thirstythong

“But the most significant derivation from the meaning of as ‘water’ is the concept of people who have gathered near a body of water to grow rice for one another, and founding a stable community, sharing rain and drought, plenty and famine, peace and war: from ‘water,’ its basic meaning, has come to designate ‘the homeland, the country, the nation.’ It is in this ultimate exception that the monosyllable nuoc reverberates throught the deepest and farthest recesses of the Vietnamese collective unconscious and stirs there the most potent feelings. The nation’s fateful course, marked by ups and downs, is figuratively rendered as a ‘tide of water’ (van nuoc) with its ebb and flow. The highest virtue demanded of a Vietnamese is that he or she ‘love the nuoc‘ (yeu nuoc).” –Huynh Sanh Thong (no relation)

My CTO Macbook Air Essential First-Day Applications + Why I Bought It Stateside instead of in Vietnam

Firstdaydownloads
N was ever so kind enough to bring me over my CTO Macbook Air, 13 in., 1.8GHz. Here are the free applications I grabbed off the internets (not from the Mac App Store) - simply Google their application names and they will be the top finds. (Note: QuickSearchBox is built by Quicksilver’s creator and is very much similar to Mac’s Spotlight feature, but one key difference: QuickSearchBox pops up right in the middle of the screen) It’s been 5 years since my last Macbook (when the Intel chip wasn’t even Duo). Ironically enough, the Macbook from 2006 hovers around the same price point as this year’s Air - but of course, this year’s Air technically dominates the Macbook form 2006. Macair13 (Note: The 256GB model is the only model out of the new 4 where you can do this upgrade) I am doing this out of future proofing more in the sense of for any future projects I feel to pursue (namely Graphics & Design, short films). One can say, I am future-project-proofing. The idea of future proofing these Airs may seem odd to the uber-Mac user, considering that these Macs are built to be replaced (lack of user-replacer battery, 4GB RAM standard maximum) - what I plan on doing is to daily practice keeping my workflow as minimal as possible (1 application at a time) and getting my battery replaced by Apple at the end of my 3-year Applecare term. I could buy them in HCMC, Vietnam at my favorite HCMC Apple vendor in HCMC: Halo Shop, but Halo doesn’t normally carry the “spec-ed out” model. Ironically enough, the price point of Halo is akin to paying the MSRP back in the states + state sales tax. So when you look at the prices at Halo, don’t think of it as paying a premium (which you technically are), think of it as paying the MSRP with sales tax; this applies to all the Apple products I’ve eyed in the market. (Techland VN is arguably better: even better prices than Halo [hence, cheaper than the States] and they have the “spec-ed out” models on hand, with most CTO options available to ship (1-2 days) from Hanoi (they have the base models on hand). Their biggest flaw: their Visa/Mastercard credit card machines don’t work, and they seem reluctant to repair them. My argument to them was this: tiền mặt (cash in hand) would cost me more as I would have to withdraw it from my States bank (didn’t want to use my local account, in multiple denominations due to the daily limit + withdrawal surcharges = me paying more for the multiple transactions in the end, making Halo the better deal as they will charge me 3% sure, but there will only be 1 transaction.)