboards are important. The kid at the store was amazed to hear my story of buying a Mac 512K and Imagewriter I in 1985 for $1900. He wasn't born yet. At first I had external and internal 400K single sided disc drives--later upgraded to double sided, providing 800K a drive. Data on one, OS and application on the other. Things worked fine--word processing, using WriteNow, was faster than PC Word today. Have we advanced all that far in 25 years?

Now I'm leaning toward a new small MacBook Air and maybe later an iMac as my main computer. This laptop is 3+ years old has some quirks and is full to the brim--photos do that. I like texting on my cell phone, but have never been excited about email and Internet on it.

I know, things just get more complicated. That's the one sure thing about technology.