New MBA

I just bought my first Apple product ever, an 11" MBA. I'm heading to Southeast Asia backpacking and was considering traveling with my Alienware M11X R2 - until I test packed and felt the weight of my gear. Yikes.

Firstly, the battery life on this MBA is phenominal and as advertised. The construction seems very solid and up to the task of being tossed into a backpack as well. The whole NTFS issue is a bit of a pain, but I've got that sorted nicely. The weight is like night and day.

Now, onto the important part; I've played about 25 turns of Civ 5: A Brave New World and everything seems OK as well... Just about to import a save that's a little farther along to see if the little i5 can keep up.

Anything a new Mac user should know? A resistant Mac user ha ha: VLC is my default media player, GoogleDrive is my default cloud storage and Chrome is my default browser ha ha. I tried Safari for a bit and while it's nice, I like the sync from my HTC One. iTunes is not an option for me as I hate it irrationally with extreme prejudice.

Congrats on your new MBA purchase! You will definitely have no problem with it while backpacking. I just came back from a three week backpacking adventure in Europe. Have fun and stay safe.

Not sure if you already purchased a converter, but you may want to look at the World Traveler Kit or something similar.

Here is a list of OS X keyboard shortcuts that will help.

HandBrake is an awesome video transcoder.

Transmission as a BitTorrent client.

f.lux automatically changes the color tone of your screen based on the time of day and helps with eye strain. (Not recommended if you do a lot of color work but can be disabled.)

Thanks eh, that list of OS X shortcuts is just what I was looking for!

I've got a multi-port converter of medium quality which worked last year when necessary; though even as remote as I got, I didn't have one instance where I needed it.

Did you take a computer with you through Europe? This will be my first time bringing one along. I got by with my Xperia Arc last year.

I wish, but my 13" MBA does not fit in the hydration bladder/laptop slot in my pack so I brought my iPad instead. I do not know why it is considered a laptop compartment because only a device with the dimensions of a 11" MBA or iPad can fit inside.

Are you bringing a digital camera or are you using your phone for pictures? It was nice transferring pictures from the camera to my iPad and sending the pictures to friends/family.

Definitely bringing my camera(s), GoPro Hero2 and Fuji X10. No SD reader on the 11" MBA, though. I can use the GoPro as a hub but I don't have the cables for the Fuji. Found a little SD-->USB3 adapter for 10 bucks that I'm going to try out. I took pictures with just my Xperia Arc last year and while they weren't horrible, I missed many opportunities for a great shot/video.

My backpack doesn't have a laptop compartment ha ha. Just in there somewhere is where it'll live.

really happy with the MBA over the rMBP

try mplayerx instead of vlc
http://mplayerx.org

if you haven't been watching the news, Mavericks is now a free OS X upgrade in the App store, iLife (Garageband, iMovie, and iPhoto) are free, and so is iWorks (Keynote, Pages, and Numbers).

for music I use GrooveShark with SwingFish

and for terminal I use fish fish
http://fishshell.com

almost forgot better touch tool
http://www.boastr.net