All joking aside, four years ago today, Steve Jobs unleased the MacBook Air onto the world at Macworld.

The first MacBook Air was very innovative for its time. The innards fitting into the size of the Air was impressive and still is today, even with Ultrabooks gunning for its market. It featured an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive, a compact motherboard with a 1.6 GHz Intel Cord 2 Duo processor and GMA X3100 graphics processor. It also featured a 13.3 -inch LED-backlit glossy display, 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM, full backlit keyboard, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, USB port and Micro-DVI port. I’m not an Apple fan, but even I’m impressed that they fit all that tech inside of a laptop that was only 19mm thick.

The first model was somewhat controversial though as it lacked an onboard DVD drive. Jobs explained it away by saying that the world was moving to wireless and things like DVD drives were a thing of the past. The company did offer an external DVD-drive for those who wanted it though.

The hardware wasn’t without its problems though as the early versions were plagued with overheating issues and wireless connectivity problems. The price was a little steep for a lot of consumers too as it launched at $1,799.

Apple has come a long way since then when they introduced the current model of the MacBook Air in 2011. It featured either a Core i5 or i7 processor, solid-state drive storage and an Intel HD 3000 processor. The pricing had gone down significantly too with the 11.6-inch model being priced at $999 and the 13.3-inch starting at $1,299.

For those who want to relive the magic of four years ago, you can watch the unveiling of the first MacBook Air by Steve Jobs below.

The Watford, England based company has become the focal point of a story out of Oakland, California about a guy who successfully retrieved his stolen MacBook by using their tracking software.

On March 21st, Joshua Kaufman’s MacBook was stolen from his apartment. He reported the crime to the police, but wasn’t given much initial support due to lack of resources. I guess computer theft is pretty low down on the priority list for a busy law enforcement staff. So Kaufman activated his account he had with Hidden, an OS X app that spies on and tracks down computer thieves.

After collecting the necessary information, Kaufman presented the evidence to the Oakland Police Department. For nearly a month, he didn’t get any response from the PD. Last Friday he set up a blog titled “This Guy Has My MacBook,” and within a few days it had gone viral. On Tuesday, the Oakland PD set up a meet with the purported thief (he’s a cab driver) and arrested him. Kaufman tweeted this last night:

So what exactly does this Hidden application do? Once downloaded, users set up a username and password. Once installed, it runs in the background on your Mac device. During this time, it doesn’t collect any information from your computer.

When that horrible day comes when someone is able to make off with your computer, you activate Hidden by logging in on their site and clicking “Stolen.” This alerts the program to begin doing its job.

Hidden suggests that users create a guest account on their computers. Having an account that isn’t password protected will encourage the thief to actually use the computer instead of just selling it quickly. And the thief needs to use the computer for Hidden to work properly.

Once you activate the tracking feature, Hidden is able to find your stolen computer in locations around the globe. To do this, Hidden employs location positioning company Skyhook. They have built a location database of over 250 million wi-fi and cell access points by driving around, gathering information in thousands of cities worldwide.

The location tracking is definitely the core function of retrieving your lost computer, but the other two features provide for a lot more lulz. Hidden uses the built in camera on your Mac to covertly snap photos of the thief as he uses your computer. In the case of Kaufman’s stolen MacBook, Hidden took pictures of the thief all over the place – shirtless in bed, in his car and asleep on the couch:

The Hidden app also takes screencaps of the thief using your computer, to track exactly what he’s doing. In Kaufman’s case, he caught the thief trying to delete his account and logging in to Facebook.

Hidden will run you $15 a year for your personal computer, and have plans to protect up to 100 computers for $395 a year. It’s awesome for a company when free, real-life, newsworthy advertising falls into their lap. But hey, when your app does its job, you deserve it.

[All Images Courtesy of This Guy Has My MacBook Blog and Kaufman's Flickr]

Well, it seems as though Apple’s call accomplished something, Microsoft has altered one of their Laptop Hunter ads.

The ad in question, Laptop Hunters $1700 – Lauren and Sue get a Dell XPS 13, has been slightly modified. Originally, when the duo were checking out the Mac the conversation went as follows:

Lauren: This Mac is $2,000… and that’s before adding anything.
Mom: Why would you pay twice the price?
Lauren: I wouldn’t.

Now, the modified ad just features Lauren saying, "It seems like your paying a lot for the brand" when talking about the Mac’s. You can check out the updated commercial below.

Advertising Age features the following quote from a Microsoft spokeswoman:

"We slightly adjusted the ads to reflect the updated pricing of the Mac laptop shown in the TV advertisement … This does not change the focus of the campaign, which is to showcase the value and choice of the PC."

Do you feel the altered ad loses Microsoft’s message? Tell us.

So having eaten my lunch while MythBusters was playing on Discovery, I finally opened up the box containing my new MacBook 2.1 Ghz machine (a freebie bundled together with my new 10mbps DSL plan).

While Jamie and Adam are firing machine guns into the side on a car on the screen, I’m pulling the polycarbonate-sheathed laptop out of the box.

First reaction: This thing is pretty heavy compared to my Fujitsu Lifebook ultra-portable.

Second reaction: The graphics are really pretty (I can see why Sam Harrelson and Shawn Collins get into their Asus eee/Apple/Dell Vostro bickering matches)

Third reaction: I don’t quite like the tactile feel of the keyboard. The keys don’t have the “sink” of a traditional keyboard (but that could be easily remedied with a regular-sized USB keyboard). I am just wondering why the Apple developers don’t include the “double tap” on the touchpad simulating a mouse click – that would greatly enhance productivity.

Fourth reaction: I’m not too certain what the Mac equivalents of “control-a”, “control-c” and “control-v” are on the Mac. I think it’s the “open Apple” button.

My first “proper” computer ever was an Apple ][e and I spent 3 years as a desktop production editor working on Apple Quadras in the early 1990s, so I think I’ll be able to make the transition.

I’m still mulling over Geordie Carswell’s advice to ditch the default 1GB of ram and go for the 4GB max.

The MacBook seems to have a proprietary interface for connecting an external monitor, so I still have to figure that one out.

And yes, the absence of a mouse is sorely missed.

As far as I’m aware, Google AdWords Editor does not run on OS X, unless you’re running Basecamp or Parallels or some other cross-platform…It’ll all have to wait till tax season is over and I’ll have time to fiddle with it.

The iSight built-in webcam seems to take pretty killer pictures though…

At times like this, I’m glad that my skype contact list is filled with a host of Apple geeks.

More updates after April 15th.

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