January is always an important month for Mac fans, as this is the month that the annual Macworld is held in the States. Last year the big announcement causing a big stir was of course the iPhone. This year the big news is that Steve Jobs and apple have announced the “world’s “thinnest laptop”.

It was widely anticipated that Apple were going to announce a new laptop, and most people who expressed an opinion expected some sort of a very small form factor sub-notebook, or a tablet version of the existing MacBook. However what they actually got was not smaller but “slimmer”. When shut, the new MacBook Air measures only 4mm at the thinnest point and only a measly 19mm at the thickest part. It does looks good, but also seems at a distance a little fragile. You get the feeling that it might be a little too easy to snap it in half accidentally!

Its fairly standard specifications include a 13.3-inch LED-backlit screen, a good 2GB of memory, a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor a 1.8-inch 80GB HDD. The trackpad has support for gestures, so that you are able to use finger and thumb to pinch and expand files and images in a similar way to the iPhone or iPod Touch

Like the iPhone, there have been people who love the concept of a light and very thin laptop, but a lot of people who don’t. Detractors point out the fixed battery, the only one USB port, the fact that it relies on WiFi only for networking and the lack of an optical drive as major drawbacks. However only time will tell how successful the Air will be and if you remember the iPhone had a lot of detractors and that has been a success for Apple.

The MacBook Air will not be available for a few weeks, but if you want something now, then for more or less the same price you can get a standard MacBook Pro or a PC aiming at the same market like the Sony Vaio TZ Notebook pictured.

So did you get the wireless network sorted out over the holiday period? If you are one of those people who still haven’t managed to get around to doing it yet, then really what are you waiting for? As mentioned in a previous post in this series, a home wireless network will really add significantly to the use and enjoyment of your home computers, the Internet and all those gadgets that increasingly are wireless enabled, such as mobile phones.

In the previous post we had a look at wireless access points. However those require that you already have a separate modem to manage your broadband Internet connection. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could have just one device that did everything you need to get your wireless network up and running securely?

Well you can. The majority of the wireless networking manufacturers also produce units that will act as a cable or ADSL modem, a wireless access device, and router all at the same time. One word of caution, as these units are multi functional an important thing to look out for is the ease of setup. Some very good example of these can be found, such as the Netgear 54mbps wireless ADSL firewall router, or the D-Link DKT-710 Wireless G ADSL2.

So now you have no excuse, get working on that wireless network!

In my introduction to desktop computing I said that we would have a look at a number of the specific functional groups into which we can categorise a desktop computer. Well I thought gaming PC’s would make a good place to start.

So what makes a gaming PC? Well these days apart from some very specific technical functions, games are probably the applications that push the components of a PC to the limit, far more so than the majority of the day to day reading of email and the odd letter to the bank.

Ok, so what is it you actually need, you ask. Well there are a number of things you need, power, power and more power! Yes you guessed it, it’s all about power! A powerful processor and a powerful graphics card, backed up with plenty of memory. Of these the graphics card is the most important followed equally by the processor and the memory. Get the best of these that you could afford would be a general rule.

However as well as the pure power you need to ensure you have a number of other components to ensure a good gaming experience. A good sound card is a must and great interface tools, things such as the keyboard and mouse, which may need to take a fair bit of punishment, are also important. Of course every month sees newer and more powerful PC components, so to all these considerations you should probably add the ability to upgrade. The more upgradeability your PC has, the longer you will be able to keep it providing you with a good gaming experience.

I thought I would begin a series of posts that will look at good candidates for the components that make up a great gaming machine. Of course purchasing the individual components are only important if you are building your own or upgrading. If you are looking for a complete gaming machine then the HP Pavilion Elite m9085 would be a good place to start, with a top of the range processor, graphics card and 3 GB of memory. Nice!

Over the years I have been lucky enough to use an IBM ThinkPad laptop as my business laptop for work. I always found them to be an absolute pleasure to use, extremely robust and coming with a number of neat touches that generally made life easier for the business traveler. But unfortunately these days you are no longer able to buy yourself an IBM PC. This is because IBM no longer makes personal computers, either desktops or laptops, having sold its PC division to Lenovo in 2005. Interestingly however, Lenovo a Chinese company with a western CEO that is really only just beginning to flex its corporate muscles, also acquired along with the company the rights to all the IBM brands, at least until 2010.

What this means is that if you still like the idea of having a new ThinkPad laptop just like the old days, you can still do so. The company name is different but the brand and build quality is the same. My recommendations would be the something from the T series for a mobile workstation, something like the Lenovo ThinkPad T60. For someone who is on the move a lot, something lighter from the X series would be more appropriate, something like the Lenovo Thinkpad X61.

Lenovo like IBM have largely been focused on the business market, however the company has recently announced a new strategy, with an increased focus on the consumer market. This has resulted in a recently announced new line of consumer oriented desktops and laptops. I expect Dell and HP will have a much more aggressive competitor in future, which can only be good news for the consumer!