advice on a most-portable computer
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advice on a most-portable computer
 
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Hi Everybody,
May I ask for technical advice, please, from you who are probably the most knowledgeable and informed community I know? I have a friend who is likely to spend the next several years in a very high-travel situation, with six months or so in Asia each year and six in the U.S., and the latter six probably spent moving around among states. She is a photographer and videographer, which means she needs relatively high-performance graphics computing power, but also expensive software that takes time to accumulate. (The move toward subscription-everything is so predatory and rapacious that she is staying with one-generation old software to avoid falling into that pit, which means owning the software and having it installed on some particular disk.) She is a mac user. It is likely that, in the various locations, she will be able to arrange access to a loaner computer, which (in my ignorance) I imagine could provide CPU and display, which are the things that both need to be big but are a pain and a hazard to ship around. Is there some _good_ solution by which everything that makes something "my" computer can be put on a small mobile volume? This means principally OS and applications; data can to some extent be journaled on secondary disks, which will be required for backup anyway. I have assumed that one can make bootable external volumes, but I have worried that on external volumes the access may be so much slower than on installed hardware that for graphic-intensive or video development, it may be unusable. There are also solutions like Mac minis, but that is another non-modifiable treadmill, where you buy the most you can afford and then are soon bumping your head on its limitations. Is there really enough hardware-specific variation among machines that it is necessary to have your OS and applications software installed and configured for the whole computer? Or is there enough of a separation between the hardware and apps by the OS, and a reduction to a small enough number of instruction sets, that one can separate the compute and display engines from the repositories for instructions? Something like a durable, compact flash drive from which the OS is run would seem attractive for both price and flexibility if it is possible. Many thanks for advice, Eric ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: advice on a most-portable computer
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Eric -
As a Mac person, she doesn't have *lots* of choices, for better and/or worse: I can't imagine traveling without a screen/keyboard, depending on the kindness of strangers to provide a display and a keyboard, so I'd say MacBook Air or MacBook Pro is the *only* choice. With internal SSDs on the Pro's there probably isn't that much reason to go with the Air unless portability is her highest concern. A 13" could be sufficient but they top out at i5 dual-core with Intel Graphics. To get i7 Quad with nVidia Graphics she has to go to the high end 15" which impacts portability. Software compatibility should not be an issue. OS compatibility might be. If she is running older software to avoid the subscription model, that my keep her from running too new of an OS Rev... but likely not, it usually goes the other way (new software won't run on an old OS Rev). A safari-vest full of high density HDD or SSD (preferably thunderbolt) and SD (or other) memory cards should take care of the rest. The speed/latency of SSD over thunderbolt rivals SSD over PCIE and I believe beats HDD over PCIE. Keeping a baseline bootable SSD with all her software is probably a good measure and it is possible she can even boot from that on another Mac of similar OS Rev, but much of her software may be keyed to CPU or Mac, not Drive... so lots of license shenanigans might be required to take advantage of that. My 4Pi colleagues from England/Spain travel the world just like she is planning, doing similar (if not even more processor/data demanding) tasks. Their main advantage over her is there are two of them, so each has a machine as instant backup or overflow for the other... They also are prepared to order up a replacement machine "overnight" on demand and tend to do so once every 1-2 years, implying a full refresh of their hardware every 2-4 years. They also use up camera bodies (DSLR's have a shutter-lifetime and doing 9-shot HDR 360's is a good way to run through that!). She might very well, however go a long way with just an Air or smaller Pro and 2 thunderbolt SSDs. I do that myself (but with less intense demands) all the time (1 SSD, 4 HDDs). - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: advice on a most-portable computer
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Administrator
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Dropbox too. One TByte for $100/year, and really easy to use. And can be used on multiple computers, not a bad strategy. On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 3:18 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote: Eric - ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: advice on a most-portable computer
