9to5Mac points out that current MacBook Pro stock is “heavily constrained” and their source assures them that new model numbers are in Apple’s inventory system. The numbers indicate minor refreshes — so likely nothing new on the outside, but the latest Intel processors on the inside. Probably Bluetooth 4.0 as well.

But what about the skinny Air-like MacBook Pros we heard about earlier this year, you may ask. MacRumors speculates that those won’t arrive until Intel’s IvyBridge processors are ready. That was supposed to happen this year, but Intel is apparently a little behind.

So if you were about to buy a new MacBook, hold off for now. You may be able to get a more powerful model soon or the current models will cost a bit less.

New MacBook Pros Arriving This Month? is a post by K. T. Bradford from Notebooks.com.

OS X Lion is available as an upgrade in the Mac App Store for $30, but only to users of OS X Snow Leopard. You can make a USB drive from the Mac App Store download, but users who need a full install of OS X Lion in order to upgrade from Leopard will appreciate the USB drive which retails for $69.

OS X Lion USB Disk

For the average user, this is probably the easiest way to upgrade to OS X Lion with a clean install. While you do not need to perform a clean install, some users have reported better performance with a clean install as it gives your machine a fresh start.

The OS X Lion USB Drive will allow you to install OS X Lion on any compatible Mac, even if you put a new hard drive in or don’t have the latest OS.

If you install OS X Lion with the USB drive you will note be able to reinstall through OS X Lion recovery like users who install from the Mac App Store. This means you will need to keep your USB drive handy if you need to do a reinstall.

OS X Lion brings a number of system improvements to your Mac including much improved multitouch gestures, LaunchPad, Mission Control, a new Mail client and full screen apps as well as 250 additional features.

Based on my experience with OS X Lion, I would recommend the upgrade to all users who have a compatible machine, unless you need PowerPC app support.

OS X Lion USB Drive Now Available for $69 is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Even though Apple is suing pretty much anyone that makes a tablet, the company has yet to come out strong against companies that make look a like Macbook Air notebooks. That’s good news for consumers given the estimated cost of $770 to $960 for the Aspire 3951 ultraportable.

Acer’s Aspire 3951 has a 13.3″ display, 13mm thin design and weighs in around 3 pounds. Sahoa claims that this looker sports an aluminum case, surprising given the shortage of aluminum for notebook chassis, as well as a 2nd Gen Intel processor. Also inside the shiny case is the choice of up to a 160GB SSD, six hours of battery life.

Does the Acer Aspire 3951 look familiar?

Reportedly this notebook will go from sleep to work in 1.7 seconds, which is good news for users who love to leave their notebook on at all times. The wake to sleep time is more important to most users than the time it takes to fully boot. Speed is still important on these ultraportable notebooks, which may get used briefly during a short stop, where it would be less than ideal to open up a larger notebook and wait for it to resume.

The 3951 will reportedly arrive in October under $1,000, possibly as low as $770. If it can come in closer to the $800 mark, we’d venture to guess that consumers will be quick to look closer at this notebook on the shelves of their local Best Buy.

If Acer can deliver this notebook at an affordable price, it would be one of the first UltraBooks which manages to beat the odds and come in under budget. This is important for the overall success of portable notebooks, as there are many more shoppers willing to spend $7 to $800 on their next Windows computer than there are willing to pay over $1,000 — especially for a Windows notebook.

We anticipate a greater selection of ultraportable Windows notebooks this fall and winter as other manufacturers build out their own UltraBooks.

Acer Aspire 3951: MacBook Air Clone Coming Soon, Under $1,000 is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

The new solid state drives are likely from Samsung and offer speedier read and write speeds. Anandtech put the new drives through the paces and found the following speed bumps.

What does this mean for MacBook Air owners and potential MacBook Air buyers? Unfortunately not much. While the speeds are faster, you can’t take your MacBook Air in for an upgrade and as Anandtech points out, when you buy a new MacBook Air you’re going to get whatever you get.

If you do want a faster SSD in your MacBook Air, or more memory than you can order from Apple, check out the OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express SSD upgrade kit which offers larger and faster MacBook Air SSDs. The kits claim to deliver a 68% increase in performance and come in sizes up to 360GB. Unfortunately with prices ranging from $499 to $1,179 you may want to just wait for Apple to offer a faster and larger SSD option or pick up a more affordable external hard drive.

MacBook Air Notebooks Get Faster SSDs, Luck of the Draw is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Apple doesn’t provide much information about these security updates, but you can see what information is available by visiting the Apple support page. Safari 5.0.5 brings a collection of security updates as well, and is a recommended update for all Safari users, both on Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows.

To update, you can click on the Apple in your upper left corner and choose “Software Update…”. From there, the software update tool will walk you through the process. Youc an also download the Safari update direct from Apple if you want. Windows users will need to manually update Safari unless they have the Software updater already running on their system.

Apple Issues OS X Security Update and Safari Update is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

The Wall Street Journal Reports,

The tool is included within the latest test release of Lion, a version of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system that is currently available only to developers. The final version of the operating system is scheduled to be released to the public this summer. Mentions of the do-not-track feature in Apple’s Safari browser began to appear recently in online discussion forums and on Twitter.

It is expected that the new Do-Not-Track feature will make its way to Safari on earlier version s of OS X and likely show up on the Windows version of Safari in order to offer a similar experience across platforms.

