MacBook

By Jeff Zbar
www.homeofficehighway.com

This dispatch is from BestStuff technology and home office contributor Jeff Zbar, who's on a three-week family road trip through the American West. Whether you're a road warrior, a home-based business owner, a teleworker, or just a family in search of the freedom of the road, enjoy Jeff's commentary. Want to learn more? Hit www.chiefhomeofficer.com.

Sitting in a hotel room near Palo Alto, California, my family's enjoying some quality time, 21st Century style. Kids are on their MacBooks and iPod Touch. Robbie's on her Kindle. I'm on my Acer Iconia Android Tablet, and we're all surfing via our Verizon Mifi personal hotspot.

A little work, a little exploration. Nothing in particular.

We're each in our own orbit around the sun of the moment – a bio of Selena Gomez on the TV.

Call it what you will, it is a wholly different form of quality time, the New York Times recently commented. But it's quality time nonetheless. Robbie and I wanted the kids to bring their devices. To demand otherwise would have been to, 1. Ignore reality, and 2. Invite World War III.Read more

By Jeff Zbar
www.homeofficehighway.com

Summertime's a great time to hit the open road – without leaving life behind. Technology widely available to the consumer market helps the "anywhere" office – and online personality – come alive without an electrical outlet or Ethernet cable in sight. This is Americana in a way Norman Rockwell never could have imagined.

This summer, the Home Office Highway '11 road show will showcase the tech, tools and tips that empower people to work and play from the interstate highway – or the information superhighway. The three-week excursion and social media event will highlight how "location independence" can be found wherever life's journey ventures.

This year, we'll travel from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco. Part sightseeing trip, part college tour, all fun-n-games. The van will have laptops, digital cameras and other technology common to the modern family home.

As families grow up, so do their technology needs, even when they're on vacation. We'll file blogs, Facebook updates, tweets and videos from the road. We'll even manage family finances effortlessly from anywhere. "With wifi, the cloud and a computer, you can work and play from anywhere." Read more

Is your beloved Mac slowing down? Are you often faced with the spinning beach ball of death? Does your battery die before it really should? Or does your screen just have too many fingerprints? Here are a few maintenance tips to help out with the less-than-catastrophic issues that could be hampering the performance of your Apple computer.

Internal Maintenance

To begin with, the problem with your sluggish machine may not be the machine at all, but you. It's your responsibility to keep programs and applications up to date. Apple works very hard to make this easy and convenient with its software updater.

The software updated prompts you to update your own software and it only requires the click of a button and a little patience. If you think you've ignored this too long already you can prompt your own system under the Apple menu on your desktop.Read more

October 20, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Apple today updated its popular MacBook with a new, durable polycarbonate unibody design featuring a brilliant LED-backlit display, a glass Multi-Touch trackpad and Apple's innovative built-in battery for up to seven hours of battery life. Inheriting technology and design features from the MacBook Pro line, the new MacBook is an ideal consumer notebook for students and new Mac users, and is available for $999.

"The new MacBook includes many of the great features found on the innovative MacBook Pro, such as an LED-backlit display, glass Multi-Touch trackpad and built-in long-life battery," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "With the only lineup of notebooks all featuring unibody enclosures, LED-backlit displays and long-life battery technology, there's never been a better time to switch to a Mac."Read more