And yes, I put my Twitter handle on my business cards.

Fonts used: Garage Gothic and Archer

Over the past few months I’ve noticed many slowdowns in opening and closing apps and doing simple tasks. Enough that it was becoming a huge annoyance, at times I even had to close large apps for iTunes to play music without skipping.

Being new to Mac, of course I’ve installed nearly every app I hear about to evaluate and decide if it has any use in my personal work flow. All these apps and my semi-massive iTunes library (which I can’t bring myself to store on an external drive), I was constantly battling to keep at least 10 GB of hard drive space free.

Coming from the Windows world, where it’s common practice to perform a clean install at least once a year to rid all the gunk and junk and spyware that get’s stored in unknown places and runs in the background to eat up valuable processor and RAM. When I brought up the idea of clean install to my Mac friends, I was told, it’s not necessary, that on Mac you can manually remove apps and control everything that is running. That may be true, but the fact is, I had 50+ apps installed that I had no interest in running again, and to manually remove all those (ideally using AppZapper) would take some effort.

So for the past few weeks I’ve been weighing my options and time trying to decide if it’s worth the time and effort to backup and clean install. This Friday was slow, so (in addition to my Time Machine backup) I manually backed up all my User directory files to an external drive. I performed a clean install of OS X 10.5.6, downloaded and installed my favorite apps, manually copied over preference (Application Support) files and I was up and running at 100% in less than 5 hours.

As I expected, my machine is running at lightning speeds. Apps open and close fast and everything is snappy like it should be. Clean install For The Win.

1. Burger King
2. Artic Circle
3. Carl’s Jr – I caved yesterday morning and gave Carl’s a chance to deliver a decent breakfast sandwich and I really regretted it. Food poisoning. 10 hours later I was floored in pain. If you must go here, DO NOT eat the sausage. (06/13/2009)
4. Dominoes Pizza
5. Taco Bell – I loved this joint in college, but for whatever reason now, I just can’t stomach the low grade chicken and meat.
6. Cobblestone Grill (pizza) – the newest item added to the list that spurred the idea to post the actual list. I’ve had some good experiences here, but I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to something in the sauce or dough. That’s something I can live with, but my pizza on Monday was poorly prepared and under cooked, doughy pizza. (04/20/2009)

After much deliberation, I feel that the best platform for this application is a native Mac app. First of all, because I use a Mac and I would be the #1 user of this app and I feel the audience it caters to also tend to be Mac users. Second, it would need to take advantage of integrated functionality you can only get from a native app.

Adobe Air is another option, and would seem to be a nice fit, being that I’m not too shabby of a ActionScript developer myself, but there are far too many fine details that bother me about Air (which I’ll save for another blog post). Most importantly, Air feels like a web application in a native window and there’s a big reason this application is not a web app.

So begins my search for a Mac Application developer. The few I do know personally are booked out for the next few months working on iPhone apps. I received a couple referrals for others who are also busy. It seems that the iPhone Gold Rush has swept up all the Mac devs.

Ideally I’d like to team up with a talented developer and build this thing as a 50 / 50 partnership. I’m certain the workload would be equal if not weighed slightly heavier on me for all the scoping, UI design, visual design, testing, ect. I’m willing to hire someone hourly, but longer term and personal commitment to this project would be much more beneficial to the success.

If anyone knows anyone who knows anyone who is an insanely talented programmer and has some knowledge of Cocoa / Objective C (or a passion to learn it), please send them my way. Ideally a local, Utah guy, but I’m willing to work with someone remotely.

I’m very confident this is a great opportunity. And on the surface it’s a pretty simple concept.

I’ve hesitated posting an ad on Authentic Jobs or a freelance board as I feel that it will be difficult to achieve the quality and long term possibilities with the project. But if I continue to have no luck, that’s my next option.

Either that or hunker down and learn Objective C and Cocoa myself.

I’ve been following the work of these guys for well over five years and, with the exception of JD, I’ve seen them all present live at least once at Flash conferences. I’ve noticed hey all share three traits: 1) they have a strong sense of good design and 2) they experiment extensively in Flash or similar technology 3) they are genuinely great guys.

