Have MacBook, Will Travel

Saturday I'm flying to Florida to visit family. I'm planning making heavy use of my MacBook both on the flight and in Florida. The thought occurred to me that maybe I should buy one of Apple's MagSafe power adapters that work on the airplane. Reading the reviews on Apple's site was very useful. Here's what I learned:

• First, make sure your airline seat has a power outlet. This turns out to be easy. Just go to SeatGuru. This is an awesome site! For me, I looked up my flight on American Airlines (I needed the confirmation code, but that was included in my itinerary on Expedia.) For each flight, I could look at the Flight Details and see what kind of plane it would be. I then went to SeatGuru, picked airline, and then picked plane model. You get a map of the seats with not only information on what seats have power outlets, but also other info like "this seat doesn't tilt back" or "it gets cold or loud here" etc. Very nice! I found out that neither of the seats on my two flights (coming and going) had power outlets, but I could change my seat assignment on American Airlines' site and pick seats that did!
• Next, the Apple airplane adapter does not provide much juice! It will not re-charge your laptop, and in some cases you will continue to drain your battery albeit at a slow rate. So if you're going to use it, start using it as soon as you get out your Mac. Don't wait until you get the warning about being low on juice.
• Finally, the adapter has a removable tip of some sort that allows it to work with different kinds of outlets used by different airlines. This tip is a major source of problems because you can pull the adapter out of the outlet, and the tip remains behind. Many people have left their tips behind, forcing them to buy a new adapter ($60.)

In the end, I decided not to bother with the adapter. I didn't want to change my seats because I would have to give up aisle seats for seats in between people to get a seat with an outlet. Plus, my MacBook gets very good battery life, especially when you turn off the wireless, which obviously I will do. I figured I would only have about 3 hours of time I could use my MacBook on the flight, and my battery life is much better than that. I will use my iPod to listen to music, just to save a little more juice from my Macbook. Speaking of which, I am looking forward to using my headphones on the plane.

Arcade Fire

I've been taking Caltrain to San Francisco this week for JavaOne. I picked up the new Arcade Fire CD, Neon Bible this weekend and listened to it on the train. If you look at its reviews on MetaCritic, it has had a lot of praise heaped upon it. I never form an opinion on a CD on the first listen. If I would have done that, then I would have hated Achtung Baby. My first impression of Neon Bible was that it was good, but nothing really jumped out. Again, a second listen is at least warranted.

The most pleasing thing about listening to it on the Caltrain was I got to really appreciate my Bose noise-canceling headphones. I know these are made to work well on airplanes, so I guess it should come as no surprise that they completely wipe out noise on a train. They had worked pretty well for me at my noisy office at Ludi Labs, but the train was definitely their element.

Bose Quiet Comfort 3 Headphones

My company bought everybody Bose Quiet Comfort 3 Headphones as holiday gifts. I thought that was a pretty nice gift. I think last year my old employer gave me a flashlight as a holiday gift... I wear headphones a lot, especially while programming. So I was pretty happy about this gift. The thing is, I already had some pretty good headphones.

I've been using Sony MDR-V600 headphones since high school. I remember in 1990, when I was a sophomore in high school, and a friend of mine had just gotten back from his first year at UF. He had his Discman with him and told me "dude you have to hear this." It was Nine Inch Nail's Pretty Hate Machine. It blew me away. What also blew me away was my friend's headphones: Sony MDR-V600's. I knew I had to have both that CD and those headphones. I got the CD a couple of days later, and the headphones the next year ($100 headphones aren't the easiest to come by for a high school kid, especially back in 1990.)

I've been a huge NIN fan ever since, and I had those V600's for eleven years. They were with me on numerous cross country trips from my home in Florida back to Caltech in L.A. By 2002, they were in terrible shape, and my girlfriend bought me a new pair (just a few months before we got married.) I've had those for almost five years now. So I've been a V600 listener for almost sixteen years.

But now I have those fancy Bose headphones. At first, I didn't think they sounded as good as my V600's. I think part of that was because I had been listening to the same headphones for sixteen years. Another reason was because the QC3's needed different equalizer settings the V600's. Again, when you've used the same headphones for sixteen years, you forget about changing the equalizer. For what it's worth, the QC3's needed more treble and less midrange than the V600's. Finally, the QC3's are less sensitive than the V600's. It's a common stereo salesman trick to use the higher sensitivity of a speaker as a way to "prove" the speakers sound better and are worth the extra $$$.

Now I actually think the QC3's sound as good as the V600's. I think the midrange and treble are a little clearer on the QC3's, but the V600's have a little more detail on the low-end. The QC3's are punchy on the low-end, but lack some detail. This is pretty typical of Bose, from what I hear. These are the first Bose products I've owned.

The QC3's are really comfortable and the noise cancellation is excellent. They also seem like they will be more durable. I've gotten a lot of use out of the V600's, but their headbands and ear cushions fall apart pretty easily.