Apple's New Polish:

Apple's New Polish: How I Fell in Love With Air

On Wednesday, Apple pulled its newest laptop out of a game-changing (and slightly thinner) manila envelope. The ultrathin Macbook Air is back -- and better than ever.

There are 13- and 11-inch versions of the slim new laptop, and I've been using the 11-inch version for a few days now. You can color me impressed.

The new design is impressive -- and dare I say sexy? As Tracy Byrnes of the Fox Business Network said when she first saw the new Air, "That's hot!"

And that's coming from someone willing to confess that the original MavBook Air didn't make much sense to me. The notebooks were overpriced and underpowered. In fact the Air was the only product in Apple's catalog I couldn't recommend. Steve Jobs changed that on Wednesday by combining design elements of the iPad and a laptop.

"We wondered," Jobs said at the keynote event. "What would happen if an iPad and a MacBook hooked up?"

What happened was an iPad-like aluminum unibody design with one edge that's a tenth of an inch thick. What also happened is "instant on" functionality like that in the iPad: Open the lid and the screen instantly turns on, ready for work. My most recent Windows 7 machine takes significantly longer to resume working from sleep.

Apple changed the game by creating a laptop that's always ready to work, ready to jump on the Internet, ready send an e-mail -- all in the blink of an eye. Here's a few reasons to like it:

Price: The cost is also a game changer. At $999 the 11-inch version could be sitting under a lot of Christmas trees this season.

Display: The screen is gorgeous for viewing photos despite its small size. It boasts 1,366 x 768 resolution. What does that mean? Your photos and videos will look bright, sharp, and colorful.

Weight: I can't imagine ever buying a heavier laptop again. At 2.3 pounds it's the perfect travel companion. No more carrying a 6 pound laptop. I carried it to and from work over the past few days and I didn't even notice it in my man bag. Yes I carry a man bag, it's New York.

Speed: Fast is my thing, and this Air puts the old Air to shame. The 11-inch model sports a Core 2 duo processor and an Nvidia graphics card; I opened and used multiple, processor-intensive applications and still surfed the web with ease. And I did so with much of its 5-hour battery juice left to spare.

Yes there are faster cheaper Windows PCs out there, but nothing this solid and intelligently designed. As my Dad always says, you pay for what you get.

The new MacBook Air isn't for everyone, however. If you need a DVD burner you won't find it here. If you need tons of storage for your iTunes library or photo collection, this isn't the machine for you either. Sure, it has the iLife suite of applications -- Garageband, iMovie, iPhoto and more -- but if you're a serious video editor, you'll laugh at the Air's storage space and processor speed.

If you want that stuff, this machine is not for you. Each week I edit a video podcast, or large audio files, and that's something I'd never do on an 11-inch MacBook Air. But for the vast majority of tasks, this machine fulfills all of my needs, and more.

What about an iPad? Should you buy this instead of an iPad?

The MacBook Air and iPad are different devices, and they aren't mutually exclusive. I still prefer my iPad for reading websites and books, and playing games. So far, nothing beats leaning back in the recliner with my touch-screen iPad and reading a newspaper or watching Netflix.

I thought the release of the iPad would kill the MacBook Air. I was wrong. This week Apple saved the MacBook Air -- and made the laptop more than just relevant. Apple made the Air great.

Clayton Morris is a Fox and Friends host and the tech guru behind the Gadgets and Games show -- and is much thicker than the MacBook Air. Follow Clayton's adventures online on Twitter @ClaytonMorris and by reading his daily updates at his blog.

The Shaming of fat people

It's not like fat people or people struggling with weight issues need anything else in life to make us feel like crap, but not surprisingly, it's been done. The one overweight couple on TV (since Huge has been canceled) has been called out not just for being fat but for being too fat.

The current brouhaha was inadvertently (I hope) created by Marie Claire blogger Maura Kelly who blogged about the characters on the hit sitcom Mike and Molly and ignited a firestorm with several statements including saying that she would be:

grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room -- just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

First thought: Fat=drunk=drug addict. Way to go Maura.

