MacBook Air Hard Drive Upgrade: Maybe Not
From Timothy Sipples:
Dan,
Gizmodo has now posted a
video and photos showing how easy it is to open the MBA's case in
order to swap the battery. The same photos show that the hard disk is
swappable. That's the good news.
The bad news is that it might indeed be a 5mm rather than 8mm part.
In my previous search, I missed Samsung's HS082HB, a 5mm 1.8 inch 80 GB
hard disk spinning at 4200 rpm. It appears to be the one inside the
MBA. Nobody else currently makes a higher capacity hard drive in that
form factor at any rpm speed.
At the Consumer Electronics Show this month, Samsung showed a 128 GB
SSD in this form factor and says they'll start shipping it in the first
half of this year. I would expect an initial price for this part
somewhere in the stratosphere, but a few MBA owners might have the
cash.
Another, more affordable option for an enterprising third party is
to manufacture a 120 GB or 160 GB hard disk upgrade kit that includes
the 8 mm part along with a redesigned bottom cover with a slight
"bulge" or ridge. Some people might be interested in adding 3 mm and
just an ounce or two in exchange for twice the gigabytes and perhaps
(optionally) some more battery capacity. The new bulge cover could also
include the Kensington-style computer lock slot that Apple forgot. Is
there a MacBook Bulge in our future? :-)
Timothy Sipples
Timothy,
Thanks for the follow-up. Alas, Gizmodo has taken down
the pictures and video - with a promise to repost them once they have
their own MacBook Air. We'll know a lot more about drive space when the
MBA starts reaching end users.
Dan
Microsoft Customer Support
From Dan Wilson:
Dan,
Re: the complaint about
Microsoft's email regarding Office 2008.
Microsoft, like all ecommerce vendors, has to send letters like that
to customers. If a product won't ship in thirty days, an ecommerce site
must give a customer the choice to wait for the order or to cancel.
Amazon.com
just sent a delayed ship email to me a week ago.
Granted, Microsoft could have established that no response would be
an agreement to wait for the order to ship and worded the email as
such. And the first email does state that no response is required to
continue to wait for the order. Microsoft could have worded the email
more clearly, but the law requires them to send the email if an order
will be delayed.
Dan,
Thanks for the info. Microsoft could learn to make
things easier for its customers. I've forwarded your note to Todd
Neely.
Dan
Microsoft Will Only Cancel Office: 2008 Upgrade if
You Tell It To
From Ed Hurtley:
One thing that Mr. Neely doesn't mention is that the email isn't
when you purchase Office: 2008 at full retail price. It's when you took
advantage of the "Buy Office: 2004 now, get Office: 2008 free"
promotion last year.
If you don't recall the promotion, it was Microsoft's attempt to
continue selling Office '04 in the face of the upcoming Office '08. You
could buy any edition of Office '04, and for only the cost of
shipping and handling ($6.95) they would send you Office '08 "Special
Media Edition" (the highest-end version) free upon its release.
Well, in December, I found Office Student and Teacher '04 for $145,
with a $100 rebate, so I figured that for an after-rebate outlay of
$51.95, I would be getting Office Special Media Edition '08 when it
came out, I jumped.
I, too, got the email and essentially dismissed it, because it was
expected that Office '08 would be coming out well before the expected
ship date in the email. Indeed, it did, at the Macworld Expo. On
reading Mr. Neely's letter, though, I decided to double check my
status.
Three days ago, I had checked, and my status was listed as 'Back
Order', with an estimated ship date of late March! Upon checking today,
I see a status still as 'Back Order', but an estimated ship date of
today. I decided to call Microsoft at the number given on the website
(506-694-4328) to find out what is going on. The representative assured
me that in spite of the generic email, none of the fulfillment orders
would be canceled automatically. For normal paid orders, that is the
standard procedure, but for this promotion, they are going to ship them
when they ship them, unless people responded to the email specifically
canceling the order. He said that yes, it is still on Back Order, and
no, I will almost assuredly not have my order sent out today.
But even if it does take until late March, my order will be sent out,
even if I ignore the 'respond or your order will be canceled'
email.
Ed Hurtley
Ed,
Thanks for the info. I'll pass it along to Todd
Neely.
Dan
MBA SuperDrive Only for MacBook Air
From Daniel Decker regarding MBA
SuperDrive and MacBooks:
Dan,
The MBA SuperDrive will not work with other Macs. Apple is on record
having said that they are pushing more power through the MBA USB port
specifically to power the add-on drive. Too bad too, 'cuz at $99 that
thing is a steal. The price reflects the fact that in order to use one,
Apple already has your money on the likely high margin Air.
As always, thanks for LEM
Daniel Decker
Daniel,
Thanks for writing. This bit of information only came
to widespread knowledge on Thursday, and I didn't learn it until after
we had posted yesterday's Mailbag. We've already updated the MacBook
Air profile to note that the MBA SuperDrive requires a high power USB
port and is only compatible with the MBA.
Dan
Successfully Installed Leopard on 700 eMac
From Ronnie Lam:
Dan,
Successfully clean install 10.5 on 700
[MHz] eMac (1 GB RAM, 40 GB hard drive) using Leopard Assist and boot from OS X DVD. Time
Machine can start to back up but have not tried to retrieve back old
files. Other applications work fine. Only found the Firefox browser has
some error and delay in media file which might not be OS X's issue.
AirPort sign and connection seems to have issue from time to time.
Weaker wireless sign and have to unplug router vs. Panther. I hope this
help.
Any person tried to install on PowerBook G4/667 titanium with
256 MB RAM?
Ronnie Lam
Ronnie,
Thanks for sharing your findings. We have three user
reports of Leopard running on 667 MHz G4 PowerBooks, but none of them
mention having less than 512 MB installed.
Dan
Dan Knight has been publishing Low
End Mac since April 1997. Mailbag columns come from email responses to his Mac Musings, Mac Daniel, Online Tech Journal, and other columns on the site.
