I ordered one of the new MacBook Airs last night, and I’m super excited about it coming next week. I’m typing this entry on my old 2007 MacBook, which I bought used from a friend. All my Macs I’ve had used, so it’s cool to be getting my first brand-new one. I didn’t go the cheap route, either: I bought one of the 13” ones with the upgraded CPU and a 256GB SSD. Jon is such an up-seller, too: he was sitting beside me when I ordered, and he was all “you know, you’re spending this much on a computer anyway, you might as well spend the $100 extra and get the better CPU”.

It’s going to be extremely fast, though, I just know it, both because it’ll have a good CPU and RAM and also because I’ve never had an SSD before, and everyone says those are ridiculous compared to using regular hard drives. Well, I guess my Chromebook has an SSD in it, but of course I rarely work with files on the disk there, it’s all just online. Anyway, I can’t wait for my Air to arrive, and I’ve already been scheming about future programming work that’ll be doing on my snazzy new machine. Sure I can program okay on my MacBook now, but it gets hot and heavy (haha) after a while because this thing is like a heater. Beyond that, I actually don’t have enough free space on my tiny, tiny hard drive to install the iPhone SDK, which I need to install for a project I’m working on. It’s not even the latest SDK, but an older one because I can’t install the latest since I only have Leopard! So having an up-to-date computer with the latest OS X will greatly help there.

So programming project-wise, I’m working on a group project with Mark, Tony, and Jon, which is what I need the iPhone SDK for. I also want to start up work on my Master’s project again to add some enhancements. It needs to incorporate Mechanize or something like it to allow form submission and sessions, so that the QMZ tool will become infinitely more useful. If I can get that done, I think I could even use it at work to test one of the projects I’m working on there.

Besides programming for fun, I’ve also been reading the Wheel of Time series based on the recommendation of several Redditors. I’m about two hundred pages into The Fires of Heaven (book 5) right now, and I’m still really enjoying the series. I had worried because people say the series slows down a lot after the first few books, and it has gotten slower but it’s still holding my interest. I plan on reading Game of Thrones after I finish all the Wheel of Time books, because everyone has been telling me to read those. Jon and I watched all the TV series and I definitely enjoyed it, though all the sex scenes were a bit much for me. I’d describe the show as porn with a really awesome plot.