• JD Hooge Currently the founder of an amazing studio called Gridplane creating the beautiful and useful data visualizations and navigation systems for a variety of platforms including the XBOX. I’ve been a huge fan of his work since before he was cranking out the goods at Second Story Interactive.
• Marcos Weskamp Marcos is always thinking of new and better ways to visualize and consume data. His experimental Flash projects include Flickr Graph and Newsmap among many others. Currently working for Adobe in the XD group.
• Erik Natzke Back in the day Erik had a site where he would post his Flash experiment called “toys” and soon figured out ways to use his creations to build navigation systems and amazing websites. He’s always had a drive for creating art with code. In his latest work he’s created tools and virtual paintbrushes in Flash that allow him to experiment and discover new and interesting art. I find his work to be jaw dropping beautiful (viewable on his Flickr page) and it’s even more impressive printed out (and framed). (sample)
• Yugop Probably the smartest person in the whole world. The experiments he was creating in Flash 5 years ago are still amazing. He has a beautiful style that includes rich Flash interfaces and great sound design. Always taking things to a new level.
• Jared Tarbell Jared has used his knowledge of code to assist him in creating beautiful textures and art generated in Flash and Processing. He has created so many ground breaking experiments in Flash and he’s so generous by making many of them available as open source for others to learn and expand upon.
• Nando Costa Nando has created some of the most beautiful animations I’ve ever seen. He now runs his studio called Nervo doing motion and print design you must check out. (sample)
• Robert Hodgin A Flash experimenter and designer who switched over to Processing to allow him the freedom to create larger and faster animations with code. You know that amazing default 3D iTunes Visualizer, yeah he built that. And it’s nothing compared to some of his installation work and audio analysist engine. (sample)
  While talking about Perlin noise at FITC last year he said:

  “random is boring / semi-random is sublime”

• Joshua Davis Since Flash Forward in 2002 when taught us all about easing by running around on stage (and tried to sell us a copy of his hard drive), Joshua has continually followed his passion for creating art with code. A solid eye for design and the drive to make things happen by programming his own tools in Flash to make it happen. He has a style that’s all his own and it’s so beautiful. Which by the way can now be found on a pillow case. (sample)

I could go on forever with details and projects and talks all these guys have done that give me great motivation to learn and explore my own interests. They all share a similar philosophy of giving back and helping others. They are what makes the Flash community what it is today.

On our way to California and back we spent a night in Las Vegas to break up the driving. I decided that Vegas isn’t that fun if you’re married with kids, not gambling or partying and not seeing any shows or concerts. The rooms at The Excalibur were way nice, but the pool / hot tub were not open past 5:00 pm! What’s the deal? Plus the casinos the smoke and the traffic…

Jana blogged a bit more detailed about our trip of you’re interested: Family Vacation!, The Beach and SeaWorld!, Disneyland, Disneyland, Disneyland. In fact, since I’m such a slacker at blogging about stuff, I’ll probably leave most of the family stuff up to her blog and I might try to focus this blog on more design, web development and Flash focused stuff.

Photos on my Flicker Set: Disneyland / Seaworld Trip…

Currently they play on three websites: Playhouse Disney, PBS Kids, and Starfall.com.

We’ve purchased a few CD-rom based educational games which had decent reviews on Amazon, but I found them to be worthless compared to the current free stuff you can find online, like Starfall. It seems like there could be a nice market for more kid based educational and entertainment web sites, specifically for kids 2-5 years old.

I see that Playhouse Disney has a subscription based site for even more educational games called “Preschool Time Online“. It’s $49.95 annually, but has a free 7-day trial, I need to check out.

Does anyone have any other sites they recommend for kids, specifically under the age of 6?

• Finished the basement. FTW!
• Made new friends and became reaquanted with old friends (thanks Facebook).
• Attended some Killer shows (Wilco, Fleet Foxes, Bishop Allen, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Vampire Weekend, Ray Lamontagne, Great Lake Swimmers, Andrew Bird… to name a few)
• Continued to be amazed and entertained by my two, sweet little boys.
• Voted for and watched Barack Obama become President.
• Managed to love my wifey even more.

The Bad:

• Lost my Grandpa, whom I adored.
• Missing my Dad, obviously.

Overall a very great year for me and my family. I’m excited for 2009 and very thankful for the many blessings and friendships I enjoy.

Paul

I spent a long time trying to figure out this solution, so I wanted to share it here to possibly help someone else. If you are looking to redirect an existing path on your site, like:

www.mysite.com/old/folders/content
to something like:
www.mysite.com/new/directory/content

Add this (and tweek to your needs) to your .htaccess file on the root of your website.

