Day Two with MacBook Air

So, today is my second day with the MacBook Air.

One of the driving forces I had for switching from Windows to Ubuntu in the past and now from Ubuntu to Mac OS X  is to learn new things.  But of course, on my first days of using a new computer, I need to do some sanity checks and make sure that I have the same functionality that I had before.

One of my biggest difficulties with my old computer was that it was completely incapable of running an Android emulator.  To do so, rendered my computer pretty useless.  So, I wanted to see how this new computer stacked up.  To test, I wanted to run one of old Android projects with an emulator.  These are steps needed to get started:

• Downloaded and installed Eclipse
• Downloaded Java support
• Installed the Eclipse Android Developer Tools (ADT) plugin
• Downloaded the Android SDK and told Eclipse where to find it
• Downloaded an emulator (virtual device)
• Used Git Hub for Mac to pull my old code from my repository
• Downloaded one library which I didn't include the git repository
• Cleaned and built the project

And, after all that.  I got my Android app to work with an emulator.  It worked much faster than on my old laptop - which is expected and good.  

So today, on day 2, I spent a bunch of time re-creating my old setup, struggled against my muscle memory as I fumbled with new keyboard shortcuts, confirmed that my new laptop is much faster than my old one, and started to use one new program, GitHub for Mac, which is pretty cool.

And as a final checkpoint for the day, I just checked and I'm now down to 91 GB of free space. This is down from 97GB from the time I first opened this laptop.  

First Impressions of Macbook Air

My Macbook Air arrived today.  These are my first impressions.

Let's get physical 

Before I get to installing software and running stuff, the computer's physical attributes deserve some attention.  This laptop is light and hard.  The edges of the computer are pretty rough, and I can imagine my wrists feeling sore from them over time.  Hopefully, I get used to the hard-ness, but I hope I never take its lightness for granted.

Onto the softer side

The first time I turned on the computer, I was asked to do some upgrades.  I complied, and after a restart, I checked the memory.  Starting from a 128 GB hard drive I had about 97 GB free to use.

I then installed some programs.  I was a bit confused as to the process.  I click on the downloaded file.  It sometimes opens a file on the desktop, sometimes it has a file ready for copying to another location, ... I'm sure I'll get used to it, but I sure do not grok it just yet.

• Citrix - I need this to remote connect to work, which is Windows machine.  Login worked great and it seemed to work more seamlessly than when I logged in from Ubuntu.  I will need to do some additional checking with emphasis that I can do everything with a Mac keyboard as I am logged into a Windows machine.
• Eclipse - I downloaded this.  I wasn't sure where it is best to install this.  I created a folder called Development in my home directory for now, and left the whole directory structure there.
• Android SDK - I want to do some Android development, so I need this Software development kit.  I'll start up an emulator and test it out later.  For me, using an emulator was a pretty taxing operation on my old computer.  We'll see how the new computer fares.
• Git - I can use this to retrieve my previous projects.
• MacVim - I usually use gvim, so this will hopefully be very natural for me.  
• Xcode - I've never used this, but I do want to see what it is.  

Everything installed pretty easily, so no complaints for now.  I'll try to do some things with these programs in the coming days.

Updates

• After several months of usage, I'd recommend this computer to anyone.
• I just checked online (July 2014), and I saw that this same Macbook (a refurbished mid-2012) is going for $779. I bought the same machine, also refurbished, for $999. 

Next computer

I'd really like a new computer.  Below, I listed some contenders.
The System 76 is the biggest, heaviest, and cheapest, and I like Ubuntu OS the best.

System 76 Lemur 4 Laptop

• Preloaded with Ubuntu
• $849 (with the RAM and Hard drive specs outlined below)
• 4.5 lbs
• 14.1 inch display
• 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1600 Mhz, 2 x 4 GB
• 120 GB SSD Hard drive

13 Inch MacBook Pro

• OS X Mountain Lion 
• $1499 (with Specs below)
• 4.5 lbs
• 13.3 inch display
• 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1600 Mhz, 2 x 4 GB
• 128 GB SSD Hard Drive

13 Inch MacBook Air

• OS X Mountain Lion
• $1299 (with Specs below)
• 2.96 lbs
• 13.3 inch display
• 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1600Mhz
• 128 GB SSD Hard Drive

Dell XPS 13 Laptop, Developer Edition

• Preloaded with Ubuntu
• Has "developer profiles", like one for Ruby development or Android development, that makes installing all of the components needed to develop a specific type of application seamless.
• $1549
• 2.99 lbs
• 13.3 inch display
• 8 GB DDR3L RAM
• 256 GB SSD Hard drive