With Easter weekend last week and my hectic travel schedule I haven’t had time to write about it yet, but yes, I picked up one of Apple’s new MacBook Air laptops (are you honestly surprised? ). I’ll spare you the rundown of the feature set this ultraportable laptop comes packing with — since posts on this topic are literally a dime a dozen — and relay some of my first impressions and some unboxing photos.

First impression, obviously, the weight. There isn’t anything like it — even non-geeks are WOWed. Secondly, the keyboard, ever since I got my first MacBook last year I’ve always been envious of the MacBook Pro’s backlight keyboard, now I too can enjoy.

I went with the lower end model, the 1.6 Ghz processor with an 80 GB hard drive. Although to be fair this machine is by no means a low-end laptop, even given its hardware limitations. Of course I would have liked the solid-state disk 64 GB hard drive, but I simply could not justify spending an extra $1000 on something that will be obsolete in the not too distant future. My plan is to wait until SSD storage capacity increases and price decreases, at which point I’ll pick one up and swap it out myself.

The only real annoyance I’ve experienced so far is some trouble with getting remote disk to work. Since I’ll be using this as a traveling laptop for work I am unfortunately stuck with having to run Windows applications on it. When I purchased the MacBook Air I also bought VMware Fusion alongside it in addition to the Ethernet dongle (which I have yet to use this first week).

I tried installing VMware over remote disc in the hotel this week but with no luck. I figured there were just complications using remote disc on a Wi-Fi network with hundreds of people on it, come to find out the hotel was having wireless switch issues, so who knows. What I do know, though, is that I could not get it to work on a Windows XP laptop this morning back at home. I decided to give it a whirl on the MacBook, and after a little tinkering and rebooting I was finally able to install VMware on the MacBook Air via remote disc (review to come in a future post).

Once VMware was on there it was a breeze to install Windows XP SP 2 — from the .iso disk image — as well as Office 2003 and Visio. It’s certainly not as fast as a MacBook Pro, but that’s not the purpose of this machine.

You can definitely expect some follow-up posts on this, time permitting of course. In the meantime feel free to drop me any questions you may have about it in the comments, and here are some unboxing photos for your enjoyment.

1) Unopened

2) top cover off

3) ultra thin

4) accessories

5) pre-first boot

6) bienvenue

7) migration assistant

For the record I have yet to try out the Migration Assistant feature. I opted to forego it during setup and haven’t had a chance to use it to transfer all my iPhone stuff over to the MacBook Air, will let you know how it goes. And finally, last thing I promise….the wireless is fassst!

Today was a wonderful day to be an iPhone owner. At a special press event today on their Cupertino campus, Apple announced some new features to be available as part of an upcoming firmware version 2.0. Additionally, Apple execs discussed some of new enterprise features (FINALLY), and a beta version of the SDK was finally released.

Let’s start with the iPhone enterprise features because I’ve been eagerly awaiting these since last June. The new enterprise features include the following:

• Push email
• Push calendar
• Push contacts
• Global address list
• Cisco IPsec VPN
• Certificates and Identities
• Support for WPA2 / 802.1x
• Enforced security policies
• Device configuration
• Remote wipe
• Active Sync and Microsoft Exchange Support

Can we pause briefly to say: YES! Since June I’ve been carrying around two phones, one for personal use (iPhone), and one for business (Windows Mobile), and it will be awesome to be able to consolidate down to a single device. Additionally, the iPhone will support multiple calendaring systems so those of you like me who sync to a Mac but will use corporate email will be to sync both iCal and Outlook. Nifty.

The bad news, unfortunately, is that this functionality is currently limited to a beta program of five users per company, and full roll-out won’t be coming until some time in June (why must Jobs continue to torture us?).

As mentioned above, Apple also released a beta version of the much anticipated SDK (software development kit). The iPhone SDK is essentially a comprehensive set of developer tools based on existing Mac OS X technologies that will allow for development of native iPhone applications. The SDK is broken down as follows:

Cocoa Touch - Multi-touch events, Multi-touch controls, Acceleromter, View Hierarchy, Localization, Alerts, Web View, People Picker, Image Picker, Camera
Media - Core Audio, OpenAL, Audio Mixing, Audio Recording, Video Playback, JPG, PNG, TIFF, PDS Quartz, Core Animation, Embedded OpenGL
Core Services - Collections, Address Book, Networking, File access, SQLite, Core Location, Net Services Threading, Preferences, URL utilities
Core OS - OS X Kernel, BSD TCP/IP, Sockets, Power Management, Keychain, Certificates, File System, Lib System, Security, Bonjour

Additionally, there is an iPhone emulator for Leopard 10.5.2+ to assist with development.