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^old/folders(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/new/directory$1 [L,R=301]

This year I’m posting my mix on my site for your streaming enjoyment. Bonus: I threw in my favorite line from my favorite Christmas movie, Christmas Vacation.

http://www.paulmayne.org/music/christmas2008/

If you view source on this page (twitter.html), you can copy and paste the needed parts into your own page.

1. CSS Style (could be in an external CSS file or in the html head), customize to your liking.
2. Two JavaScript functions (in the html head).
3. HTML code – using span id’s to place the parsed data into.
4. JavaScript command to initiate the functions – I recommend putting this as the last thing on your page before the </body> tag. Sometimes it may take a few seconds to get the data back from Twitter and you don’t want your page waiting on Twitter to finish loading.

Now you need to customize it for your own Twitter account:

1. Change the “via Twitter” link to point to your Twitter page.
2. Change the “51373.json” in the last javaScript call to your Twitter ID. To find your Twitter ID, clicking on the RSS link on your Twitter page and look at the number in the URL.

Use and customize as you wish, Enjoy.

UPDATE:

Thanks to Tuamo for pointing out a solution to a JavaScript bug in Internet Explorer. I have updated the sample code linked above. Cheers!

After the show I discovered the lead singer, Justin Rice, also does some acting. He starred in this little black and white art house film called Mutual Appreciation. I checked it out. Rice does a great job playing a young musician moving to New York. It’s pretty funny, ironic and awkward at times. Director Andrew Bujalski, who also acts in this film, has a great style.

He built a cabin on Soldier Creek Reservoir which we’ve used as a family cabin my whole life and is one of my favorite places in the world. He and grandma also went on summer vacation with us every year in Sun Valley Idaho, my other favorite place on earth.

He taught me how to fish, to drive a boat, fix cars and how to be deeply interested in the amazing things of this world. Along with a few of my cousins (who shared wonderful memories), I was asked to share a few memories at grandpa’s funeral, so I will share a few of those here as well.

From engines, to mechanics, to electrical to architectural to technological, it all just made sense in his mind. It was like he had a deep understanding of everything he ever saw. He was so inquisitive. I would show him my latest gadgets, computers or new software programs and he was so genuinely interested in how they were built. You could see it in his eyes, he just want to to remove the screws, take stuff apart and see how it worked on the inside.

We had a special connection with our shared interest in computers and technology. Grandpa was in his 80’s and without any training, he built, repaired and upgraded computer hardware and software for friends and family. My dad once told me, “it’s not that grandpa is interested in fixing computers, it’s that he’s too cheap to buy new ones.” There’s some truth to that for sure. He was always scanning the ads for the best deal on a new DVD burner or RAM upgrades.
Not to mention, him buying a ink refill kit online that allowed him to inject ink into his empty, disposable cartridges as he would not have to buy new ones. I tried to convince him it was not worth all the mess and hassle, but he was certain it would save him a buck. (Grandpa had plenty of money, but apparently growing up in the depression makes people conserve money, and grandpa would rather give his extra money to his kids, and he sure did generously.)

He never went anywhere without his pocket protector full of pens and his notepad. He took notes on everything interested for use in later research or thought.

As much as the new, fast moving technology baffled him at times, he was never afraid to dive in and figure out how to do something.

He devised a contraption that allowed him to record his 8mm reel videos and slideshows to DVDs with annotation. He shot them into a box that mirrored them into a digital video camera which he plugged into a DVD recorder. He would play these old videos and annotate as they went, complete with an old 70’s microphone and background music playing on an old tape player. He burned copies for all his family and they are truly special.

He was 86 years old when he was doing this stuff and playing around with stuff that scares most older people off. He had an email address he checked regularly and loved to receive photos of grandkids. Of course he would always print them off and be out of yellow toner. He was the sweetest.

My dad would say, it’s not fair! Grandpa gets to eat all the same junk food I eat and he never gains a pound. It’s true, grandpa was the biggest chocolate lover in the world. It was fun to keep offering him more cake and ice cream at parties and he would continue to put it down.

My sweet wife Jana’s favorite memory was watching my dad and grandpa sit ont he couch together, telling stories and neither one knew exactly what the other one was talking about because (both being hard of hearing) they were both too stubborn to wear hearing aids.
She said, at least now, in heaven, they can hear what they are saying to each other.

