Discussion Macbook Air 13" or Macbook Pro 13"

[halcyon]

Though, seriously, the TRUE reason they are is because they pay more attention to education in school than to being politically correct or whether or not they offend a student with showing his grades to the entire class. Back in my school in Russia, everyone's grades were announced openly and it drove competition spirit - those who didn't want to study for the sake of learning at least did so for the sake of competition. American education, however, is a joke... and the stuff that they learn there every year, in EU or Russia is always done 1-3 years earlier.

I couldn't agree more.

 

[musical marv]

He mentioned his school is not in US but in Japan. Maybe that's why China and Europe are past you in education?

Though, seriously, the TRUE reason they are is because they pay more attention to education in school than to being politically correct or whether or not they offend a student with showing his grades to the entire class. Back in my school in Russia, everyone's grades were announced openly and it drove competition spirit - those who didn't want to study for the sake of learning at least did so for the sake of competition. American education, however, is a joke... and the stuff that they learn there every year, in EU or Russia is always done 1-3 years earlier.

It is pathetic how slow the students are in the states today in reading.Instead of the stupid internet and texting always pick up a book and read and learn the use of words and what they mean.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

It is pathetic how slow the students are in the states today in reading.Instead of the stupid internet and texting always pick up a book and read and learn the use of words and what they mean.

Lol, I feel kind of old bashing the youth nowadays, but it's true... most of the youth my generation onwards doesn't read books at all. And then they don't believe how fast I read and complain when a literature teacher expects us to read 50 pages for tomorrow...

 

[amdfangirl]

My school only accepts mac laptops.. and this is my first time buying mac.

Exactly how does your school "accept" a laptop and since when a laptop is a necessary school requirement? Where do you use laptops in school and why the hell do they care what OS are you running? I'd sue this school for OS discrimination, seeing how it's possible to sue anyone for anything in the US.

Oh, Linux is outlawed here. It's a Microsoft + Adobe ecosystem here in the NSW public education system. All school laptops are made by Lenovo and all of them run Windows 7, Internet Exploder 7, Office 2010 and the Adobe suite.

Our software ends up being so outdated, last year our laptops used such an old version of Flash that our computer skills test had to be postponed because none of the laptops could run the department's tests. 'Cept my laptop of course.

Its a common requirement in US schools.

Oh I have friends at private schools here in Australia who force students to buy Mac laptops off the school so they can install webcam and on-screen monitoring software.

This a a lot of crap telling you what laptop to use! I would never put up with this for one moment. Speak to your principal and tell him what is happening.

Or better just don't use a laptop. Principals either don't know or don't care about computers.

Oh, its probably because they've either got a home-grown application that is written for OS X or because they're using some other application that is not available for Windows (i.e., Final Cut Pro, Logic, etc.) or some esoteric network requirement (very doubtful).

I'm quite sure its not because someone's partial to the fruit logo.

While I'm on a ranting-roll I will point out that most schools force M$ Office onto their students. 'Cept in France. They use LibreOffice.

TBH, I think if a school is going to mandate what type of computer you can use they should either include it or provide a serious discount. Then again, as I said, if you're spending $100K on an education another $1.5-2K shouldn't make a whole lot of difference.

Here, we all use state-funded Lenovo laptops. The state gave me a Lenovo s10e and a ton of proprietory software.

Then so much tracking software the CPU idles at 100% and the RAM usage is 1.5GB/2GB after startup.

They should sack whoever thought it was a good idea to spend about $2000+ on each laptop to include Preimere and 3d rendering applications on a laptop with a single-core Atom.

Then probited the use of Blender. Because 3DS Max is going to run so well on an Atom.

But I digress.

I am not glad that the school forces their demands on students.This is complete crap!

Most schools with computers do.

Well, you've got to keep in mind that students are connecting their machines to the school's network, so the school probably has at least some desire to know and control what's connected to it for security reasons. It seems today that we're losing a lot of freedoms in the name of security...I wonder if its all necessary.

Yeh, well I connected to our state-filtered Wi-Fi. Then installed appropriate software onto my netbook.

By breaking school rules I gained the following even with the famous Linux power regressing kernel, I only doubled the battery life of the netbook, slashed boot-up time by a third, reduced RAM after boot to 123MiB, don't see ads and ultimately get work done on my laptop.

No more tracking via webcam (because I couldn't get the driver running, but I digress )

He mentioned his school is not in US but in Japan. Maybe that's why China and Europe are past you in education?

Though, seriously, the TRUE reason they are is because they pay more attention to education in school than to being politically correct or whether or not they offend a student with showing his grades to the entire class. Back in my school in Russia, everyone's grades were announced openly and it drove competition spirit - those who didn't want to study for the sake of learning at least did so for the sake of competition. American education, however, is a joke... and the stuff that they learn there every year, in EU or Russia is always done 1-3 years earlier.