The Do-Not-Track feature is also found in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, but the remaining hurdles is industry adoption by advertisers. The addition of these features is in part to avoid legislation , but so far the advertising industry hasn’t come to an agreement on how to make use of the Do-Not-Track features.

The Do-Not-Track term may be a bit frightening to normal users, who likely don’t want their online activities tracked, but in reality the biggest thing it will affect is the quality of ads you see. With the tracking technology currently in place, advertising networks can send you ads that should be at least interesting or on target when you visit a website.

For example, if you visit a iPhone case website and then go browsing to other websites, you may see advertisements relating to that company, possibly including coupons designed to get you to come back and purchase.

Sure, the tracking can be abused, by individuals or companies, but I would prefer that we leave the law out of our browsers. Hopefully the advertisers can come to an agreement and this issue can be handled by cooperation instead of legislation.

Vi MacRumors

Safari Browser the Latest to Get Do Not Track Feature, Coming in OS X Lion is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

The new dock uses the same 30 pin design found on the standard iPhone and iPad cables, but with the inclusion of all these connectivity options, a single cable could pull data transfer duty on a wide array of devices.

Apple Thunderbolt USB 3.0 Dock Connector Patent

The upgraded dock could be just a patent issued to protect an idea, but it is quite likely that Apple will actually bring this one to market. Patently Apple, a blog dedicated to Apple patents, feels that a hybrid dock connector could come into use this year, or sometime in 2012.

The ability to use one cable, to connect to speedy Thunderbolt connections on Macs and high end notebooks, as well as USB 3.0 which will eventually be standard on entry level Windows notebooks.

Right now, this doesn’t mean much to you the end consumer, other than to let you know that yes, Apple is committed to the dock connector, even if what’s at the other end of the cable changes.

Via MacRumors

Apple Patents Thunderbolt, USB 3.0 iOS Dock Connector is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

The newest MacBook Pro 13.3″ has a 2nd Gen Core i5 processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, 8X Superdrive and FaceTime HD webcam. There is also a backlit keyboard and Bluetooth 2.1. The new MacBOok Pro comes with Thunderbolt technology.

You can read part one of our 13″ MacBook Pro (early 2011) review here.

This is one of the best prices we have seen for an early 2011 MacBook Pro with the 2nd Generation Intel Core i5 processor.

In order to get this deal, you need to purchase online at MicroCenter and go in store to pickup the MacBook Pro. There is tax where applicable, but this is still a nice deal.

Visit MicroCenter for more information and to find a location near you.

MacBook Pro 13-inch Specs:

• Intel® Core i5 2nd Gen
• 4GB DDR3-1333 SDRAM
• 320GB 5,400RPM Hard Drive
• 13.3″ LED-backlit Glossy Widescreen Display
• 8x SuperDrive
• Intel HD Graphics 3000
• 10/100/1000 Network
• 802.11n Wireless
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
• Silver

MacBook Pro 13″ (early 2011) Core i5 for $999 Limited Time Deal is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

In a support document Apple covers this issue, noting that it should only be an issue when you have just finished a data migration to your new MacBook Pro. This could result in fans running for extended periods in a loud manner and in a warm MacBook Pro.

If you have just performed a data migration to your new MacBook Pro, we suggest that you leave the notebook alone, or deal with the loud fans, for a while. Once the Spotlight indexing is complete you shouldn’t have the same issues as Spotlight only indexes files that have been changed. You can see if your MacBook Pro is indexing by clicking on the spotlight in your upper right corner and looking for “Indexing….” in the search bar.

If you continue to experience loud fans and high CPU usage after Spotlight has finished the initial indexing you can exclude folders from being indexed. To exclude files, click on the Apple in your upper left corner, choose System Preferences, Spotlight, View. From here, you can add folders to Privacy to keep them from being indexed.

You can add the entire hard drive to this list to prevent any indexing, but it is not recommended as it could interfere with the ability to use search features from within applications on your Mac.

This problem isn’t unique to the MacBook Pro (early 2011) models as we have seen similar loud fans and excess heat issues on our late 2010 MacBook Air. If you need to check and see what is running on your Mac, check out Menu Meters which can show you what is using up system resources on your Mac.

Blame Spotlight for Loud MacBook Pro Fans (Early 2011) is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Unlike other brand and notebook ratings systems, the Amplicate notebook brand rankings take into account the “Love” and volume each brand receives from social media services. The ratings use a Bayesian average to figure out the brand “Love” Score.

Top Notebook Brands March 2011 by Social Media

These laptop and notebook brand rankings are refreshed every month and take into account how much users “Love” a brand. Amplicate is able to determine whether a status update or Tweet was a love or hate message and turn that into an overall ranking.

While Apple is leading the way with many more messages, the competition has higher Love percentages, which indicate a loyal commitment, even if it is from a smaller segment of users on social media services.

Some of the brands may not look familiar since this accounts for brands that make notebooks that appear predominantly in other countries. It’s interesting to see the low percentage of Love given to brands like HP, Lenovo and Dell. While they aren’t known for a cult-like following of Apple, these companies all make interesting notebooks.

The social media rankings are based on the status updates and as such, there is a margin of error. For example, if you follow through to the Apple Love or Apple Hate messages on Amplicate you’ll notice some of the updates are blatant fanboy comments praising or hating on Apple. The sentiment can be further misleading due to the fact that many of these brands make more than just notebooks.

What do you think about these rankings? What’s your favorite notebook brand.

Top 15 Notebook Brands As Ranked By Social Media is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.