He confirmed me a member of this LDS church in a blessing I will never forget. He was a brilliant, inspiring man, full of life and lived his life to the fullest. I will miss grandpa Mayne dearly.

Obituary posted in the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News

Rolland G. Mayne “Red” 1920 ~ 2008
Our beloved husband, father, grandfather and friend passed away peacefully on October 9, 2008, in Taylorsville, Utah. He was born in a one-room cabin on February 25, 1920, in Malad, ID, to Mary Ada Lance and Joseph Guy Mayne. Red married his high school sweetheart and the love of his life, Ruth Ivy Oliver, on December 16, 1944 in Denver, Colorado. They were sealed for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple. After losing his mother at a very young age, he was raised by Dr. Paul Richards and lived at the Bingham Canyon hospital. After graduating from Bingham High School, he attended the University of Utah and worked at Kennecott Copper. He graduated with honors from the American School of Aircraft Instruments and Electrical and worked for PAN American Airlines in NYC. While working at Pan Am, he studied Electrical Engineering at New York University. After moving back to SLC, he worked at Airport #2 as an A & E foreman for Skyway Flying Service. He then worked for Chevron Oil as a pipeline supervisor, where he retired after 34 years of service. He enjoyed all the challenges of his career and was proud, yet humble, of his many accomplishments.

Red served honorably in the US Air Corps during World War II. He was a devout member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he held a variety of leadership positions. Red was a life-long Democrat and took great pride in casting his mail-in ballot just two days prior to his passing. He enjoyed spending quality time with family and making countless memories at the cabin, which he and his wife built with pride. He had an adventurous and intricate mind and has now started his greatest adventure of all.

He is survived by his loving wife, Ruth; three children, Connie (Craig) Webb, Shauna (Mike) Petersen, Terry Glover and daughter-in-law, Karen Mayne; 13 grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren. Preceded in death by his son, Senator Ed Mayne; parents; siblings, Duke, Paul, June, Jack and Josie.
A prayer of love and comfort for dad’s angel, Ruth, for over 63 years of the endless love and care she gave to her eternal companion.

The family would like to thank the many friends and neighbors for all the love and concern expressed for our dear husband and father.
A funeral service will be held Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008, 12:00 noon at the Jordan Stake Center, 3650 W. 4700 S. Friends may call Monday, Oct. 13, 2008 from 6-8 p.m. at McDougal Funeral Home, 4330 S. Redwood Rd. Interment, Valley View Memorial Park. In lieu of flowers, please make a contribution to the Utah Diabetes Association, the Utah Cancer Association or to a charity of your choice in Red’s name.

We rode on the Liberty of the Seas by Royal Caribbean on a 7 day cruise. We stopped in Philipsburg, St. Maarten; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Labadee, Haiti. Even though we were avoiding the many hurricanes present down there last week, the weather was mostly sunny, my sunburn can attest as can my wife who now looks Latino.

I will point out that the casinos are rigged. Don’t ever gamble on a cruise ship unless you want to donate your money.

It was a blast and I recommend it to anyone wanting to escape in luxury for a week. It was especially fun to be with my sweet wife, my mom and my sis and bro-in-law for a week. By the end, I think they were all tired of my jokes and antics, but I’m pretty sure they still love me.

I took a bunch of snapshots and posted them on flickr.

Update: Jana’s cruise post. / Sister Jamie’s post.

whoa – a bird just pooed on my keyboard whilst sitting in a cafe

Mario Klingemann 06:02 PM June 05, 2007

Updates can be made via text message, the website, or one of the many Twitter desktop and iPhone apps. I currently like Twirl, Twitterific and TweetDeck, but mostly just use the website and text messages.

Twitter used to have IM functionality with Google Talk. It has since been shut off due to the popularity of the site and the hardware demands. Twitter is known for being down often, but hopefuly these issues will be resolved soon. Twitter, PLEASE fix notification for @replies ASAP!

I’ve been using my Twitter account daily since December 2006 with over 2000 tweets. I average two posts per day, some days a lot more and some days not so much. I find it fun and informative as a tool that is so simple, yet opens up to so much opportunity for other uses. I check my friends status updates often, but not to the point that I must read everything that gets posted. That’s what I love about Twitter, it’s like an ongoing conversation (or lots of them) that I can casually check into when I feel like it. Contribute a comment or make a status update, just check in and see what’s going on.

