Stuff Jesus Digs

Life with MacBook Air (SSD has changed my life.)

I originally started this as a comment on Chris Ullrich's article on The Unofficial Apple Weblog about Life with the MacBook Air, but as I wrote, it got longer so I decided to put it on my Blog.

To summarize Chris' article, he says that the MacBook Air has some really great stuff being small, sleek and cool, but it isn't fast enough and he gets "beachballs" too often and occasionally has some wireless trouble.

My comment was that I can offer a little perspective on the difference that can be made from having the expensive (read about $1000 more) Solid State Drive. I ordered the Air on the first day it came out, 1.8 GHz SSD. My other laptop is a top of the line 17" MacBook Pro, high resolution glossy screen, 2.5 GHz Processor, 4 GB Ram. I have been frustrated for years with performance of my laptops and the frequent beach balls. I generally run Activity Monitor and watch the processors and it seems clear to me that the processor is almost never the bottleneck. In fact, unless I'm doing some sort of encoding or rendering (which I almost never do on the laptop) the processors are less than 50% almost all the time.

So I was really interested to see what difference the Solid State Drive would make. The first difference it made was that I was short about 250 GB of hard drive space. That is still really frustrating as I don't have any of my music or photos on my laptop. Oh well. Also, I spend almost all my time on the laptop with web browsing, email or running FileMaker and most of that in email.

Once moving to the MacBook Air with SSD and getting all my email downloaded from the server, I noticed the difference right away. Keep in mind, my email usage isn't likely typical. I managed to strip my mail down to 22 GB worth in order to fit on the smaller Air SSD and that is spread over a couple hundred folders. On my "fast" 17" MacBook Pro, I had gotten used to clicking a folder and waiting a few seconds for mail to catch up. On the Air with SSD, almost all of my clicks in mail receive nearly instantaneous response, even ones with 10,000 messages or more. Sure there are times when it takes the usual amount of time to check in with the server to display new messages, but anything that is local on the hard drive is instantaneous.

I noticed last week when working on year end trying to track down a couple purchases. I'd put the amount of the purchase in the search field and have it look through the entire message for every email on my drive. The results were amazing, occasionally the wait was as long as 2 seconds, but usually it was a second or less.

I was in a meeting last week where we were trying to track down some data from old emails and there was actually a discussion about how I was coming up with the answer before anyone else was getting anything at all on their screen. All of them had current MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

So not really believing what I was seeing, last week I pulled out the 17" and tried using it for a day. I was amazed how quickly it was clear that for how I work, it was slower than the little MacBook Air. I saw beachballs that I almost never see on the Air, I noticed the lag when launching or switching applications, and there was a few times when the machine seemed to get all bound up and everything beachballed evidently waiting for some essential piece of information that was required from some remote corner of the hard drive.

Now if you read articles about the SSD, you won’t find (at least I haven’t) people raving about the stellar performance. What you’ll find is that when they test it, writing large chunks of information is a little slower than a standard hard drive and that writing small chunks of information is about the same, and the reading large chunks of informaiton is moderately faster. Then there will be one bar on the chart that is way different. Reading small chunks of information from many different places on the drive is wicked fast.

So it seems that it might depend on how you use your computer. If you are methodical, work with large pieces of data, a SSD might not make a huge difference in how you work. If you are like me and your computer use has more of an ADD flair to it, then you might see the results I am where SSD effectivley elimincates beachballs and makes functions you do every day increadibly less frustrating and faster.

The advantages of the MacBook Air’s size seem to be clear to everyone. I’ve always been a huge fan of small computers all the way back to my Apple Duo 210, 230, 280c, 2400, PowerBook 12” iBook 12”, etc. but had strayed since the performance of the compact machines had lagged behind the more professional machines. The Air has really changed how I think about bringing my computer along with me. The 17” mostly traveled between the office and home, the Air comes with me anytime I think it might come in handy.

