Marianne Schultz

the musings of a geeky girl

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Love and an 11-inch MacBook Air

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While at CES, I was incredibly lucky and won a new 11-inch MacBook Air at a NetShelter event on my last night there. Upon entering the party, we were asked to throw a business card into a bowl and I happily obliged. And then I immediately forgot about the drawing as soon as I got inside the nightclub and located the open bar where there was a bartender who was willing to give me as many on-the-rocks margaritas as I wanted.

After I had managed to make several of those fantastic margaritas disappear, the party was paused for the drawing I had forgotten all about. The first prize given away was an unlocked Samsung smartphone and the second prize was a Sony Vaio. When my name was called for the MacBook Air, I raised my arms in Rocky-victory style and screamed. And I did a little happy dance, which approximated Kermit the Frog’s frantic arm-waving stage exiting maneuver on the Muppet Show, on my way to pick up my prize. I’m pretty sure I made an ass of myself. I blame the margaritas.

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Review: Just Mobile’s Lazy Couch keeps your laptop cool

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I have a Rev. B (late 2008) MacBook Air. While I love it, it runs a bit warm, as the early MacBook Airs were known to do. From what I understand, it doesn’t get as toasty as the first-generation MacBook Airs, but its temperature does get up there. I’ve used Just Mobile’s Cooling Bar (see my review of it here) as both a passive cooling method and ergonomic accessory for some time now, which has worked quite well for me. But I’ve just found something better thanks to the kind folks at Just Mobile.

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Review: Just Mobile’s Laptop Cooling Bar

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Image courtesy of Just Mobile's Flickr

Have you been looking for a highly portable way to prop up your laptop and improve its ability to cool itself while on the go?

This is a product that has actually been out for quite a while now but is still a staple in my gear bag when I travel and I even use it at home. It’s simply a bar of solid machined aluminum made by Just Mobile to prop up your laptop to allow air to circulate under it to keep it cooler, and to raise the keyboard to a more ergonomic angle for typing.

The MSRP of the cooling bar is $39.99 and you can find it on Just Mobile’s site here or on Amazon. Read on for my full review so you can determine if it’s worthy of a spot in your gear bag too.

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Review of the Booq Mamba Sling laptop shoulder bag

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I have purchased several Booq bags over the years for my portable computers and generally find their bags to be stylish and of high quality (with the exception of one case I had recently, though Booq kindly exchanged it for me). They released a few new bag styles last year and I selected the 2008 Mamba Sling shoulder bag in black to use with both the MacBook I used to own and the Lenovo ThinkPad T60 provided for my last job by my company, and now with my MacBook Air. I detest the boring black laptop bags most companies provide with their laptops and wanted something nicer that also didn’t scream “I have a laptop computer in here — try to steal me, please!”. The Sling Case doesn’t look like an obvious laptop bag, but carries one with ease and looks good doing it, though it has some negative aspects that aren’t revealed until you use it. Read my full review to find out the details.