I don't have a laptop so I'm not voting, but I burn personal Music CD's every day for working out, and what not. That wouldn't change if I had a laptop.
I don't have an Apple laptop, and my ancient (K6-3!) windoze one is almost exclusively for uni work these days (word, etc.), so I'm not going to vote either.
I will say that I enjoy playing the occasional game, and while OS X isn't as bad as windows for forcing you to have the disc in to play the game, there are some significant ones that require it. (I'm looking at you, Blizzard!)
I also burn DVDs/CDs to backup pictures and iTunes purchases. Yes, I do have an external backup HDD, but after having a Raid 1 array die on me, (nothing physically wrong with the HDDs, it just 'forgot' it was a RAID array and lost all the data! This was on XP, so YMMV) I don't trust 1s and 0s like I used to, particularly for electronic purchases!
As a 2nd/business laptop I can understand not needing an optical drive, but obviously the MBA is not meant to be an only computer.
Ripping CDs is the only use I have for my optical drive, and I buy, perhaps, a dozen albums each year, so I don't need it much (and half of the albums that I bought last year were DRM-free downloads, so I need the optical drive even less).I will certainly say that I have never needed an optical drive when I've been mobile. I also don't think "watching DVDs on the plane" is a very good argument for having an optical drive in a notebook because you just need to take a little time to rip your DVDs as you do your CDs, and that can be done at home with an external optical drive.
The thing that would discourage me from going for the MBA is the loss of USB (okay, there is one left), Firewire and Ethernet ports. Perhaps this isn't a big deal and I just have to get used to the idea. But I'm happy that I'm not in the market right now because I don't have to make any choices.
It's rare that I use the optical drive on my iBook, but the situations are often such that I am very glad to have the option to burn out. I can imagine that without an optical drive, I would have been up the proverbial creek. I guess that I'm just not ready to jump ship on the optical drive yet. Maybe in another three years when it's time to upgrade my laptop again.
Well, not "every day" but more often than "once or twice a week" anyway.
Ripping CD's and DVD's, almost every day (love my 160GB iPod).
But I also use it for things like playing StarCraft. Don't see how I could do that on a MacBook Air.
But despite that I'd be willing to give it up for the elegance and convenience of the Air. My wife's Toshiba doesn't have an optical drive, and it's a fantastic machine (apart from the fact that it runs Windows).
Mostly for watching a movie if my roommate is watching something I am not interested in. If I buy a real CD (rare) or if I have rented the movie from a brick and mortar store or Redbox (itunes=$3.99, Redbox=$.99). I guess if I had a MBA I could use the opptical drive in her computer to watch them (does this Remote Disc function support DVD watching?).
I watch movies generally every day. I also rip music CDs a few times a year, but that doesn't warrant enough use of the drive. Occasionally I burn DVD archives of all my music and movies. It comes in handy.
Does that really work? I thought it was protected somehow. I'll give it a try, as it would be much more convenient to run the program without the CD.
All I can say is Tiger/Toast worked for Starcraft, Brood War, Warcraft 3 and Frozen Throne. The images needed to be .toast or .iso I think. .dmg won't do it.
I watch DVDs and move data around with CDs. Plus I load software. If I bought the MBA I could live with the external drive but I bet I would carry it in my backpack all the time.
Comments
I will say that I enjoy playing the occasional game, and while OS X isn't as bad as windows for forcing you to have the disc in to play the game, there are some significant ones that require it. (I'm looking at you, Blizzard!)
I also burn DVDs/CDs to backup pictures and iTunes purchases. Yes, I do have an external backup HDD, but after having a Raid 1 array die on me, (nothing physically wrong with the HDDs, it just 'forgot' it was a RAID array and lost all the data! This was on XP, so YMMV) I don't trust 1s and 0s like I used to, particularly for electronic purchases!
As a 2nd/business laptop I can understand not needing an optical drive, but obviously the MBA is not meant to be an only computer.
The thing that would discourage me from going for the MBA is the loss of USB (okay, there is one left), Firewire and Ethernet ports. Perhaps this isn't a big deal and I just have to get used to the idea. But I'm happy that I'm not in the market right now because I don't have to make any choices.
Ripping CD's and DVD's, almost every day (love my 160GB iPod).
But I also use it for things like playing StarCraft. Don't see how I could do that on a MacBook Air.
But despite that I'd be willing to give it up for the elegance and convenience of the Air. My wife's Toshiba doesn't have an optical drive, and it's a fantastic machine (apart from the fact that it runs Windows).
But I also use it for things like playing StarCraft. Don't see how I could do that on a MacBook Air.
Make disk image, mount it from Toast or similar app.
(I wonder why mounting from Disk Utility isn't okay.)
Make disk image, mount it from Toast or similar app.
(I wonder why mounting from Disk Utility isn't okay.)
Does that really work? I thought it was protected somehow. I'll give it a try, as it would be much more convenient to run the program without the CD.
Does that really work? I thought it was protected somehow. I'll give it a try, as it would be much more convenient to run the program without the CD.
All I can say is Tiger/Toast worked for Starcraft, Brood War, Warcraft 3 and Frozen Throne. The images needed to be .toast or .iso I think. .dmg won't do it.