Seems like my plastic Macbook is going to die soon...

[NJMetsHero]

Over the past month or so, every now and then it will just shut off when I'm running too many things at once (and even sometimes when I'm not). Or sometimes it'll just go to sleep for now reason. So I guess I need to start preparing for it to die right? I guess that would entail a few things:

Backing up all my data - All my important stuff is on Dropbox or I could pull it off my iPod. I don't want to just plug in a hard drive and take everything off the laptop because I don't want to put all the crap I have on it on to my next laptop too. So I guess I'll spend an hour or two sorting between what I want and what I don't. But I have a few questions.

1.) iCloud - I have iCloud activated, but I don't ever seem to see it do anything. I have iTunes Match so I'm guessing I could re-download anything on there on to my new Mac without having to back that up. But as far as pictures go, are those all stored somewhere that I can re-download?

2.) When I log into the new laptop, will I just be able to re-download any apps I've got from the Mac App Store?

And as far as picking a new laptop is concerned, I think I want to go with a MacBook Air. But is the processor going to be good enough? I rarely do anything very taxing on the processor outside of watching video and occasionally editing some.

 

[tbobmccoy]

Over the past month or so, every now and then it will just shut off when I'm running too many things at once (and even sometimes when I'm not). Or sometimes it'll just go to sleep for now reason. So I guess I need to start preparing for it to die right? I guess that would entail a few things:

Backing up all my data - All my important stuff is on Dropbox or I could pull it off my iPod. I don't want to just plug in a hard drive and take everything off the laptop because I don't want to put all the crap I have on it on to my next laptop too. So I guess I'll spend an hour or two sorting between what I want and what I don't. But I have a few questions.

1.) iCloud - I have iCloud activated, but I don't ever seem to see it do anything. I have iTunes Match so I'm guessing I could re-download anything on there on to my new Mac without having to back that up. But as far as pictures go, are those all stored somewhere that I can re-download?

2.) When I log into the new laptop, will I just be able to re-download any apps I've got from the Mac App Store?

And as far as picking a new laptop is concerned, I think I want to go with a MacBook Air. But is the processor going to be good enough? I rarely do anything very taxing on the processor outside of watching video and occasionally editing some.

1. You'll need to copy older pictures somewhere else... iCloud doesn't backup all your photos...

2. Yes. The App store will let you redownload all your apps again.

I went from a 2009 MBP to the 13" MBA 2011 model and I feel as though it's well fast enough. Video editing is a bit slower, but just because of the Integrated graphics, not the CPU. It's definitely faster than your current plastic MB.

 

[NJMetsHero]

1. You'll need to copy older pictures somewhere else... iCloud doesn't backup all your photos...

2. Yes. The App store will let you redownload all your apps again.

I went from a 2009 MBP to the 13" MBA 2011 model and I feel as though it's well fast enough. Video editing is a bit slower, but just because of the Integrated graphics, not the CPU. It's definitely faster than your current plastic MB.

Cool Thanks. Yeah I just went ahead and uploaded all my photos to Dropbox. I think I'm going to need to get an external drive for all my video, not quite enough room.

I think I'm going to be happy with the Air partially because it'll be a new machine too. Despite the higher clock speed from the start, my Macbook has obviously degraded over time and overall it's just laggy. A new machine will solve that problem. Plus throw in the SSD and the extra 2 GB of RAM, and I should be happy.