So to try to sum it up, I’ve not handed my 17” back to our friends in the IT department to deploy to someone else yet because I still not sure I won’t be going back. One big adjustment has been the loss of a high resolution display. My 17” is the high resolution model with 1920x1200, the same as a 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. I really wish Apple offered high resolution options for all their professional machines including the MacBook Air with a 1680 by 1050 option.

The other signifcant adjustment is the loss of about 230 GB of hard drive space compared to the 300 GB drive in the 17”. For me, I’ve always kept all my music and videos on my Laptop and that accounts for about 120 GB, I’ve also kept my entire photo history there too going back about 10 years now and that is about 30 GB. No chance of those fitting on my MacBook Air SSD with only about 56 GB of usable space. I do carry a Western Digital Passport 320 GB external drive which is wonderful, but I rarely want to have it hanging off the side of the machine so in reality I use it very rarely.

So at this point I’m not compeltely sure what has me so enamored with the MacBook Air. You have to know that a big part of it is that is it so light and easy to bring along. I do wonder if more of it isn’t the SSD drive which for me has revolutionized how enjoyable it is to use a Laptop.

For the last week I’ve been playing with some ideas about a dual hard drive situation like those offered from MCE. If I had a 128 GB SSD drive as my primary drive but replaced the internal optical drive with a 300 GB for iTunes, iPhoto and my documents, that could provide the best of both worlds giving me the performance I need in launching applications, reading mail, etc. but still providing access to all the data I want to carry with me.

I hadn't seen anyone writing articles about their experience with MacBook Air that seemed to fit with mine, so I thought I'd get it all written down. I'd be really curious about what others with the SSD are seeing and if your experience is anything like mine.

August Rush - Maybe my favorite movie?

Last night, my wife and I went to see August Rush. It is a really amazing movie. The first movie in a long time where I had decided to go see it again and buy the DVD even before the movie was half over.

August Rush is about an orphan boy who never believed he was unwanted and that his family was looking for him. He had an amazing ability to hear the world around him and what he heard was an amazing symphony. He believed that if he could find a way to play that symphony back, he family would find him.

When he was asked "What do you want to be?", his one word reply was simply "Found.".

Seeing August smile as he listened to the world around him or as he played made it clear that he was experiencing what God created him to be. Even with the turmoil around him, he never gave up that connection. I picture August later in life looking back and seeing God's hand in guiding him and showing His love for him.

The cynic will see only an impossible string of coincidences and an incredibly sappy movie. I see what we can all find in life if we are only willing to listen.

An interesting side note is that we saw the movie "Open Captioned" which is similar to subtitles or closed caption but mush less obtrusive and in addition to the spoken words they describe the sounds that are happening in the movie such as "music builds" or "rustling of leaves" for example. We were thinking it would be distracting but in a movie where so much of the movie is in the sounds that we get to hear through the ears of August it was really interesting to "hear" it through yet another avenue.

TOMS Shoes

Pretty awesome business model. You buy a pair of shoes, Blake give a pair to a child who needs them.

Link: TOMS Shoes.

Somebody had to do it. Why couldn't it be us?

I have to admit that I was pretty surprised to hear about this. I was proud to see these kids ask the question and take ownership of their own choices. Just because something has always been that way, isn't a good reason not to question it.

Link: Georgia School Throws First Integrated Prom - washingtonpost.com.

Stuff Jesus Digs? Blowing our minds.

This is a great article. Listing out 13 things that just don't make sense within the world as we know it. I just love the fact that today there is still mystery in the world.

Link: 13 things that do not make sense - New Scientist Space.

CNN.com - Sweet Mary, mother of God?

I think it is awesome how a dripped pile of chocolate can encourage people's faith. How many things do we pass by every day that God wants to be using to tell us He loves us?

Link: CNN.com - Sweet Mary, mother of God? - Aug 17, 2006.

