long live olive


i am giriish

painter, writer,
designer, martial artist,
aspiring
bodhisattva.

and these are my jottings...



a thing of beauty is a joy...for now






I acquired a white Macbook last July for my birthday since my old one conked out and as soon as I’ve gotten used to the Leopard operating system, immediately upgraded to the new, uni-body aluminum Macbook. I wouldn’t have been able to upgrade sooner had I not purchased from e-Central. I usually get my tech toys from this store, and my friend Joy gave me a good deal (hint: it included a trade in). Still, I was wondering if I should have just stuck to the white one.

The new MB is cast from a single aluminum block and has the high style of the sleek MacBook Air with a more reasonable price, while providing much better performance, accessibility and capacity. The new Nvidia video chip is a great improvement on the previous model, delivering performance you can feel in ordinary use and according to some technical reviews, also nearly matching last year's MacBook Pro.
Despite the luxury feel and build quality, the new MB isn’t professional-grade hardware however. The loss of FireWire is a big deal since I have a video cam that uses this port; this machine will not be useful for video, music and visual creative professionals. Also, the new MB has a bright and visually striking LED-backlit display which is bane not boon because it is apparently more reflective than my previous white MacBook outdoors and in less than ideal environments.

I love the new minimalist, glass trackpad , which incorporates "multitouch" technology from the iPhone platform however. There are no extraneous buttons; the entire surface is the button. The huge trackpad is hinged at the top and depresses at the bottom with a precise, satisfying click. The surface is smoother than a traditional trackpad's, with a matte finish that provides an excellent mix of slip and stick. It supports pinch, stretch and rotate gestures; three-finger navigation in Safari and Finder; two-finger scrolling and secondary click; and optional tap-lock. You can swipe all four fingers up or down to activate Expose (up to push all windows off the screen, or down to view all windows). Left and right four-finger swipes trigger the application switcher (normally accessed via Command-Tab key combo). This was initially a little confusing but a couple of hours of practicing and playing turned your jotter from klutz to virtuoso.

The aluminum MacBook is a great laptop with its pro styling at a consumer pricing and in terms of pure design. The new MacBook is a big step forward with its faster speed and I’m glad I upgraded. Thus, I give this device nine grosgrain ribbons. 

Checkout the latest phones and gadgets @ e-central, located at Unit 3, Century Plaza Commercial Complex, Juana Osmeña, (Tel. nos. 2535480/ 4124909)

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