walkah: apple

Well, I must say... 30 is off to a great start. I have spent this birthday week feeling overwhelmed by love and support. Thanks to everyone involved :) To cap what is has been an utterly fantastic week, I'm now the proud new owner of a shiny macbook pro. Check a huge one off the ol' wishlist. I'm excited - *very* excited - to be in the land of intel. Parallels here I come!

First impressions? Um, this thing is fast. So much faster than anything I've owned so far. Wow.

So, like any self-respecting geek.. I belaboured the machine naming process and finally settled on "mingus" (yes after the Jazz great). Let the games begin!

here's a friendly little tech tip - 512mb of RAM is *not* enough to really be productive in OS X. here's to more workin' less swapin'!

it's official!

hrm. i may well be moving my mini to the living room. thanks, apple.

update: i jumped the gun a bit. you need to install it using instructions that can be found here. oh well. we're getting closer.

according to mac rumors:

The update appears to only offer stability improvements and no major new features. The newest update reportedly includes checks to make sure that the user is running on the iMac G5, which is presently the only supported configuration. Front Row is only available by purchasing the new iMac G5 with built in iSight.

i'm not sure i understand apple's whole idea behind this. why cripple it on non iMacs? there is clearly a market for this on other systems (i'm not the only one with a mac mini dying for front row).

anyone have any more information about the new version on non imacs?

call me a junkie, but my life without a powerbook was short-lived. though i meant well. I spent almost a full month using an old dell inspiron 2650 (dual booting windows and ubuntu). that was, until the drive failed - leaving me with two crippled laptops. while i could well try the drive from my powerbook in the dell, and rebuild it (again) ... i realized that I really just missed my powerbook.

so, one week ago today, i did something about it. i got myself a new toy. let me just say, I'm in complete love. I decided to go 15" this time for two reasons: first, I actually spend more time on my laptop than I ever thought I would when I originally bought my old 12" - the extra screen real estate makes a huge difference during long hours (nobody should be forced to work in 1024x768). second, I really really like the backlit keyboard for those late night hacking sessions when sandi is sleeping (which happen way way waaaaay too frequently).

oh and you better believe i ordered applecare . i've always been suspicious of extended warranties - and usually avoid them. but given the amount i rely on my powerbook... i seriously regret not getting it for my 12" powerbook. of course that means that this 15" will last for 5 years without a glitch (*knock on wood*).

thoughts after one week? i don't know why anyone would use a different laptop... these things really are (in my opinion, of course) the best on the market. who's with me?

UPDATE: if you are considering a 15" powerbook, and or want to read some of my reasoning presented by someone else (much more eloquently) check out this post by John Gruber @ daring fireball.

i was too busy to blog it last week, but the most interesting thing for me from last week's big apple media event was not the video ipod, itunes 6 (now with more video), or the new imac (with built-in isight). I think the coolest announcement was front row - apple's "10ft interface" including the adorable little shuffle-like remote. now *this* is exactly the kind of thing i want from apple. I want to stick my mac mini in my living room, and have an interface to play all my songs through itunes, watch movies (downloaded or otherwise), and maybe even do the odd photo slideshow for guests (or not). I've long thought about building a mythtv box for the purpose but the main limiting factor (aside from the boring old lack of time and money) is aesthetics. anything that goes in the living room has to be "wife approved" - i.e. it needs to not be a big, ugly beige box (with associated fan noise), and it needs to have a simple, elegant interface so that I'm not required to work it. front row sure looks like it fits the bill.

but WAIT! front row is apparently *only* available with a new iMac. WHAT?? that doesn't make any sense. As far as I can tell, the remote is bluetooth (which my mini supports) and the software is just software, no? Dear apple, I'd buy this today if I saw it on apple.com!

it appears i'm not the only one who thinks so. in fact, there's even an online petition - which i signed. please tell me there is a good reason for this besides pushing imac sales?

UPDATE: apparently, according to this page the remote, while available is IR *not* Bluetooth. *sigh*