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
Fwiw,
My wife likes the "Air". N Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2015 3:18 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] advice on a most-portable computer Eric - As a Mac person, she doesn't have *lots* of choices, for better and/or worse: I can't imagine traveling without a screen/keyboard, depending on the kindness of strangers to provide a display and a keyboard, so I'd say MacBook Air or MacBook Pro is the *only* choice. With internal SSDs on the Pro's there probably isn't that much reason to go with the Air unless portability is her highest concern. A 13" could be sufficient but they top out at i5 dual-core with Intel Graphics. To get i7 Quad with nVidia Graphics she has to go to the high end 15" which impacts portability. Software compatibility should not be an issue. OS compatibility might be. If she is running older software to avoid the subscription model, that my keep her from running too new of an OS Rev... but likely not, it usually goes the other way (new software won't run on an old OS Rev). A safari-vest full of high density HDD or SSD (preferably thunderbolt) and SD (or other) memory cards should take care of the rest. The speed/latency of SSD over thunderbolt rivals SSD over PCIE and I believe beats HDD over PCIE. Keeping a baseline bootable SSD with all her software is probably a good measure and it is possible she can even boot from that on another Mac of similar OS Rev, but much of her software may be keyed to CPU or Mac, not Drive... so lots of license shenanigans might be required to take advantage of that. My 4Pi colleagues from England/Spain travel the world just like she is planning, doing similar (if not even more processor/data demanding) tasks. Their main advantage over her is there are two of them, so each has a machine as instant backup or overflow for the other... They also are prepared to order up a replacement machine "overnight" on demand and tend to do so once every 1-2 years, implying a full refresh of their hardware every 2-4 years. They also use up camera bodies (DSLR's have a shutter-lifetime and doing 9-shot HDR 360's is a good way to run through that!). She might very well, however go a long way with just an Air or smaller Pro and 2 thunderbolt SSDs. I do that myself (but with less intense demands) all the time (1 SSD, 4 HDDs). - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: advice on a most-portable computer
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
I got a "ship ASAP because I'm screwed" MacBook Pro 15" a year ago. It
has 500GB of SSD, and 16GB of RAM. I have to say, it is the fastest computer I've ever owned, although there are some now that are faster. One of my most common tasks (building with 45,000 files, of which a handful have changed) used to take at least 20 minutes on my Dell 5 years ago and the MBP does it in 100 seconds. I think most of the credit for that goes to the SSD. It's also a retina display, so with reading glasses and a magnifying glass it becomes a 'big' monitor 😜. For auxiliary disks, go with Thunderbolt or USB 3. I just bought a 64GB thumb drive for a bootable backup drive for about $35. Several of those could be useful. Twevesouth.com sells a little kit of plugs for the power adapter so you can get power no matter what the frequency or voltage of the locality. They also include a USB outlet capable of recharging a phone or tablet. When I'm overseas but on a wireless network, I can make a phone call that appears to be originating in the US. This uses our company IP phone system, but I'm sure there a individual plans. We use RingCentral, which charges $25/month for a single phone, which can be a program on an iPhone. Hope this helps. —Barry On 3 Jan 2015, at 15:18, Steve Smith wrote: > Eric - > > As a Mac person, she doesn't have *lots* of choices, for better and/or > worse: > > I can't imagine traveling without a screen/keyboard, depending on the > kindness of strangers to provide a display and a keyboard, so I'd say > MacBook Air or MacBook Pro is the *only* choice. > > With internal SSDs on the Pro's there probably isn't that much reason > to go with the Air unless portability is her highest concern. > > A 13" could be sufficient but they top out at i5 dual-core with Intel > Graphics. To get i7 Quad with nVidia Graphics she has to go to the > high end 15" which impacts portability. > > Software compatibility should not be an issue. OS compatibility > might be. If she is running older software to avoid the subscription > model, that my keep her from running too new of an OS Rev... but > likely not, it usually goes the other way (new software won't run on > an old OS Rev). > > A safari-vest full of high density HDD or SSD (preferably thunderbolt) > and SD (or other) memory cards should take care of the rest. The > speed/latency of SSD over thunderbolt rivals SSD over PCIE and I > believe beats HDD over PCIE. Keeping a baseline bootable SSD with > all her software is probably a good measure and it is possible she can > even boot from that on another Mac of similar OS Rev, but much of her > software may be keyed to CPU or Mac, not