At the press event today Apple demoed a few native iPhone applications built by companies that received an early copy of the SDK. The following apps got demoed:

• Epocrates
• Salesforce.com
• AIM
• Super Monkey Ball (game from SEGA)

iPhone apps — as speculated — will be distributed through iTunes, however they can also be downloaded wirelessly (EDGE or WiFi) directly from the iPhone. The App Store will feature both paid and free software, depending on the wishes of the developer. For paid software, there will be a one-time $99 digital certificate fee to get your software listed in the iTunes App Store, but again this is a one-time fee and does not apply to each submission to the store.

The beta version of the SDK can be downloaded here.

Now for some screen shots.

Enterprise features:

SDK:

AIM:

Again, as I alluded to earlier, don’t get your hopes up, because these features aren’t going to be fully rolled-out until some time in June. In the meantime, however, developers are free to start working on some apps. I fully intend to download the SDK and play around a bit, so expect some more posts on this if anything comes to fruition.

A final note, Apple said today that it will NOT restrict VoIP applications that utilize WiFi, so there’s some serious promise in that space. Also, iPod Touch users will have access to these same new additions, however they — unlike iPhone owners — will be forced to pay a “nominal” fee.

Any questions feel free to hit me up in the comments. (A big thank you to Engadget for the pics)

Yesterday Google released an updated version of it’s Gmail Chat client which now includes AIM support. All I can say is, finally! There have been rumors about AIM-Gtalk integration for some time, and although this isn’t true integration (to the point where someone logged in to AIM can chat with someone logged into Gtalk), it’s certainly a large step in the right direction.

To use AIM in Gmail, simply click on the upside-down triangle next to “Options” in the Chat section, and select “Sign into AIM”. A pop-up window will appear where you must enter your AIM screen name and password. Once you’ve entered your information and have been authenticated, all of your AIM contacts will appear amidst your Gtalk contacts and you can select any of them to chat with.

Here are some screen shots I captured:

1) Select option to Sign into AIM.

2) Enter AIM details.

3) Buddy list of both AIM and Gtalk contacts. (Notice the AIM and Gtalk contacts intermingled)

In conjunction with its release of an Android SDK to any and all developers, Google has released a video touting some of the already developed features of its new Android mobile platform. A lot of the current “look-and-feel” resembles that of the iPhone, but it seems like Google is off to a great start and we consumers will have a pretty slick product come mid-to-end of next year.

Check out the preview video below. Also, to any developers, Google is splitting up $10 million between developers who create the best applications for Android.

Tonight I made the switch from Fedora to the latest version of Ubuntu, 7.10, dubbed “Gutsy Gibbon.” I have long been a Fedora user over Ubuntu for the simple fact that the Fedora worked better “out-of-the-iso” in terms of supporting my hardware — an old Sony Vaio VGN-S480P. However, given some recent issues with configuring the wireless adapter, coupled with the fact that I had installed an older version of Ubuntu a few years ago and wireless worked instantly, I decided to give it a go.

I downloaded the Ubuntu ISO and burned the image to a blank CD using Alex Feinman’s ISO Recorder. Everything up until this point worked like a charm and I booted up the Ubuntu Live CD to the desktop.

Older Ubuntu Live CDs had failed to even reach the desktop on this old Vaio, so already I was making much more progress than in the past. Once on the desktop, I was able to connect to my wireless network and I got a warm, fuzzy feeling inside that this would be the one. Then things took a turn south.

After testing the wireless I double-clicked the “Install” icon on the desktop to put Ubuntu on the hard drive for good. Navigating through the on-screen menus and selecting my preferences was no problem, it’s once the actual process started that problems arose.

Without getting into too much detail, basically the install froze during the installation at 5% and wouldn’t budge. To make a long story short, the problem was with the ntfs-3g driver during the ext3 formatting step. After a rather extensive investigation into the Ubuntu support archives and The Google, I discovered a few solutions which somehow, some way fixed the issue. I’m not sure exactly which command got the installer to stop hiccuping and complete the installation, but the two I used were:

killall -9 <ntfs-3g process>

rm -rf *

Maybe I needed only one, maybe both, I have no idea. But I do know that now it works, and I encourage anyone having similar problems to use these commands as a starting point for your research into a fix.

Once I got past that the rest of the install was a breeze. The computer booted up no problem and has been running like an absolute gem for a few hours now.

The GUI Add/Remove Software application is simply awesome, and made getting Flash, MP3 support, and many other items a breeze.

Now that Gutsy Gibbon is up and running you can expect some Linux-related posts in the future, I just wanted to check in with you all and say a few words about my installation troubleshooting experience.

To end with, here is a screen shot of my current Ubuntu desktop:

Apple announced today that Mac OS X Leopard, their latest and greatest operating system, will go on sale Friday October 26th at 6:00 P.M. at Apple stores and authorized Apple Resellers. Leopard — Mac OS X version 10.5 — will cost $129 for a single-user license and $199 for a five-user license. However, the standard Mac OS Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac from Apple or an Apple Reseller on or after October 1, 2007 for a shipping and handling fee of $9.95.