Second thought: that's the thing you find most offensive on TV? Not the fact that women are mutilated on shows daily for story fodder. Or the fact that girls are being sexualized so early. Or the fact that most people's faces are shot up with so much poison that they can no longer express themselves. Or the fact that most of the women on TV look so skinny that there is no way they are eating enough food to get them through the day.

Yes, the truth is both characters on Mike and Molly are obese. And I can pretty much guarantee as a person who thinks about what food I would love to eat all day long and expends much energy resisting that same food, that those actors would love to lose weight. But what happened here is that these people were shamed for being fat just like people are shamed for being gay.

This shaming comes at a moment when we as a culture are thinking about bullying and the tragic deaths of several young gay men who took their lives because they were bullied and shamed.

While this has clearly not been a good couple of days for Maura Kelly, this conversation, while difficult, is important. Bullying and shaming is wrong even when it is done inadvertently and makes us realize how easy it is to fall into that type of thinking.

And this has also been a good lesson for us bloggers. 1- think before you hit publish. Think about the power you have. 2- Editors think twice about having a person who has struggled with anorexia write about fat issues. What the hell were you thinking? Yeah you've gotten a lot of page views and stirred up a controversy but this should get filed under the not all publicity is good publicity.

Last thought: Can't there be a happy middle? TV is full of only very skinny people, there aren't any actors who look like regular every day citizens. Why can't there be shows with people of all body types? Why are our only choices too skinny or too fat? We should be able to have one or two or five or ten shows with people of different sizes on TV so that no couple can be called out as "the only fat couple on TV."

So now I'm taking my muffin top and fat roll that lives above that down to the kitchen to make some lunch cause all this talk about fat people on TV has made me hungry.

Should "Fatties" Get a Room? (Even on TV?) (Marie Claire)

Marie Claire blog on TV "fatties" provokes uproar (Reuters)

Originally posted on Women & Hollywood

Melissa Silverstein At the intersection of feminism and entertainment

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-silverstein/the-shaming-of-fat-people_b_775626.html

Frosty, Heidi and Frank

I was surprised to hear Frost Stillwell (yes, that's what he called himself) on the AM dial Saturday night (October 23, 2010) about 9PM PST, as a fill in host ...well done Frost
http://www.facebook.com/froststilwell

Frosty, Heidi and Frank are leaving KABC

An era of sorts is coming to an end: Frosty, Heidi and Frank announced late last week that their contract was not renewed at KABC (790 AM) and that they would leave the station effective Oct. 1.

The trio, formerly heard on KLSX (now KAMP, 97.1 FM) came to KABC just a year ago. At the time, many thought this was the start of a KABC transformation from political talk to lifestyle talk. And in many ways that would have made sense; KABC had been declining in the ratings for years and appeared impotent when it came to competing against the better-programmed, better-promoted KFI (640 AM).

But it was not to be. Frosty Stillwell, Heidi Hamilton and Frank Kramer arrived with great fanfare, but the rest of the station stayed the same ... schizophrenic and syndication-heavy. The addition of FH&F didn't help, providing little audience crossover to or from other programs.

Letters and e-mails I've received over the past year reflect that polarization: People who listen to FH&F don't understand why the rest of the day exists; fans of the rest of the day think the trio is awful. There seemed to be no middle ground, and KABC's ratings sank even lower.

I don't think the trio was necessarily a bad choice, I just think they didn't fit with the station, and since no other substantive changes were made it left them hanging. Had the station chosen to go with even just a few more "lifestyle" choices, it might have worked. But it didn't.

By Richard Wagoner

Posted: 09/16/2010

http://www.dailybreeze.com/

----------------------------------

On September 10, 2010, Frosty Heidi and Frank announced that KABC will be taking them off the air on October 1.

Immediately following this news, Frosty Stilwell announced that he would be leaving
The Frosty Heidi and Frank Show to pursue other ventures.

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=400569036&blogId=539427899

But as one era ends, another begins.

On October 4, The Heidi and Frank Show will begin streaming LIVE on their new web site,
www.heidiandfrank.com, Monday thru Friday from 10am - 12pm.

heidiandfrank.com will have TONS of new content such as
live video webcasts daily, exclusive videos, commercial-free podcasts, and much more.

--------------------------------