[m021478]

I wanted to know how some of the rest of you who also have MacBook Air computers have been dealing with the fact that these machines only have one available USB Port...

The single most inconvenient aspect of this is that, due to the mere 80GB hard drive I have installed in my MacBook Air, I use an external USB hard drive to store my iPhoto Library on...and then when the time comes that I want to copy photos to my iPhoto Library, there's no way to do so because the SD card in my camera has to be plugged into my MacBook Air via USB...

I've found three solutions for dealing with this problem...

1) Copy the photos from the SD card to my MacBook Air's internal drive first, the disconnect the SD card and connect the external hard drive that has the iPhoto library on it, then copy the photos to the iPhoto library from the MacBook Air's internal drive...

2) Use a USB Hub to provide a means of connecting both the external USB Hard Drive as well as the SD card via a USB card reader...The one major problem with this approach is, to the best of my knowledge is, that it would have to be a powered USB Hub (in order to provide the power required to run two external hard drives - SD card & USB HD). This means that my ultra thin, uber-portable MacBook Air is now tethered to a power outlet...

3) The third and final method I've come across that I've most recently been playing with is through using the Eye-Fi Wi-Fi SD Card...This awesome little device, which Time Magazine has just listed as one of it's top 10 gadgets of the year, is truly incredible...you can read more about it here...This device would totally and completely solve my problem if it were not for one major detail...it's not compatible with RAW images (which for obvious reasons, I would much rather be using than JPEG)...This one simple fact is most likely going to wind up being the deal breaker....

And so...here I am...adrift without a simple, practical, realistic, method of dealing with the limitations of my MacBook Air...

Any suggestions anyone can offer as to how I might consider dealing with this situation would be greatly appreciated... Thanks!

[mduell]

1) Flash is cheap; leave it on the card until you're back at the office.

2) Consider something like this to cut down on clutter, although you're still tethered to the wall.

3) Why not shoot JPEG and use the Eye-Fi?

[Nergol]

How many places do you realistically need to lug your iPhoto library? Do you sit on the subway and strike up a conversation with the person next to you by offering to show them 80GB worth of photos of your cat?

I don't mean to make fun, but you may be thinking of the MBA wrong. It seems to me that the Air is the great-great grandchild of the old PowerBook Duo series. The Duo, if you recall, was a little subnote that you were supposed to bring home and insert into this big dock that was about the size of two TiVos stacked on top of each other, and which would connect the Duo's little proprietary port to all the standard ports of the time, which would be in the dock. It'd probably be best to buy a really nice, powered USB hub and think of it as the Dock of the new millennium. And if you have a decent-sized SD card, you really shouldn't be filling it up all the time unless you're either a professional photographer or one of those people at deviatArt who takes, like, three hundred pictures a day of everything around them.

Again, I don't mean to make fun, but: If you're going somewhere for a week, you can throw a hub and your card reader in the big suitcase you'll need for all your clothes, and set up your "dock station" in your hotel room. And if you're out riding the bus around or sitting in Starbucks, all your gear would be too unwieldy to haul around anyways.

[redhot_nyc]

griffin simplifi
and a Time Capsule or Synology NAS