MacBook Air convert

yimpster

yimpster

yimpster

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9 Dec 2002
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in a hole in the ground
I am looking at getting something small and simple for the mrs. She hates the dell laptop and the kids seem to always want to be on it.

She's not Computer literate and doesn't really like using them at all

Basic use is outlook, excel and browsing. But I really want her to grow in confidence And enjoy using technology.

Any advice on which model and upgrades?

I'm pretty tempted at the 13" with 4gb. I have other means of storage and iPads tablets etc for holidays And long journeyS.

Can u get decent refurbs? If so where from?
 
Went for the basic 4gb 13" refurb from apple store for 799.

Happy to cancel if someone can convince me otherwise
 
lamboman said:
Would personally wait for another one of Spamalot's deals on Play, or use an education discount if eligible to get a model with 8GB of RAM.
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I know it's not upgradable but am I really going to be that restricted over the next 5 years.

They were offering me an mbp refurb 13" 256gb 8gb for £1059

Costco also got a deal on a mbp 2yr warranty same spec 1190.

So confused as it's only going to get basic use. Though maybe handed down to my 9 yr old when she needs at some point
 
They are incredible. For basic use, then just stick with the 4gb. If it was anything other than office, videos, music, internet etc, then I would have recommended spending a bit extra, but as you stand it's amazing
 
tres said:
They are incredible. For basic use, then just stick with the 4gb. If it was anything other than office, videos, music, internet etc, then I would have recommended spending a bit extra, but as you stand it's amazing
Click to expand...

thanks it's re-assuring. I've never been a Mac user so it's going to be a learning curve for me too.

I work in an entirely MS environment and have done since I was a teenager. This is totally out of my comfort zone. I work with multiple physical servers running multiple virtual servers on hyperV.

I know it's easy to be upsold and I have bought things in the past that I've never come close to using the capability or capacity of.

I've not even spoken to the Mrs about it - I just get the feeling that she will love the simplicity of the Mac OS and will appreciate the surprise.

I also understand these models have memory XDSC slots so you can add a little extra memory for travel purposes.

I still welcome other opinions and open to ideas.
 
Get 8G....even my 2010 MBP has 8G.

To future proof it you want as much as you can, seeing you can't upgrade it then do it now.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Get 8G....even my 2010 MBP has 8G.

To future proof it you want as much as you can, seeing you can't upgrade it then do it now.
Click to expand...

Buffy - let's not kid ourselves. What you were doing on your MBP 4 years ago isn't even going to get a look in on this machine.

I have beast of a rig upstairs with 32Gb RAM with an i7 and some decent fast storage.

I remember the kind of footage you were churning out and it was phenomenal. I doubt this machine will even get Lightroom installed :)

Good touching base with you again though - TNG days were the best !!
 
I bought the model you bought Vimpster and I am totally chuffed with it. I'm sure it will do everything your wife needs and more, there's always cloud storage if you really need it. Max I have had off mine is 20hrs from a single charge I think... insane, really chuffed with it.
 
it arrived and its kinda setup. now comes the question of backups. i'm totally confused.

it's networked in no problem and can see my windows file shares ok. most of my core data is stored there. All data on my server is backed up to an external drive and to an online backup service called carbonite.

She has an 32Gb iphone which was normally synched with my pc server but the iPhone had totally run out of space.

I would imagine that the macbook will get played with and content created in the wrong place.

I don't want to invest in a time capsule. And i don't think iCloud has enough storage (unpaid) to cover all the photo backups.

Trying to be smart about it. Is there anyway to backup the macbook folders automatically to the windows server. That way they will automatically get backed up by carbonite and my local backup drive.

Thoughts please.

On a separate note. I have installed Office 2011, it seems to do most of what the macbook can do straight out of the box. Are there any arguments for or against?

Just wondering if these needs to be moved to the software forum now?
 
yimpster said:
it arrived and its kinda setup. now comes the question of backups. i'm totally confused.

it's networked in no problem and can see my windows file shares ok. most of my core data is stored there. All data on my server is backed up to an external drive and to an online backup service called carbonite.

She has an 32Gb iphone which was normally synched with my pc server but the iPhone had totally run out of space.

I would imagine that the macbook will get played with and content created in the wrong place.

I don't want to invest in a time capsule. And i don't think iCloud has enough storage (unpaid) to cover all the photo backups.

Trying to be smart about it. Is there anyway to backup the macbook folders automatically to the windows server. That way they will automatically get backed up by carbonite and my local backup drive.

Thoughts please.

On a separate note. I have installed Office 2011, it seems to do most of what the macbook can do straight out of the box. Are there any arguments for or against?

Just wondering if these needs to be moved to the software forum now?
Click to expand...

Just setup iphoto, then move the iphoto folder to somewhere on your network which gets backed up. Next time you launch iphoto, select the network location of where the iphoto folder is.
 
glen8 said:
Just setup iphoto, then move the iphoto folder to somewhere on your network which gets backed up. Next time you launch iphoto, select the network location of where the iphoto folder is.
Click to expand...

sounds simple actually. are there any walkthroughs?

will it then auto import to that network folder?
 
Thing is that without that network location open, iPhoto won't automatically mount the location (unlike iTunes, which will). Best bet is to create an Automator application that does this for you. There are plenty of tutorials on how to use Automator to mount drives available if you search around :)
 
yimpster said:
Thanks - though I would very much like to make this an automatic process without the need to remember to plug things in
Click to expand...

You could get a bog standard NAS with Time Capsule functionality and have it backup to that. It's a bit more involved setting it up, than an Apple Time Capsule. But it's an option. Works well with Synology NAS's. Though I don't backup to my own as I have a Time Capsule I bought before the NAS (the NAS is where I store all my music, images and videos, the Time Capsule is just for backing up the machines since my music, images and videos easily clogged up my HDDs and Time Capsule).

http://www.synology.com/en-us/support/tutorials/481
 
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