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Although at some point, I will end up with a dedicated PC WorkStation to trade on, that time
is not now.
So ... whether to get the brand new one or the previous model on clearance, is the question.
The only reason I hesitate to pick up the new one straight away, is that it appears they
got rid of all the connectors is favor of USB 3 and Thunderbolt. They are even moving away
from the optical drive.
I think they are already missing Steve Jobs.
I would still like having the Ethernet and FW ports.
I think I read that some of those options are still available on the new model, if ordered.
Before I go to my local Mac Shop and start talking to techs, I wanted to get some advice
from my favorite crowd.
Thanks
AJ
Nashville, Tennessee
"Life On The Edge of SR"
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
looks like cables and conversion are no longer needed - with Mountain Lion OSX the wireless
monitor is already here - you only have to connect airplay (Apple TV) to your screens.
Therefore a mac without Ethernet et al does the job.
From apple page:
"Wireless mirroring
Send what’s on your Mac screen to an HDTV wirelessly with Apple TV. Mirroring is great for classrooms, conference rooms, and your living room.
High definition
AirPlay Mirroring sends a video stream automatically optimized for the HD capabilities of your Mac and Apple TV. It supports up to 1080p HD."
Doesn't require external power, and has a hard cover that makes it easy to travel with. I think you can add up to 6 if you have enough usb ports, and it is Mac compatible.
I'm going with the new model after some online research.
The only thing dying on my old MacBook is the Hard drive. So the new one, with the SSD should
last me for 5 years this time.
A snippet from the net, for those interested.
________________ The New MacBook _____________________
13"
HDMI (mini display) port > adaptor > SVGA monitors
Thunderbolt port > adaptor > Ethernet (gigabit)
The New
-----------------------------
- from unibody aluminum construction to soldered-in components; from solid-state storage to the much-vaunted Retina Display.
Ports
-----------------
The MacBook Pro with Retina Display has a full two Thunderbolt ports. This underused high-speed interconnect is looking to
come into its own over the next year, as we've seen a number of companies prepping compatible products for release (let's
hope they actually make it to market).
These can serve as mini-DisplayPort ports, too, with no special adapter required, save for converting mini-DP to DP. They're
located on the left side of the notebook. An HDMI port on the right, the first on an Apple portable, means that you can hook
up three external displays. The built-in screen makes it four. I have a USB 3.0 - HDMI adapter sitting here, but haven't tried
it yet; five displays would be weirdly impressive. The MagSafe adapter has been shrunk down to fit into the smaller chassis;
Apple replaced the "L" style connector to the previous "T" style one.
Speaking of USB, Apple has finally made the jump from USB 2.0 to USB 3.0. It has taken them an unforgivably long time to
make the switch, which was delayed until Intel added support natively into their Ivy Bridge chipsets. There's one USB port on
either side. A headphone jack on the left and SD card slot on the right round out the port selection.
There is no optical drive on this notebook. It's part of the way that Apple saved both thickness and weight, and given the
trends, unlikely to be missed by most people. OS X still supports the ability to use the optical drive on another networked
computer, however, so between that and cheap USB drives, you should be good to go if you really need to read discs.
The expansion issue is probably Apple's most controversial decision. That is to say, the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display
can't be upgraded. Period. The RAM is soldered down, the CPU is soldered down. The GPU is on-board. The SSD features a
proprietary shape and port (though at least it isn't soldered down, too). Even the battery, which lost easy swappability with
the advent of the unibody MacBook construction, is glued directly to the chassis.
OWC and other companies will probably come up with a compatible third-party SSD, just like they did with the Air. That does
little to change the static nature of the rest of the machine - you'd better decide up front how much memory you're going to
need
Fortunately, 8GB of RAM is the default shipping option - which it should be, at that price - and for most people, that's going to
be more than enough. Despite what many enthusiasts think, most people never bother upgrading the memory on their laptops,
and RAM, past the first weeks of ownership, rarely out and out fails.
What is most regrettable about this new design is the battery. Since Apple glues the battery straight onto the body of the
machine, getting the battery replaced means that the entire top portion of the machine will need to be replaced. That brings
extra cost, which gets passed directly onto the consumer - in this case, it'll be a $199 fee, or $70 more than the other
portables. Even though heavy use should see three or more years out of the battery before noticeable degradation sets in, it's
Why not just replace the HD in your current Mac with an SSD?
If both are 13" then thats what I would do.
I wouldn't go for a new 13" because it can't support dual Thunderbolt displays.
When I can finally afford it I will probably get a refurbished MacBook Pro 15" Retina ($3k new! ouch!). I'll run VMware Fusion or Parallels (VirtualBox is free) for NinjaTrader development and general trading. And use the Mac OS X environment strictly for personal use (no trading). I'll also probably be using remote servers for running live trading strategies.
Whether running Mac OS X, Windows 8, or Linux, I see developing in virtual machines as a big advantage: multiple copies of NT running, production vs development environments, etc.
Well I'm not running a virtual machine setup currently for trading development, all of this is speculation, but I do have a lot of experience with virtual machines.
Regarding BootCamp... I do find it very interesting that you could setup your production discretionary trading setup in a BootCamp environment then use VMware or Parallels (whichever one does this) to boot that BootCamp partition within a virtual machine. So with this single Windows BootCamp installation you would have both options available. Either running natively or running in a virtual machine.
Now I don't know if this works 100%, but... I would like to use TimeMachine as a backup method and from what I've read TimeMachine will not backup BootCamp partitions. So this means I would need to investigate that TimeMachine could backup virtual machine images reliably via the Mac OS X environment. At the moment I don't see why it wouldn't.
To sum it up, I would setup the Mac OS X environment for personal use, backups, etc. and use the virtual machine software just to run/shutdown virtual machines. I wouldn't have to rely on a separate backup method. But in reality I would probably do both: with TimeMachine, backup the entire virtual machine and run NinjaTrader backup utility and transfer that and other scripts out of the virtual machine to be backed up separately with TimeMachine.
Even though I have 15 years experience as a Sr. level IT guy, I still want to keep my personal setup as simple as possible. I don't want to spend a lot of time on non-trading specific technical chores. I just want to get profitable work done. My ideal failure scenario would be to drop a Macbook by the Apple store, return home, and have a restored setup with in a couple hours. Most major brands can't do this. Most individuals can't do this without a lot of preparation and extra software and hardware. I see this quick and simple failure recovery scenario as one of the big advantages of running a Mac trading setup.
BTW, from what I've read/heard, your MacBook will feel like a new machine after replacing the HD with an SSD!