Drive... so lots of license > shenanigans might be required to take advantage of that. > > My 4Pi colleagues from England/Spain travel the world just like she is > planning, doing similar (if not even more processor/data demanding) > tasks. Their main advantage over her is there are two of them, so > each has a machine as instant backup or overflow for the other... > > They also are prepared to order up a replacement machine "overnight" > on demand and tend to do so once every 1-2 years, implying a full > refresh of their hardware every 2-4 years. They also use up camera > bodies (DSLR's have a shutter-lifetime and doing 9-shot HDR 360's is a > good way to run through that!). > > She might very well, however go a long way with just an Air or smaller > Pro and 2 thunderbolt SSDs. I do that myself (but with less intense > demands) all the time (1 SSD, 4 HDDs). > > - Steve > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: advice on a most-portable computer
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Barry -
Great/succinct experience! I am still seeking a vehicle power-solution for the Macbook but have gotten by with a small cigarette-lighter inverter, though sometimes I think the quality of power is to sketchy for my charge-block and have to "reboot" the inverter a few times to get things going. Whilst in Italy two years ago I burned through about $20 in Skype credit over a month's time making phone-calls home... it was definitely a bargain and very convenient. I didn't try to use it on my iPhone in that context... but do use Skype in general there so it should be just fine whilst making conventional phone calls. - Steve > I got a "ship ASAP because I'm screwed" MacBook Pro 15" a year ago. It > has 500GB of SSD, and 16GB of RAM. I have to say, it is the fastest > computer I've ever owned, although there are some now that are faster. > One of my most common tasks (building with 45,000 files, of which a > handful have changed) used to take at least 20 minutes on my Dell 5 > years ago and the MBP does it in 100 seconds. I think most of the > credit for that goes to the SSD. It's also a retina display, so with > reading glasses and a magnifying glass it becomes a 'big' monitor 😜. > > For auxiliary disks, go with Thunderbolt or USB 3. I just bought a > 64GB thumb drive for a bootable backup drive for about $35. Several of > those could be useful. > > Twevesouth.com sells a little kit of plugs for the power adapter so > you can get power no matter what the frequency or voltage of the > locality. They also include a USB outlet capable of recharging a phone > or tablet. > > When I'm overseas but on a wireless network, I can make a phone call > that appears to be originating in the US. This uses our company IP > phone system, but I'm sure there a individual plans. We use > RingCentral, which charges $25/month for a single phone, which can be > a program on an iPhone. > > Hope this helps. > > —Barry > > > > On 3 Jan 2015, at 15:18, Steve Smith wrote: > >> Eric - >> >> As a Mac person, she doesn't have *lots* of choices, for better >> and/or worse: >> >> I can't imagine traveling without a screen/keyboard, depending on the >> kindness of strangers to provide a display and a keyboard, so I'd say >> MacBook Air or MacBook Pro is the *only* choice. >> >> With internal SSDs on the Pro's there probably isn't that much reason >> to go with the Air unless portability is her highest concern. >> >> A 13" could be sufficient but they top out at i5 dual-core with Intel >> Graphics. To get i7 Quad with nVidia Graphics she has to go to the >> high end 15" which impacts portability. >> >> Software compatibility should not be an issue. OS compatibility >> might be. If she is running older software to avoid the subscription >> model, that my keep her from running too new of an OS Rev... but >> likely not, it usually goes the other way (new software won't run on >> an old OS Rev). >> >> A safari-vest full of high density HDD or SSD (preferably >> thunderbolt) and SD (or other) memory cards should take care of the >> rest. The speed/latency of SSD over thunderbolt rivals SSD over >> PCIE and I believe beats HDD over PCIE. Keeping a baseline bootable >> SSD with all her software is probably a good measure and it is >> possible she can even boot from that on another Mac of similar OS >> Rev, but much of her software may be keyed to CPU or Mac, not >> Drive... so lots of license shenanigans might be required to take >> advantage of that. >> >> My 4Pi colleagues from England/Spain travel the world just like she >> is planning, doing similar (if not even more processor/data >> demanding) tasks. Their main advantage over her is there are two of >> them, so each has a machine as instant backup or overflow for the >> other... >> >> They also are prepared to order up a replacement machine "overnight" >> on demand and tend to do so once every 1-2 years, implying a full >> refresh of their hardware every 2-4 years. They also use up camera >> bodies (DSLR's have a shutter-lifetime and doing 9-shot HDR 360's is >> a good way to run through that!). >> >> She might very well, however go a long way with just an Air or >> smaller Pro and 2 thunderbolt SSDs. I do that myself (but with less >> intense demands) all the time (1 SSD, 4 HDDs). >> >> - Steve >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: advice on a most-portable computer
