First month on the road with my MacBook Pro 13"

Just last month I upgraded to a 2011 MacBook Pro 13" for work. (For the geeks, here are the specs: 2.3GHz Intel Dual-Core i5, 4GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive). I'm documenting my experiences for my colleagues thinking of doing the same thing.

Set-up
My employer has let me do this on a self-service basis, so set up was all me.

First, security. Close the back door. Disable automatic login, and require a password when waking from screensaver.  I could go further and put bars on the windows and so forth (file encryption, boot-level passwords, etc.), but my data is not THAT sensitive. Plus Israeli security downloaded the entire contents of my hard drive the last time I went through Tel Aviv airport a few months ago. Nothing to hide here.

This also meant installing some anti-virus protection. It's a myth that there aren't Mac viruses - they're far less common than PC viruses, but they still exist. I've run McAfee for Mac before and it's a resource pig so I decided on iAntiVirus, which is free and well-rated. I may run afoul of my employer's network admins  so I may have to revert back to McAfee.

Second, compliance. Sort out copyrights and licensing. This meant uninstalling and de-authorising work-purchased software on my old machine (e.g Microsoft Office) and installing the original licenses on the new one. No sweat.

Third, mail. This was the most work. My employer uses Lotus Notes so to be work-ready I had to download a copy of Lotus Notes 8.5 for Mac from our intranet site. I copied all the Lotus Notes connection documents settings (by hand) and .ID file from my Dell. I entered the connection settings and downloaded my .ID file on a USB stick. (A critical step for those crossing over from a PC). I got replication going pretty quickly, and made a local copy of my mail file. Mail works fine. I'm still getting a few errors with To Do and Calendar entries, namely "Type mismatch on external name: CSEVENTNOTES" but I'm pretty sure this is an issue with my mail template, which was recently upgraded on our server. (This was a WebEx integration with Notes, and my awesome Lotus Notes support friends with my employer sorted this not long after the original post.)

Fourth, documents. I have all my files backed up to a cloud storage solution with SugarSync, so I just installed their software, and downloaded the right files to the right place, and then set it to sync continually.

Real world Usage
I've been to North America, Latin America, the UK, and East Asia since getting the new machine. The biggest difference I've noticed versus my old MacBook and my work-issued Dell D430 is the battery life. With all the radios off (WiFi, Bluetooth), the screen dimmed, and the keyboard backlight off, I seem to be able to eke out more than 9 hours of battery life. That is enough for a long-haul flight in economy where most airlines still don't offer laptop power (Thai Airwayslines, British Airways, United, Delta, ....). On my last trip I actually forgot to pack my laptop's charger. Because another colleague also had a Mac, we were able to share his power supply and each go 6+ hours (presenting, using WiFi) throughout the day. I've also forgotten my charger at home a few times and still been able to get through a work day on a single charge. Impressive.

The i5 processor really flies through Lotus Notes. MS Office boots in about 5 seconds. Shut down time varies but if I haven't got Lotus Notes open, I can fully shut down usually in under 10 seconds, often as little as 4 seconds. Going to sleep mode (shutting the lid) parks the hard drive in about 6 seconds, depending on what programs are running.

Price

So all this Apple luxury costs more, right? Not really. I deliberately configured my Mac to closely mirror the specs on the Dell E4310 13-incher that my office offers. The Macbook (purchased online including delivery to my office in DC + taxes) was a $26 more than what our supplier charges for the Dell E4310. The Mac has 70GB more HD space and a longer battery life but is pretty much the same hardware, with the same global warranty coverage.

So, I'm efficient, compliant, productive, happy, and have done my best not to cost the organisation any more money.

Your tech world traveller...

What's the best laptop for world travels?

Yes, I've blogged about this topic before, but it is one of the most popular questions I get from colleagues and friends. So I'll repeat my advice from the previous post: assess your real needs, choose a "Top 5" brand, peruse the reviews, and settle for less. I'm also adding another piece of advice - get your hands on them.

Here's a video review from CNET of their favourite 5, all of which are in in my "Top 5" global brands:


Here's how CNET's Top 5 give you a good idea of the variety of choices in the market right now:

1. MacBook Pro line (13", 15", or 17"). I'm a huge fan of the Mac hardware-software marriage. The Pro line just got a new, fast processor in March, and still has great battery life, and a back-lit keyboard.  The trackpad is huge, and supports multi-touch. The design and capabilities of the MacBook Pro are first rate (and green), so even though you pay a slight penalty for the Mac brand, it's well worth it for those who prefer the Apple environment. Starts around $1,200.
2. Toshiba Portege R705, with a great balance of performance, design, and value. One feature I really like is that you can charge a phone via USB even when the laptop is off. I've just been on a trip where I only brought my phone's USB charger, and I had to leave my MacBook on all night to juice up my phone. I've found Toshibas to be quite capable of taking travel abuse in the past, and they also are quite green for their low use of toxic chemicals. The Portege gives you a very capable and attractive laptop at an attractive price, starting around $900.
3. MacBook Air 11" Apple took its super-thin laptop line to the next level a few months ago. The form factor is truly awe-inspiring, the screen is amazingly high resolution, and the instant-on power up is impressive. It's also a lot more affordable than the previous Air line. If you're mostly web-browsing and word-processing, this would be the barely-there Mac for you. But some will find it a little too lightweight in processing power and starting at $1,000 it's still not super-cheap.
4. HP Envy 17 HP's high-end laptop with a massive 17" screen, fast processor and humungous hard drive (1TB) is really for graphics professionals and/or heavy duty gamers. It also comes in a 3D capable version. It starts around $1300 but this thing weighs a ton and in travel laptops a 2-year warranty might not be enough.
5. HP Pavillion DM1  is a very capable Windows laptop that sells at netbook prices. For under $500 you get a decent dual-core processor with decent memory and a decent hard drive. It's very...well...decent. Again if you are mostly word-processing, web-browsing, and emailing, this would be the Windows laptop for you.

