/blog/2006/07/02/geeking-out-with-a-new-laptop/ When you communicate better, work's more fun (and productive) Sat, 21 Oct 2006 15:50:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 /blog/2006/07/02/geeking-out-with-a-new-laptop/#comment-6 Mon, 21 Aug 2006 21:46:38 +0000 /blog/2006/07/02/geeking-out-with-a-new-laptop/#comment-6 [...] For the record, my preferred Unix-based OS is Mac OS X, but at the moment I own just one (recently purchased) Mac; meanwhile, I still own two PCs and have the use of a third (home desktop, home laptop, and work laptop.)  It’ll be a while before I can afford to replace them all with Macs, if ever. So I’ve got Ubuntu installed in a secondary partition on the two PCs I own right now, and between them and the new MacBook, I am happily using Microsoft products less and less as time goes by. [...] […] For the record, my preferred Unix-based OS is Mac OS X, but at the moment I own just one (recently purchased) Mac; meanwhile, I still own two PCs and have the use of a third (home desktop, home laptop, and work laptop.)  It’ll be a while before I can afford to replace them all with Macs, if ever. So I’ve got Ubuntu installed in a secondary partition on the two PCs I own right now, and between them and the new MacBook, I am happily using Microsoft products less and less as time goes by. […]

]]> /blog/2006/07/02/geeking-out-with-a-new-laptop/#comment-5 Sat, 29 Jul 2006 06:11:18 +0000 /blog/2006/07/02/geeking-out-with-a-new-laptop/#comment-5 [...] Back when the Thinkpad died I had such a bad time that I decided I would not buy a Lenovo. So, particularly noticing how Windows Vista sounds almost as bad as certain initiatives at work, I went Mac. Herewith my last few days when not taking care of sick kid and tired spouse and other things. One of the thoughts driving the decision was that Lenovo was a Chinese company, and Apple was Cupertino. So, “buy American” might be a nice idea, right? Yes, yes, of course the FedEx for the laptop originated in Suzhou, China. So why does Apple say somewhere in a EULA after I buy the machine that I can’t export it? So the Chinese don’t get a couple of hundred to build an X-cluster? The ones they’re building for us? Ecch. Anyhow. For the price of the previous Lenovo (with enough left over for a game or two and a downpayment for the terabyte hard drive): One Mini, tricked out as far as the standard options allowed; one plain vanilla MacBook, similarly set up. A pair of two GB ram chip sets from Small Dog, because they had a good recommendation and were on sale for less than half what Apple charged (although the smug was a little high on the web site). Barry’s recommendations are certainly spot on; here are some additional things I have learned in my upgrading and migrating and moving and cleaning: [...] […] Back when the Thinkpad died I had such a bad time that I decided I would not buy a Lenovo. So, particularly noticing how Windows Vista sounds almost as bad as certain initiatives at work, I went Mac. Herewith my last few days when not taking care of sick kid and tired spouse and other things. One of the thoughts driving the decision was that Lenovo was a Chinese company, and Apple was Cupertino. So, “buy American” might be a nice idea, right? Yes, yes, of course the FedEx for the laptop originated in Suzhou, China. So why does Apple say somewhere in a EULA after I buy the machine that I can’t export it? So the Chinese don’t get a couple of hundred to build an X-cluster? The ones they’re building for us? Ecch. Anyhow. For the price of the previous Lenovo (with enough left over for a game or two and a downpayment for the terabyte hard drive): One Mini, tricked out as far as the standard options allowed; one plain vanilla MacBook, similarly set up. A pair of two GB ram chip sets from Small Dog, because they had a good recommendation and were on sale for less than half what Apple charged (although the smug was a little high on the web site). Barry’s recommendations are certainly spot on; here are some additional things I have learned in my upgrading and migrating and moving and cleaning: […]

]]> /blog/2006/07/02/geeking-out-with-a-new-laptop/#comment-4 Thu, 06 Jul 2006 06:06:56 +0000 /blog/2006/07/02/geeking-out-with-a-new-laptop/#comment-4 [...] I’ve got a bit of a head start configuring the thing with a good summary of tweaks and mods and so forth. I’d add BTV to the list of shareware, and a few others; Barry’s right about OpenOffice, and Gimp is similar. [...] […] I’ve got a bit of a head start configuring the thing with a good summary of tweaks and mods and so forth. I’d add BTV to the list of shareware, and a few others; Barry’s right about OpenOffice, and Gimp is similar. […]

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