Leopard includes over 300 new features including Stacks, Quick Look, Spaces, Time Machine and more. For a complete rundown of all the new features of Mac OS X Leopard, visit Apple’s new Leopard features site.

It will be nice to finally have Leopard released into the wild — no pun intended — given the 4-month delay in development so that Apple could hit the target iPhone release date. This seems to be just another instance of Apple pushing-the-bar in terms of advancing the technology available in the marketplace, as Leopard brings to the table features never seen before on any operating system. I hate to sound fanboyish, but their products really are amazing.

Let’s end with a little forward-thinking, how about the multi-touch technology of the iPhone and iPod Touch in a future version of Mac OS X with a touchscreen monitor?

Apple has launched an official directory of iPhone and iPod Touch web applications. The directory, which currently includes over 200 third-party Web-based iPhone/iPod Touch-optimized applications, breaks down into categories such as Games, News, Sports, and Weather. Each application offers a description, developer name, web address, and date of inclusion to the directory.

The iPhone and iPod Touch web applications directory can be found at apple.com/webapps. Those interested in developing their own applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch can read this guide on how to get started.

I for one am very excited about this directory. Although I’ve used a number of the applications included in the current directory, there are many I’ve yet to check out and more will constantly be added.

Now if only they’d let us write non-Web-based applications…

Today Apple released new iPhone software, which updates the firmware to version 1.1.1. An iPhone update was announced earlier in the week, but the exact day was unknown in advance. iPhone firmware 1.1.1 brings a host of new features and includes numerous bug fixes. The new features include the highly anticipated iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, which Steve Jobs announced a few weeks ago, and the following:

• Louder speakerphone and receiver volume
• Home Button double-click shortcut to phone favorites or music controls
• pace bar double-tap shortcut to intelligently insert period and space
• Mail attachments are viewable in portrait and landscape
• Stocks and cities in Stocks and Weather can be re-ordered
• Apple Bluetooth Headset battery status in the Status Bar
• Support for TV Out
• Preference to turn off EDGE/GPRS when roaming internationally
• New Passcode lock time intervals
• Adjustable alert volume

Apart from the new features and unspecified bug fixes, the iPhone update also includes a number of security updates and will essentially disable any third-party installed software applications.

The file is a massive 152MB, so make sure you’re on broadband or go watch some TV for a while during the download. I experienced some weird behavior during the install, my iPhone somehow lost sync with iTunes and had to be re-connected, restored, re-activated. It was anticipated that this could happen to those with unlocked iPhones and/or iPhones with third-party software, but my iPhone is stock and doesn’t qualify for either of those criteria. Let that be a heads up and make sure you have all of your information backed up before proceeding with the update.

In the end everything came back up fine and I have the new firmware 1.1.1. Here are some screen shots of the iPhone upgrade process:

1) New iPhone firmware is available.

2) Important upgrade information

3) Downloading iPhone update via iTunes

4) Preparing for software update

5) Preparing for iPhone restore

6) Restoring iPhone firmware

7) iPhone restored to factory settings

8 ) My iPhone settings restored

9) iPhone software version 1.1.1 upgrade complete

Google announced earlier this year that they would be adding support for presentations to their existing Google Docs suite of word processing and spreadsheets. Last night, they delivered on their promise as Google Docs now handles presentations.

Presentations — the like the existing documents and spreadsheets — are accessible from any location as they are stored online. Additionally, the same Google Docs collaboration capability is built-in and changes to presentations can be seen in real time.

When you start a brand new presentation there are a number of themes you can select from, otherwise you can always import an existing presentation and edit that as well. Perhaps the coolest feature, though, is the ability to walk your remote audience through your presentation in real time. By clicking a link to follow along, all parties will be able to chat about the presentation collectively.

It’s great to see Google adding to their office suite and creating some more competition for Microsoft. By no means will this ever become a replacement for PowerPoint, especially in the corporate setting, but for personal use at home Google’s suite is starting to make a name for itself as a free alternative to Microsoft Office and its massive price tag.

To check out Google Presentations and the rest of the Google Doc applications, simply browse to docs.google.com.

According to a search run on Linux.org, there 218 currently maintained Linux distributions. Two of the more popular ones that have widespread adoption are Debian and Ubuntu. But how does a person choose one over the over? While there are similarities between all Linux distributions there are also stark differences.

Well, for those on the fence between Debian and Ubuntu, perhaps this may help you in making your decision:

Personally I’m an Ubuntu man, but we all have our different tastes when it comes to Linux.

UPDATE: The original Debian girl photo has been removed at the request of someone whose opinion I can respect. This post was in no way meant to inflict damage of any sort on anyone. If it has done so inadvertently, my apologies.

That being said, to the women who so ignorantly attempted to bash me, realize that by judging me with this post you’re committing the same act that you’re criticizing me for: misrepresentation.