There are, of course, others. Lenovo and Dell make decent laptops that you can get serviced just about anywhere. Acer and Asus are OK too but not as reliable as the Top 5.

Most people over-buy computer power just like most people did not need SUVs in the 90s. You don't need a massive gas-guzzler if you only have one pack-the-car-to-the-ceiling trip per year. For the other 50 weeks a year you're carrying around waaaay too much car. Same thing on a laptop. Unless you're using Adobe Photoshop on a weekly basis, stick to the low end of the market. The sub-$500 laptops are probably fine for you.

You may want to re-visit which operating system you need. Laptop users really should not settle for anything other than Microsoft Windows 7 or Mac OSX, Apple's operating system. Yes, there's Google Chrome and Linux, but these are for having fun in a lab, not for getting help when your laptop won't boot and you're in a repair shop in Chennai's Ritchie Street. I say choose an operating system that won't drive you crazy. (Stay away from Windows XP and Vista.) I'm a Mac guy, but some people prefer the Microsoft universe, including my wife. I ain't a hater. I just don't like staring at an hourglass icon.

Last, the handling. Seriously. Pick it up in the store. Your body is going to be interacting with this  laptop for about the next three years. Your fingers should be happy with the keyboard, your eyes should be happy with the screen, and the trackpad or tracking stick should be easy to use. It should weigh balanced in your hand, and it doesn't hurt if it looks nice to boot.

So off you go with your new laptop to the far-flung corners of the world.

Your tech world traveller...

Mashups I wish we could see in 2011

Being a naturally lazy thinker, I'm a big fan of so-called "mashups", which combine the two cool technologies into one more awesome one, like peanut butter and jam. Zillow.com is a great example - it took real estate listings and plotted them on a map. While it seems totally intuitive to us now to browse properties from a map, it wasn't always like that. The clever people who left Microsoft to mash these together now see about 9 million visitors a month.

So here are some mashups of current web-services that I'd like to see this year:

1. Evernote and Sensobi Jot. For the uninitiated, Evernote is like an online scrapbook. It's a cloud-based service that allows you to store web-pages, notes, pictures, even recordings, and then tag them with key words. You can then access those pieces of scrap from a smartphone or any web-browser. Think of it as a fairly minimalist filing system for all those mental post-it notes you have.  I've become a fan, though the Blackberry experience is still sub-par. SensobiJot is a clever little service that uses your email to capture notes after every business phone call and then organises them. I really do hope this could consign the sticky-note to the dustbin of history. Many of us still cling to our Moleskine notebooks to capture every thought, but my question is - do you ever read those notes? Can you search them, or share them easily? So here's hoping for EverJot or SensobiNote or something like that in 2011.
2. TripIt and GoogleMaps (or Bing maps). TripIt is fast becoming my favourite travel app, and I just upgraded to the Pro version which also keeps track of all my frequent flyer memberships in one clean and simple interface. I use GoogleMaps on my Blackberry all the time to make my way around an unfamiliar city. So if TripIt knows where I landed and how far apart my stops are, why couldn't the data be combined to show my journey plotted on a map? For that matter, GoogleMaps could really go a step further. If it knows (via the GPS in my phone) that I'm in Myanmar, why can't it set the default currency in my foreign exchange app (WorldMate or Oanda) to the Kyat? or when in Frankfurt to the Euro?
3. Yelp and GSMworld. Many of us use Yelp to see what other people say about restaurants in our area. Well why can't we do the same thing about cellphone networks? GSMworld's site has the only (that I know of) global listing of cellphone coverage in every country. Why not open it up for the social media approach, so people can comment on how good cellphone coverage is, by carrier, by country. What you might find for instance, is that in the United States, AT&T would be so dismally panned for their coverage, they might go out of business.
4. TripAdvisor and SeatGuru. TripAdvisor takes the same approach as Yelp to hotels, but takes it a step further, allowing users to post disgusting photos of filthy hotel bathrooms, or glowing accounts of outstanding service. After a while a pattern emerges - the great hotels get lots of good reviews, and the the not-so-great ones get ranked accordingly. SeatGuru, on the other hand, provides detailed information on the in-flight features of virtually every major airline in the world. TripIt (mentioned earlier) and SeatGuru in fact have done sort of a mash-up. With the TripIt Pro app, you can ask TripIt to recommend you a specific seat on your flight, based on SeatGuru's exhaustive catalogue of the different seat configurations of particular airlines on exact flight legs. But SeatGuru lacks any opinions about those airlines. Why not mash them up and allow TripAdvisor to let users rank airlines (including photos of raunchy airplane bathrooms)?  

What's your idea of a tech mashup that could help world travellers?

Your tech world traveller...