Very true with the state of Australia schooling.

In a nutshell, we suck.

Honestly, Asian migrants come here take the highest level of maths and still find it easier than in Korea or China.

That's why I'm a liberal-arts kinda person.

 

[amdfangirl]

So in a nutshell, you have it good.

I would recommend the Macbook Pro 13" on the basis it has more ports.

At some point you are going to want ethernet I would presume.

The Air requires some planning. Do I need a DVD drive? Do I need ethernet? Can I run everything off my USB ports?

The Pro is safe option. More features.

I would personally get the Pro 15" Anti-glare high-res, just because I find glossy screens terrrible to do work with. I used to have a Macbook 13" and got sick looking at it. Hence the Lenovo x120e.

If you are highly mobile Wi-Fi warrior, please, by all means buy a Macbook Air. Just be aware that you do have tradeoffs.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

That rant was righteous. iApprove

Wow, Australia sucks. Looks like my university plans there are getting canceled Or does that BS only happen in schools? Atom really needs to die, Celeron M was soooo much better... and loading all that consumptive software onto there is just sick.

Why all the tracking software, though?

 

[amdfangirl]

Oh just high school.

They don't want you Facebooking.

Or doing work for that matter.

They have filters on the laptop so you can only access approved sites.

Like wikipedia, the website they tell us never to use.

Even at home.

Once it blocked its own website.

It's a slow process of whitelisting.

Sourceforge, Yahoo, Bing, most forums, Linux websites, cnet, youtube, flickr and all non-state email is blocked. Keystrokes are monitored and .exe files are fobidden. I guess they just spent all the CPU time preventing people from using the laptop for other purposes, nobody uses the school laptop.

'Cept me.

But I am different.

Our only I.T teacher which I am friends with agrees with me on this point. Has Linux Mint on his laptop.

Yes, teachers break the state school rules.

But if it takes 20 minutes to startup properly after installing updates you never asked for, can you still teach a lesson?

And if it takes just that long to open a bloated Office 2010.

Isn't it just better to KISS.

Wouldn't mind if the state gave us all Windows XP + Office 97 netbooks with Chrome, Firefox, Opera or even Safari.

Then again I have Linux.

We could have seen some truly amazing user customisation. You can never impose a workflow on a techie, they will get something done the way they want to, with the software they want.

www.tale.edu.au/tale/live/global/DERNSW/models.jsp

I have the 2009 model with 2011 software. Most people have the 2009 model.

All to do with rollouts.

2011 hardware isn't bad.

But we digress.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Sourceforge, Yahoo, Bing, most forums, Linux websites, cnet, youtube, flickr and all non-state email is blocked. Keystrokes are monitored and .exe files are fobidden. I guess they just spent all the CPU time preventing people from using the laptop for other purposes, nobody uses the school laptop.

The f!ck... speak about police state...

 

[halcyon]

The f!ck... speak about police state...

We're not quite that bad in the US...but we're working on it.

 

[musical marv]

Oh just high school.

They don't want you Facebooking.

Or doing work for that matter.

They have filters on the laptop so you can only access approved sites.

Like wikipedia, the website they tell us never to use.

Even at home.

Once it blocked its own website.

It's a slow process of whitelisting.

Sourceforge, Yahoo, Bing, most forums, Linux websites, cnet, youtube, flickr and all non-state email is blocked. Keystrokes are monitored and .exe files are fobidden. I guess they just spent all the CPU time preventing people from using the laptop for other purposes, nobody uses the school laptop.

'Cept me.

But I am different.

Our only I.T teacher which I am friends with agrees with me on this point. Has Linux Mint on his laptop.

Yes, teachers break the state school rules.

But if it takes 20 minutes to startup properly after installing updates you never asked for, can you still teach a lesson?

And if it takes just that long to open a bloated Office 2010.

Isn't it just better to KISS.

Wouldn't mind if the state gave us all Windows XP + Office 97 netbooks with Chrome, Firefox, Opera or even Safari.

Then again I have Linux.

We could have seen some truly amazing user customisation. You can never impose a workflow on a techie, they will get something done the way they want to, with the software they want.

www.tale.edu.au/tale/live/global/DERNSW/models.jsp

I have the 2009 model with 2011 software. Most people have the 2009 model.

All to do with rollouts.

2011 hardware isn't bad.

But we digress.

The United States is turning into a police state which is sad.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

The United States is turning into a police state which is sad.

Marv, will you read carefully for once? amdfangirl was talking about Australia, NOT US.

