How to configure iPhoto in my setup with external hard drive

Hi there,
I've been digging around for answers but I'm still not clear on what the right path is.
I have a new MacBook Air. For the obvious reason (space) I don't want to keep my photos on it. I have a functioning MacBook with a dead backlit screen. I can run it easily with an extended monitor. I have a new 2 Terrabyte Seagate Go Flex Home external drive that is my Time Machine backup.
I'm thinking that I should be able to have all my photos on the external hard drive and access them from my MacBook Air. But I don't know what the "best" or "easiest" or good route is to follow.
1) Can I move the my current MacBook iphoto library to the external Seagate Go Flex HD? ? There's an issue of the right formatting, yes? How would I know?
2) Should I skip using Iphoto and simply store photos? I don't love that idea.
3) Should I keep my old photos on the MacBook and access them from my Macbook Air? I have a 500 gig drive on that machine. If so, I need to make sure it never goes to sleep, yes?
4) If I do that can I set up the Air so that the photos go tot he MacBook?
4) Macbook has iPhoto '08. The Air has iPhoto '11. Is that an issue?
Is this all easier than I'm thinking? Or is is complicated?
THanks for your help,

You can move your iPhoto library to any directly connected hard drive that is formatted Mac OS extended (Journaled)
You can NOT share a single volume between a Time Machine backup and any other dynamic files ike the iPhoto library - TM continues to fill the drive until it is full and at that time iPhoto would quit working
You can not share a library with different versions of iPhoto
IMHO using a MBP as the drive for a MBA wouod not work well and might cause problems
My suggestion is to move your liberary to a new external drive -
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
And create a new library on your MBA for protable use and for current photos and use iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - to move photos between the iPhoto library on the EHD and the MBA
LN

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How to configure iPhoto in my setup with external hard drive

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