First day kiting

I'd loved flying kites all my life, I've always sticked with single line kites including my favorite 12 ft, stars and stripe modified box. A couple years ago I saw some power kits at a store here in Oregon and I knew I had to have one.

I'm one of those guys who managed to build a business out of my hobby of playing with computer stuff so people have a horrible time figuring out what to get me for presents. So a few months ago, I mentioned to my lovely wife April that a power kite would be a cool thing. I looked at it a little but didn't find any clear idea of what I would want for a first kite.

I had forgot about telling my wife about what I wanted when my 35th birthday came around last Thursday, but when I saw the size of the box, my hopes instantly came back to mind. After reading the lovely card from made by my youngest and fighting through the wrapping job that must have used a complete roll of scotch tape, I found the box with the UPS label. It came from Kent at A Wind of Change. Opening the box, I found an Ozone Fury, 3.0.

Of course, my wife asked right away how she did. She had spent the week before researching and reading the web forums to try to find out what kite she should get. She also had spent a fair amount of time with kent on the phone before ordering. I had no idea. In looking at kites, it kinda seemed like a catch 22. You don't know what you want until you do it, but you can do it until you know what you want.

Anyway, in reading it seemed like she made a great choice. Ozone being a company that came from making high end parasails and moving down into power kites seemed cool. The fury seemed like a great starter kite. A little more stable than some, but aggressive enough to get a taste for the potential.

So I got my kite on Thursday and we had a good friend getting married on the beach in Seaside on Saturday. So we got to the wedding about 20 minutes early and I wanted to get my first flight under my belt quickly. I had also checked the hour-by-hour at weather.com and I knew the wind would be picking up.

I managed to get the kite all setup (only having to switch the 2 lines I quickly noticed I had connected wrong) in a few minutes. Now, only 10 minutes before the wedding started I put her in the sky. There was a decent breeze but I found the kite manageable. I was able to feel the power, move the kite across the sky and do a little skudding only ending on my butt once.

Then I knew I was a couple minutes late so I brought the kite down and wrapped it up heading off to the wedding happy to have had a clean flight and no more stress about that first flight.

So the wedding was really nice, out on the beach. Kites flying overhead, the sun even came out. For the reception, there was a nice seafood lunch and then activities planned. They passed out small kites to the kids, had those sit down bikes for people to ride on the sand, frisbees and sand toys.

So as I was walking with my wife to grab a little desert a guy stopped my when he saw the Fury I had slung over my shoulder. He asked how I liked it. Of course my only only experience with it was the 10 minutes about 40 minutes before. He mentioned that he was the guy flying the kites for the wedding and he would be willing to show me a few things. I told him I'd find him a little later.

So after finishing desert and stopping by the restroom, I went out to find him. Turns out Trevor Griffith had been hired for the wedding and was happy to share his thoughts with me. So he pulled out his lil' devil 3.0, the big brother to my Fury and he taught me the basics on how to launch and pack the kite. Then, after seeing I had a decent handle on things, asked me if I wanted to learn how to jump. Within a few minutes, I was getting in some pretty good hops. Then he asked if I wanted to try his 4.8.

So he pulled out this kite that was about twice the size of mine and got it in the sky. Now the wind had picked up a little bit so it was clear from the size of his leaps that there was considerably more power here. After showing me a couple things, he passed me the kite. Immediately I could tell this was a lot different. My few attempts as jumping showed my that I had a lot to learn. With this kite and wind it would be really easy to bite off more wind than I could handle. But within a few minutes (passing the kite back to Trevor so my arms could rest.) I was starting to feel a little more comfortable. Then the inevitable happened. I decided to get a little aggressive and didn't get the kite quite vertical and it went streaming across to sky with amazing power, pulling me right off my feet. So I flew about ten feet and landed on my side. Trying to remember what Trevor had taught me, "keep your eye on the kite and get it above you in the sky" was a challenge as I was being dragged across the sand. By when I saw the wide eyes of the people I was careening towards, I made it happen. It was so great to hear Trevor running behind me yelling "Awesome recovery! You did exactly what I told you." I had to admit when looking at the drag marks down the beach, I was pretty excited that I was able to recover from that.

