Is the lack of FireWire on new MacBooks bothering you?

Apple's announcement Tuesday of a thinner and lighter US$999 MacBook, one with unibody construction and a glass trackpad, was bittersweet. It should be, for any longtime user of Macs, or digital video equipment, or older hard drives. In updating the MacBook to a much more similar look and feel to its recent MacBook Pro line, Apple used the opportunity to quietly dump one of the most distinctive and useful ports over the last 10 years: FireWire. While just a year ago the alumni 13-inch MacBooks found themselves without FireWire while the white MacBooks still had it, now the tables have turned: all aluminum MacBook Pros now have FireWire 800 ports, while the lowest-end MacBook has had its FireWire stripped out, a casualty of thinner size, engineering, or profit margins.

FireWire, or IEEE 1394, was a format jointly pushed by companies including Apple and Sony, a high-speed standard to transfer data that was a far better alternative to USB 1.0. DV cameras, hard drives, and even the original iPod all used FireWire. Having FireWire was the most important consideration when buying a new Mac. Back in 2003, FireWire was the standard across consumer electronics, especially with the rise of digital video cameras that could upload their footage to PCs for nonlinear editing.
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Upgrading Windows Vista to Windows 7

If you're upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 it should be a fairly easy install. You can do what's called an in-place upgrade as long you install the same version of Windows 7 as you have of Vista.

For instance, if you have Windows Vista Home premium you can upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium. You can also go from Vista Business to Windows 7 Professional, and from Vista Ultimate to 7 Ultimate. Any other upgrade, like Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional, will require a clean install. That means you can't just turn Vista into 7. You have to export all your data, erase the hard drive, and then reinstall all your applications and data. A lot of computer experts think you should do a clean install anyway, just to make sure your machine runs better.
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What's new with the Apple Magic Mouse

Along with a redesign of the iMac, MacBook, and Mac Mini, Apple also unveiled its new Magic Mouse, a departure from the underwhelming Mighty Mouse Wireless that flew beneath the consumer radar back in 2006. The new Magic Mouse is also the next device (after the iPod touch, and MacBook Pro) in line to receive a dose of multitouch capability.
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Lenovo Enhanced Experience runs Windows 7 faster

Microsoft claims that Windows 7 runs significantly faster than its predecessor, Vista. However, Lenovo is taking it one step further by becoming the only vendor to receive Microsoft's Windows 7 Enhanced Experience certification which promises even faster bootup/shutdown and resume times than other manufacturers.

One of the bottlenecks during Windows startup is that drivers and background applications have to be initialized. By tweaking the boot order, it allows the machine to leave drivers for non-essential gear such as a USB Webcam to load after wireless and chipset ones. Moreover,
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Car vendors sell their spiel with wacky USB drives

As a change of pace, we gathered up the most unique USB flash drive press kits we've seen from automakers to date. These kits range from diverse brands--Bentley, Ferrari, Kia, and Toyota, among others, and with a sidestep to Caterpillar. Typically they hold photos and documents about a particular car, or sometimes the automakers' entire lineup, and are handed out during the press days at auto shows. Your typical automotive journalist will have a drawer full of these drives.

While many of the drives we receive are fairly standard, some are instances of marketing genius. The most interesting of these drives try to say something about the car they represent, such as the bamboo drive for the Lexus HS, or the key replica for the Mercedes-Benz.
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