And for my next Apple purchase....the Airport Extreme!

I've had a Dlink wireless router for about four years now. During the past few months I've had all kinds of intermittent problems with my wifi connections and broadband speeds to Comcast. I knew the router was the culprit, but didn't really want to spend the money. After my level of frustration crossed my desired to not spend money I decided to purchase a new wireless router. I looked at lots of vendors and checked out reviews from various web sites and ultimately went with the Airport Extreme. I agree the the Airport Extreme is not the most configurable router. You won't find Quality of Service and most advanced wireless features, but I don't need them so why does it matter? The Airport Extreme drew me, in part, because of its really nice and basic design. I also liked the configuration tool that Apple has. Technical reviewers are always critical of Apple for not having a web interface, but seriously, it's not a big deal. The performance and reliability has been great so far so no complaints. I could have been just as happy with another Dlink router, but the Airport Extreme just felt like the right decision when considering everything.

Retired Mac Mini Replaced by MacBook Air

Over the past few years I have been on two iterations of the Mac Mini. The Mac Mini is a great product. In my situation the price was right and it fit right in with my current monitor. Sure it wasn't as fast as others in the Mac lineup, but it did it's job.

Over time the Mac Mini began to feel slow. I was also frustrated with my Mac Mini after I found it couldn't run Lion well. Those two things alone were not enough to compel me to purchase a new computer. However, a loud and malfunctioning DVD player pushed me towards a new purchase decision.

While I liked the iMacs I wanted my next computer to be a laptop. I already had an external larger monitor I was happy with so the iMacs large screens weren't really a draw. The portability of a laptop was appealing. Lucky for me that the new MacBook Air was announced one month prior to my decision. I knew the old model and wasn't impressed with the specs. The old model was my three year old Mac Mini in a thin case. However, the new models were much faster with an i5 processor. So I pulled the trigger and purchased my new MacBook Air and have been loving it ever since. Very pleased with the performance and the decision. There are lots of sites to find reviews on the Air, but I can tell you I'm really happy with it.