So after playing with his kite for a while longer, I realized that I'm pretty excited about my Fury. Perfect kite, perfect size. I was also excited to hear that Trevor was impressed with my wife's choice of a kite. What an awesome woman who can choose the perfect kite even when I didn't know exactly what I wanted.

So after packing up Trevor's kite, I got my Fury out one more time. I was pretty fired but I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. A good friend of mine was there and he had some experience with stunt kites so he had the general idea. I have to admit, it was pretty fun to see him take a ride across the sand like mine with the big kite!

So the end of the day, we were talking about the amazing thing of just getting a new kite and the first day flying to get personal instruction. I said something about how cool it was and my oldest daughter said "Dad, that was God's birthday gift to you." I agreed.

Here are a couple pics taken by a friend, all too close to see the kite, but you can see I was having some fun!

Gates Reorganizes Priorities

"I've decided that two years from today, I will reorganize my personal priorities," Gates said during a news conference, adding,"I have one of the best jobs in the world."

"I believe with great wealth comes great responsibility - the responsibility to give back to society and make sure those resources are given back in the best possible way, to those in need," he said. Gates added, "It's not a retirement, it's a reordering of my priorities."

Link: Microsoft Chairman Gates to leave day-to-day role. - Jun. 15, 2006.

Learn or Listen

I've been trying to figure out ways to articulate (put into words) the changes I'm feeling and what we're seeing in our church. We can talk for days about the details, but I think I've come up with a interesting way to look at it.

I think in the past we've focused on "Learning and Obedience". Obviously this isn't a bad thing. I think the challenge is that in me, it promotes a view that the essential part of a relationship with God is knowing all the facts. Once we have enough information we'll be able to obey perfectly.

While understanding the Word of God and study is certainly a key to being able to live a life in the God pleasing way, I don't think that obedience is all about knowing all the rules. A perspective on obedience as mostly the "Don'ts" goes along with the learning based obedience model. These are the things my kids come up with when talking about what having Jesus in your life looks like. They say, "Well, we shouldn't kill people, or be mean, or lie."

I beleive obedience should be considered in the context of a relationship with a loving God that wants to be involved in your life. The way that I think about it now is "Listen and Obey". Sure, God speaks through His Word and there are many areas that God wants to know what is right that are usually communicated in "Don'ts". But for me, the more important is the daily interaction that God wants to have with us. The things that come to mind that may be easily discounted. Depending on your experience we can call these "the prompting of the Holy Spirit", or things "God lead you to do" or "God spoke to me", or "I felt like I should" or "I felt in my heart". Regardless of words you use to describe these situations, I beleive that anyone with a heart that is open to hearing from God, will hear from him. I'm confidnent that God speaks to everyone and the question is simply if we will obey. This is how God draws us to himself both in the process of finding God for the first time, and I beleive regularly in the context of our Christian life.

At this point in my life, it could be easy to look at obedience and largely a non-issue. Sure, there are things that I struggle with, but it seems that the "Do's and Don'ts" that were big issues of obedience and failure in the past are much less. Today, the big questions of obedience are if I am really willing to listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and obey. Right now, for me, these prompting sound like "go talk to that person", "go pray for that person", "go to church early for prayer" and "raise your hands in worship". I get the feeling that God is wanting a kind of relationship with us where he can interact with us on a regular basis and our responsibility is get into the place where we are aligned with Him enough that we can hear with us when he speaks.

So for me, "Listen and Obey" seems like a much better goal.

Should I be doing something?

OK, so you are driving down the street and you happen to notice that the vehicle in front of you is being driven by the anti-christ. On this day you also happen to be driving your wife's huge SUV. So the question is if you are morally obligated to do something like run him off the road before he has the opportunity to begin his reign of terror against God's chosen people.