MacBook

My old reliable iBook has been a workhorse for me, but it's really been showing its age these days. I have been mainly a PC / Windows guy since I started with computers as a toddler; This has given me a number of benefits since this platform often requires a lot of fixing / maintenance / problem-solving /etc. This process comes naturally to me. Since I fix things, I've made plenty of money fixing people's malfunctioning Windows boxes.

But notebooks are not nearly as modular as desktop machines and you're a lot more reliant on the manufacturer when something goes wrong; You can't just open it up and easily swap a failing fan or obsolete motherboard if you need to do it. If I want something that I can't just take apart, I want that something to be a Mac. I want everything to be integrated together from top to bottom, hardware to OS. Over the last 3.5 years, I've really become a fan of OS X, and think it's the best platform for just sitting down and doing your work. You don't have to remember that it's a computer with an operating system to use it. You can treat it like a black box appliance. And even though I'm a fixer of things, I still like to be able to sit down and enjoy the smooth ride without worrying about manually ensuring that everything's not falling apart.

Some people at work deride me for wanting to spend money on a "crapintosh" and such; I used to use those same arguments and retorts as late as 2001. But honestly I think you just have to sit down and use it for your work and experience what it's like. There's no single "explanation" or "comparison" that would really convince a technial person that using a Mac for your work is a good choice. In fact it often looks pretty stupid considering the profit margins that Apple makes. Though even I wouldn't want to be in a Mac-only environment because there are a good number of bleeding-edge activities that I need my PC desktop for that I simply can't do on the Mac. Not to mention games.

I've debated just sticking with my present iBook G3 800 MHz for a while now, but it's starting to become unmanageable. I don't want to spend a pile of money upgrading the OS so I can run the latest apps. The CPU is just barely fast enough to play a DVD through the Apple player, and can't handle the same through VLC. It can't show a high-bitrate MPEG-4 video without it looking like a slideshow. Manipulating graphics is simply painfully slow. Everything is feeling slow on it these days.

So the point is that I think I'll be buying a new MacBook within the next 12 months. I'll watch ThinkSecret and purchase right after they upgrade the line, either saving money by buying what's now second-best or getting the latest right when it's new. The only thing left is to save my money.