I’ve had my MacBook Pro for just over two months now. Bottom line it just works. Need to print something hit print, it just *finds* the printer in the office. No missing drivers or needing to search those slow windows shares. It finds the printer and just prints. A co-worker who also *switched* recently joked how now he can view those YouTube links people send around without crashing his Linux box since it had an incompatible audio driver. Mac OS X is a great OS, and for all those long time Mac fans who obsess about how ‘it just works’… They are right.
So in the past two months I’ve spoke at a couple conferences, which gave me a chance to test the MacBook in the *wild*.
A couple tips from the road:
– Remember you VGA -> DVI adaptor. (I forgot this on the first trip, but luckily a colleague lent me his.)
– Buy an extra battery or two. (More on this in a minute)
– Pick a wireless option (more on this…)
– Make sure to carry a USB stick for sharing files
So this gets me to the meat of this post. THERE IS NO WAY TO USE AIRPLANE POWER WITH YOUR MAC BOOK. Ok well there is a few hacks which include power inverters and shutting off one core to save power…. Let’s get real, nobody wants to make these sorts of hacks. The new MacBook Pro power supplies SUCK a full 85W of power. Most airplane power is only 65W at best. Apple has locked up the rights to the new MagSafe adaptor so there are no 3rd party adaptors for the common EmPower ports found in business class in many North American airlines. Fortunately my current job doesn’t involve much travel, in fact only one international trip so far. Unlike my last job which included monthly crossings of the Atlantic. So while the power shortage with my MacBook has been an annoyance it’s not as bad as it could be. Purchasing a 2nd/3rd battery will give you enough juice to flay back and forth between the coasts. It’s just a tragedy that Apple hasn’t found or allowed 3rd parties the rights to make life of the modern road warrior a possibility.
Moving on… Up until Tuesday of this week the only option I had for Internet access outside the office/house was my T-Mobile WiFi account. This will put you with in arms distance of WiFi at any airport or major city. Every Starbucks is wired with WiFi so that makes it pretty easy to pick up a connection. Let’s you exercise two vices at once. Coffee and Internet… Happiness. Well on Tuesday that all changed when my new Novatel V640 EVDO card for the Verizon network. Obviously not as fast as WiFi but the ability to once again get back on EVDO is very nice. This was the biggest thing I missed from my Thinkpad days when on the road or outside the office.
My next trip should be pretty nice now that I’ve got a USB charger for my Nokia E61 and I’ve got my EVDO connection back.
Now if Apple could just figure out to make those batteries last longer and get me some power on the plane all would be perfect.
