In my ongoing effort to wrangle various hosting vendors into a coherent strategy, I have come across a common problem.
Businesses don’t trust their employees.
I am not talking about clocking in and out, blocking web sites or inventorying each paper clip allotted to the cogs in the vast corporate machine.
How many times have you been told I have to check my manager?
When I call or email with a question, I do not want to hear that someone has to check with higher management.
I want an answer.
If an employee cannot answer the question or make a commitment that will secure my business, then I do not want to talk to them ever again.
Small businesses require direct communication with authentic and authoritative people.
You will fail if you put a layer of “filter” employees between customers and decisions makers.
From the janitor to the CEO, everyone in your company makes or breaks it, every single day.
Here it comes…
I can recommend the X300 for road warriors without hesitation, provided they can live with its two biggest downsides: a relatively paltry file-storage capacity and a hefty price tag. This ThinkPad starts at $2,476 for a stripped-down model and at $2,799 for a preconfigured retail version with a half-size battery. The configuration I expect to be the most popular, with a full-size battery and DVD drive, is about $3,000.
(Via Price May Be Steep, But Thin ThinkPad Has Abundant Features | Walt Mossberg | Personal Technology | AllThingsD.)
On the TWIT podcast they were smacking down the Air, claiming this new ThinkPad will eat its lunch.
Even Walt admits the design is underwhelming, though it makes up for it with the additional ports and DVD drive.
They are missing the killer feature of the Air — Mac OS X.
Without the OS, the X300 and other competitors, are just a pile of commodity PC components.
Plus, anyone can get started with an Air with OS X for $1,000 less than the X300.
The X300 is simply the first in a line of also-rans that will be released now that Apple is pushing mobile computing in a different direction.
Last week I posted about having a less capable (more focused?) laptop make for a more productive environment.
Being in the market for another Mac, and on the verge of purchasing another MacBook, I decided to pickup a MacBook Air.
Why?
While at the Apple store I spent an hour actually using the Air. Not just surfing the net and drooling over the design or coolness of it, but actually downloading the tools I use every day and doing a little work.
After an hour, I came to the conclusion that it was good enough and in fact superior in important ways.
First, the screen is amazingly bright and consistent. Viewing an LCD screen for 10-18 hours a day, like I do, the LED backlighting makes a huge difference.
Second, the keyboard the most solid laptop keyboard I have used. It feels like a desktop keyboard, not the mushy or bouncy feel most laptops have.
Coupled with the amazing build quality and light weight, it is a pleasure to take everywhere I go.
After, using it for a week do I regret anything?
Nope.
It is one of the most pleasurable computing experiences I have ever had.
Is 2 gigs of memory enough? Yep.
More memory is always good, so I hope Apple offers a build to order option for 4 gigs in the near future.
Can you live without a DVD drive? Maybe. The Air’s Remote Disk feature worked fine, though it took 3 hours to install Mac OS X via my Airport Extreme.
Is an 80GB hard drive large enough? Barely. After installing all the essential applications and work tools, I have 33 gigs free, but my iTunes or iPhoto libraries add up to 26 gigs, so I am holding offer copying them over until I make sure they are not unnecessarily bloated.
What would I change?
Other than a larger hard drive, not much.
If Apple can swing a 100-120 gig drive, build to order memory upgrades for 4 gigs I would be in nirvana, not just smitten with this computer.
This week I am picking up a second laptop to work on my main project, MailTank.
I am partial to Apple laptops, given that it is our primary development platform and is lightening fast to configure thanks to its FreeBSD underpinnings, not to mention I love the built in battery backup in the event of power outages.
As I was about to pull the trigger on another Macbook, I had a thought, why not grab the Macbook Air for a few hundred dollars more?
I don’t need high-end power since it is mainly used to test configuration changes and as a backup in the event that my main Mac goes down for some reason.
It got me thinking, having less options on the laptop may in fact mean being more productive.
If its more painful to play with every new application, utility or distracting toy, will you be more productive?
Just like Merlin Mann, of 43 Folders fame, promoted the idea of a distraction free desktop for similar reason, would having a less capable laptop do the same?
I may just find test this theory out.