I follow APNews, nprpolitics and Woot to be notified of breaking news and crappy gadget sales. In addition to Following someone on Twitter, you have the option to turn on “Device Updates” for a person you follow. Then you will receive updates via SMS whenever that person posts. This can get annoying if you follow someone like Robert Scoble.

Wired Magazine asked a few of Twitter’s top talents “How to Twitter” in 140 characters or less, here are a couple of my favs:

“Every single Twitter post you write should be something that could get you laid, ruin a marriage, or bring a tear to a fat little kid’s eye.” — Joshua Allen

“Don’t try to impress — just be yourself. But go a little beyond your comfort zone; share something you’re hesitant about sharing.” — Evan Williams

There’s a countless amount or great people worth following on Twitter (Gawker actually posted a list of their top 12), here are a few that keep me entertained:

• http://twitter.com/gruber John Gruber, the mac blog king delivers daily rants and news to what’s going in his tech world and things that make you go hmm.
• http://twitter.com/dooce Dooce, the famous Mommy blogger and fellow Utahn continues to write witty posts even in 140 char format.
• http://twitter.com/Brilliantcrank Greg Storey, maker of Airbag Industries Twitters gems like: “Does Santa know that all his female elves are masquerading as gymnasts in China? I bet he’s going to be pissed.”
• http://twitter.com/kbestor Kurt Bestor is as good at writing witty status as he is writing Mormon loved music.

If you feel like following my Twitter posts, I am paulm. I’ll try to keep the potty humor to a minimum.

We got a call yesterday from another girl going up to the camp, she asked if we could write a letter to Jana that she would deliver to her when she arrived later this week. So I wrote a bit about our first day on the back of a recent original painting from Jackson. (zoomed, readable version here)

After 3 games, mathematically, there is always someone that either won all 3 games or lost all 3 games. This person is crowned with the title of “King” or “Joker” and thus, must put a king or joker sticker by their name on the scoreboard.

As you can see, some of us have so many Kings, we’re off the chart! I also have my share of Joker stickers, which I like to say were due to thrown games by those that don’t like me to win.

We have a coined a couple new foosball terms:

• foosed, as in “You just got FOOSED!”. This occurs when a player hits the ball away from thier own goal (typically a goalie or guard) and the defender (which is an offensive player) slams the ball right back at them and into the goal.
• toshed, as in “toshed it!” or “don’t tosh yourself”. This occurs when a player hits the ball so hard, it bounces off the far wall and back into their own goal. Named after our very own, hard hitting Tosh M.

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace.

So for now, here are a few things I have been enjoying latley:

Bob Dylan Podcast – A fantastic exploration into the life and influence of this amazing artist. Each show is only from 5 – 10 minutes long, but full of interesting insights. Hosted by Patti Smith.

Bon Iver – I’m always on the lookout for new music and I hit the jackpot with this guy. Beautiful, chill, indie folk music with a unique sound. The entire album is nice.

The Big Picture – It’s like High Definition for news story photos. It’s my new favorite RSS feed. Beautiful photography, ran as a blog of interesting world news topics. Great idea.

Traxxas Revo – I sold my salt water aquarium and found a new hobby, gas powered RC trucks. Driving this truck on a rough dirt field is such a blast.

Kung Foo Panda – Great acting and animation, the story was nothing new, but overall, very enjoyable. Can’t wait for Wall-e tomorrow!

Mac Software – I recently purchased the Macheist Bundle and continue to be amazed at how well the Macintosh application software development just works. Currently loving CoverSutra, WriteRoom, Sound Studio and TextExpander.

All are highly recommended. I’ll start with the best.