 

[amdfangirl]

They do call Australia the 51st state of the USA.

It would be nice to return onto our topic.

I will close this thread if there is no further need of discussion.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Ah, breaking up the fun again... just move it to News & Leisure instead, I want to rant about how education sucks nowadays for a bit more.

 

[amdfangirl]

Haha, I would if I could the mod interface is so clunky... the OP seems to have left a while ago.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Alright, just in case he still didn't get the Mac let's all agree he should get a MB Pro and close this.

 

[halcyon]

They do call Australia the 51st state of the USA.

It would be nice to return onto our topic.

I will close this thread if there is no further need of discussion.

You all are right. Close the thread... AMDfangirl, nice avatar.

 

[Reynod]

All four of my kids went to a private school ... hence no Porsche for me.

All of them required Macs ... I like the pro as it has more expandability and it is quite robust ... in answer to the thread.

Macs are common in the private schools as they seem quite easy to manage the lease and repairs etc ... also seems to be fewer problems with viruses.

My eldest son works at a private school now and he is in the IS area ... they have Toshy laptops instead.

In talking to the two IS managers the Apples are easier to manage ... the Toshiba strategy is a bit cheaper with the software licenses included for major educational applications.

I'll leave the thread open for others to comment ... providing it doesn't derail to the point where Hitler, Jobs, Republicans, or Gadaffi is mentioned, or anyone starts poking anyone in the eye.

 

[musical marv]

All four of my kids went to a private school ... hence no Porsche for me.

All of them required Macs ... I like the pro as it has more expandability and it is quite robust ... in answer to the thread.

Macs are common in the private schools as they seem quite easy to manage the lease and repairs etc ... also seems to be fewer problems with viruses.

My eldest son works at a private school now and he is in the IS area ... they have Toshy laptops instead.

In talking to the two IS managers the Apples are easier to manage ... the Toshiba strategy is a bit cheaper with the software licenses included for major educational applications.

I'll leave the thread open for others to comment ... providing it doesn't derail to the point where Hitler, Jobs, Republicans, or Gadaffi is mentioned, or anyone starts poking anyone in the eye.

At least you are to the point and honest what you say in your post.What do you think about the new MBP update yesterday? I own the 2011 MBP 13inch 2.3 would you go for the new one if you were me? thanks marv

 

[Reynod]

Marv I have a 13" 2011 Macbook i5 and a 13" 2009 Macbook core2duo.

The kids complain about neither of them ... the latest one has a much better battery but I honestly couldn't tell you if that is because of the age of the machines or the i5's lower power draw on idle.

I don't like using them on the off chance i get infected ... you saw what happened to that other guy eh?

 

[Reynod]

I only know one guy with an air ... he likes it but is not a gamer / enthusiast.

Anyone else have any useful experience with them?

 

[halcyon]

I only know one guy with an air ... he likes it but is not a gamer / enthusiast.

Anyone else have any useful experience with them?

I had a 2011 11" and 13" Air back in early summer when I was trying to decide on my portable machine. They seemed quite snappy to me. I'm not a gamer though. I ended up with a 15" MacBook Pro. While I like the Air I wouldn't recommend as a replacement for Marv's existing 13" Macbook Pro. Again, just doesn't seem to be enough benefit to be worth any extra expenditure.

 

[Reynod]

Hey ... little side question ... does the Momentus XT make much of a difference on your Macbook?

I have one in my other PC ... often wondered if I should have put it into one of the laptops instead ...

 

[halcyon]

Hey ... little side question ... does the Momentus XT make much of a difference on your Macbook?

I have one in my other PC ... often wondered if I should have put it into one of the laptops instead ...

It does seem to make my little MacBook more peppy. It boots pretty quickly and programs seem to launch pretty quick...I like it.

 

[musical marv]

Marv I have a 13" 2011 Macbook i5 and a 13" 2009 Macbook core2duo.

The kids complain about neither of them ... the latest one has a much better battery but I honestly couldn't tell you if that is because of the age of the machines or the i5's lower power draw on idle.

I don't like using them on the off chance i get infected ... you saw what happened to that other guy eh?

Someone wants to buy my MBP 13inch for $116.00 cash. I was thinking of buying the new MBA 13 inch.What would you do? thanks Marv Iam not a gamer at all.

 

[halcyon]

Someone wants to buy my MBP 13inch for $116.00 cash. I was thinking of buying the new MBA 13 inch.What would you do? thanks Marv Iam not a gamer at all.

Marv, I know you didn't ask me, but I've got to interject. If you're laptop is in great working condition you than you can do better than $116. Heck, I'll buy it for that, who wouldn't?