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In reply to this post by David Eric Smith
If she needs both portability and power, how about a Mac Pro (not
MacBook Pro) portable setup? Sounds like a contradiction of terms, but check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTmDS-_SfpY. Heck of a lot easier to get a decent loaner monitor than a loaner CPU that will run everything from a flash drive. I especially liked the shot of the guy setting a smartphone in front of the Mac Pro to show just how compact the thing is. On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 4:04 PM, Eric Smith <[hidden email]> wrote: > Hi Everybody, > > May I ask for technical advice, please, from you who are probably the most knowledgeable and informed community I know? > > I have a friend who is likely to spend the next several years in a very high-travel situation, with six months or so in Asia each year and six in the U.S., and the latter six probably spent moving around among states. She is a photographer and videographer, which means she needs relatively high-performance graphics computing power, but also expensive software that takes time to accumulate. (The move toward subscription-everything is so predatory and rapacious that she is staying with one-generation old software to avoid falling into that pit, which means owning the software and having it installed on some particular disk.) She is a mac user. It is likely that, in the various locations, she will be able to arrange access to a loaner computer, which (in my ignorance) I imagine could provide CPU and display, which are the things that both need to be big but are a pain and a hazard to ship around. > > Is there some _good_ solution by which everything that makes something "my" computer can be put on a small mobile volume? This means principally OS and applications; data can to some extent be journaled on secondary disks, which will be required for backup anyway. I have assumed that one can make bootable external volumes, but I have worried that on external volumes the access may be so much slower than on installed hardware that for graphic-intensive or video development, it may be unusable. There are also solutions like Mac minis, but that is another non-modifiable treadmill, where you buy the most you can afford and then are soon bumping your head on its limitations. > > Is there really enough hardware-specific variation among machines that it is necessary to have your OS and applications software installed and configured for the whole computer? Or is there enough of a separation between the hardware and apps by the OS, and a reduction to a small enough number of instruction sets, that one can separate the compute and display engines from the repositories for instructions? Something like a durable, compact flash drive from which the OS is run would seem attractive for both price and flexibility if it is possible. > > Many thanks for advice, > > Eric > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: advice on a most-portable computer
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Administrator
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Holy cow, hadn't thought about that. I've been using a mac mini for a desktop for years, I bet if you don't need the power of the MacPro, the Mini would work fine. SDD is an absolute must, no disk. Helps with portability too: less likely to fail. On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Gary Schiltz <[hidden email]> wrote: If she needs both portability and power, how about a Mac Pro (not ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: advice on a most-portable computer
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In reply to this post by David Eric Smith
On 1/3/2015 4:00 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> It may be possible to take the whole resulting image and run it under > VMWare Workstation (for Windows or Linux), but I haven't tried. VMWare > Workstation is more though ($250). So VMWare Workstation 11 can run MacOS X (e.g. Yosemite), but it requires getting a package from insanelymac.com called Unlocker (currently version 2.0.3) to patch VMWare. Had to try this, 'ya know, in the interest of science. :-) With VMWare Fusion (running on a Mac), no such hacks are needed. In either case, the whole virtual system is a just directory that can be zipped up and put on a drive, or copied over the internet. I'd attach the screen shot of Yosemite running inside Windows 7 which is in (in my case) running in MacOS X Mavericks, but the mailing list will strip the image out. So in the hypothetical case of a large virtual image with apps installed, in addition to various versions of VMWare (if one expects both hosts that provide Windows 7/8 and/or MacOS and/or Linux), one might stow away the Unlocker patch kit too. I'd guess the same thing is possible with Parallels (a competing product) or even VirtualBox (which is open source), but I haven't tried those. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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