1. Xee – This is a lightweight and unbelievably fast image viewer and browser. Forget Preview, I have it set to open every type image related file by default. A perfect replacement for ACDSee, which is Windows only.
   Update: I forgot to mention the scroll wheel. The best part of this app is you can flip through a massive folder of images by spinning your scroll wheel.
2. NetNewsWire – For all your RSS feed reading needs. I’ve tried all the RSS readers out there, mac and pc, this one is my favorite. Not all the features of FeedDemon, but that’s not a bad thing, it’s simple, easy to use and customizable.
3. xPad – I take notes and make to-do lists in text files. Now with xPad, all my notes, ideas and to-do lists are in a single place and I can assign custom catagories to them. Brilliant. I only wish it were indexable by Spotlight or Quicksilver.
4. Adium – for all your chat needs. Customizable, skinnable, fast, I like it much better than iChat. Downside: no voice or video chat (see skype) and file transfer is broken.
5. Quicksilver – It’s not a replacement for Spotlight, even though the adapive search is much smarter, it’s also tool for quickly opening applications, moving files, opening contacts and completing simple tasks, like attach this file to a new email to this person, more info here. Lots of great plug-ins.
6. Disk Inventory X – Very useful to find out what is taking up the space on your hard drives
7. VLC – Use this to play any video file that is not Quicktime compatable. Specifically, .flv files and .iso files, which I have my ripped DVD’s bundled as.
8. Twitterific – A fantastic tool to keep up with your Twitter friends. I currently have mine turned off due to the massive distractions that is causes. But it sure is fun to have it turned on.
9. Skype – Video and audio chat. I like iChat, but I still have friends and family on Windows, so this is our only option. And it’s a dang good one, especially if you want to take advantage of VOIP.
10. Linotype FontExplorer X – Great font managment tool. Very iTunes like, you can rate and catagorize fonts then create smart folders of your customized sets.

The video was shot on my new Canon HD Vixia HF10 camera, which I’m really enjoying. I also just posted a great video of Jackson and Eli going at it on Wii Boxing.

Here is a little experiment I’ve been playing with and optimizing using APE. Enjoy.

My APE Balls

Flash Source Code This requires the APE engine in your classpath to compile.

I’ve been on my mac for over a month and I still have not installed Parallels (even though I have a license). So there’s nothing that I miss that much, but to follow up my post, Top Things I WILL miss about Windows Vista, here are a few items that would be nice if they were on mac:

• Snagit – not available for Mac (yet), I’m using Snapz Pro X and it’s decent, but not able to capture scrolling browser content and without the browser chrome.
• DVDfab Platinum – Awesome DVD ripping. Handbrake is cool, but I like to rip DVD’s uncompressed. There are other options, but nothing like DVDfab.
• Picasa – I haven’t yet transfered my (pre-switch) photo library over to iPhoto. I like iPhoto, but the features are just different than Picasa. Both apps have pros and cons and I could live with either of them. But it would rock is Google released Picasa for the mac.
• Google Talk – Adium is awesome for chatting and iChat is fantastic if you are hooking up with a fellow iChat user for voice and video communication. Both support Google accounts via Jabber. But what I miss from the Google Talk application on Windows is the simple ability for voice chat and to drag images into the chat window for sharing at full size. File sharing on Adium is jacked up and there’s no support for voice chat.
• Flash Develop – A free open source Actionscript editor with excellent code hinting and code completion. I really miss this one. I’ve replaced it with Flex Builder 3, which is an amazing application (until my 60 day trial ends… $300) but it’s built for Flex developers. I’m not a Flex developer but a Flash developer looking for a fantastic code editor. It feels like a huge hack to use Flex builder for Flash development in the Flash CS3 IDE. lots of switching back and fourth and you must create a project for every instance to get the code hinting. Kinda sucks, c’mon Adobe!
  TextMate is an amazing app, but there’s still no robust code hinting or code completion for AS.
• Sothink SWF Decompiler – The best Actionscript decompiler. Windows only.

That’s it. Nothing major. I’ll never go back. The simplicity of being on this machine and the massive amount of new applications that I’ve discovered have really made my computing experience much more pleasing.

Fortunately this time my sweetie will be accompanying me for the first few days. Unfortunately she’s not a baseball fan and therefore not keen on checking out a Blue Jay’s game.

I especially like the rubber feet on the bottom as they are larger and more robust than the ones on the MacBook, so they elevate the machine higher to allow better air circulation. I initially had a concern about it retaining heat, but there are special ventilation slits on the bottom to prevent overheating. This also provides a layer of protection for those of you who suffer from MacBook leg burn.

This case provides extra protection from scratches and bumps, which is useful for me as I like to carry my MacBook around while it’s open AND I have two kids. It also provides some additional style. Now available in nine colors, including pink! I went with red to represent my company’s brand.

They retail for $49.95, available for 39.03 on Amazon, which you might say is a bit steep for a piece of plastic. But what your paying for is the high level of detail and engineering that has gone into making this fit and work as well as it does.

I really like the look and feel of the MacBook as it is, but the addition of this case what quite seamless and gives me a bit of comfort in the extra protection. I recommend this to anyone looking to add protection and color to you MacBook or MacBook Pro.