macbook air

I was migrating all the data from a friend's old MacBook (which was running Mac OS X Tiger) to her new MacBook Air (running Mac OS X Mountain Lion), and besides a WiFi hiccup, everything went smoothly (I had to clone the old MacBook's drive to a USB disk, then use Setup Assistant to migrate the data from that disk to the new MacBook Air).

During the Setup Assistant, I could easily connect to my WiFi network, but after the migration was complete, I couldn't connect anymore. I kept getting a pesky error: "Could not join [network]. A connection timeout has occurred." (see picture of error dialog here). Looking through Apple's forums and elsewhere was not much help, because this message seems to be a very generic 'something weird happened' error, happening in many different circumstances.

However, knowing that the keychain and old WiFi connection data from the old Mac had transferred over to the new Mac, and knowing that something might've gone screwy with the network information, I decided to do the following:

[Update: It looks like Mountain Lion finally restored this functionality—you can press Shift + Control + Power key, and the screen will immediately go to sleep.]

The 2010/2011 MacBook Air models are all amazing, and I believe Apple will eventually convert all their Mac laptops to the same basic design (just different sizes), forgoing the optical drives.

The only downside to this new design is the lack of an eject key—of course, most people probably only knew the key could eject discs, so it's no big loss for them. I, however, use that key in a standard Shift + Control + Eject combination to instantly turn off my Mac's display to conserve power and prevent any pixel ghosting. I've used the combo for a few years, and it took me some time to find out a way to reliably do something similar on my new 11" MacBook Air.

There are a few ways you can get this functionality back:

I was having tons of trouble getting my brand new 11" MacBook Air to get MobileMe Sync set up, and it kept getting stuck with 'Registering computer...' either when I checked the 'Synchronize with MobileMe' checkbox or when I clicked 'Advanced...' and then 'Register Computer'.

Since I've subscribed to iTools, then .Mac, and now MobileMe (soon iCloud) since 2000, I figured this may have something to do with the fact that, after all these years, my default AppleID would change to @me.com (rather than @mac.com, as it has been for years).

The steps you should try before giving up are as follows:

1. In the MobileMe account preference pane in System Preferences, log out (there's a button for that), then quit System Prefs, reopen it, and log back in. See if that works.
2. Disable the mail, contacts and calendars for MobileMe if you have it enabled. Then do step 1.
3. Click on 'Accounts' and see if any of the user accounts on the computer have an Apple ID (mine had @me.com). Edit that ID and make sure it's the same as your MobileMe login ID. Or just remove that ID (I don't know what it's for anyways...). Then restart your Mac and go back to step 1.
4. Try Resetting the SyncServices Folder. Then restart your mac and go back to step 1.

If none of these things work, and you've searched through countless forum topics since 2007 like I have, then, well, I don't know what else to try...

I currently own or use a variety of Macs, and am approaching the end of a 'cycle' of Mac usage, where I need to decided what Mac I'd like to purchase next. Currently, I'm using a 27" iMac at work, an 11" MacBook Air (from work) for travel, and a 24" iMac at home. They're all great computers in their own right, and using Dropbox, MobileMe, and a couple other helper services, I can operate simultaneously on all three Macs, without any hiccups.

So, I'm thinking about getting a new Mac for hardcore development work (web and app), some graphic design, and possible portability. I have an iPad for lighter computing (reading, browsing, email, videos...), so even though the MacBook Air is probably the best thing to happen to a laptop in a very long time, I'm shying away from it as my primary personal computer.