Today my laptop (a 15″ G4 Apple Powerbook) died. It’s survived being dropped (not by me) , it’s had coffee spilt on it (not by me), it’s been around Australia and overseas on numerous trips, it’s been used for tens of thousands of blog posts (it must be close to 15 – 20k) and it’s done it all well. While it has slowed a little in the past few months (and I’ve used it less and less and my desktop more and more) today it gasped its last breath – kind of sad really.
So with a couple of trips approaching and numerous presentations to give in the upcoming weeks I ran out today for a little retail therapy (no period of mourning for the Powerbook I’m afraid) and have returned home with a 15″ 2.16Ghz Mac Book Pro (Matt screen with 2 Gig of RAM and just the 100 gig HD).
I’m still in the process of transferring files but so far it’s a nice piece of gear and is performing very nicely (although apart from being faster than the old powerbook it feels very very similar so far).
All this to say – I’ve got a new toy blogging tool and I haven’t posted much today as a result.
BTW – did I mention I won an iPod? It arrived today also (80 gig video version – white). Looks like Christmas came early at our place!
Where’s the photos mate? :)
Big hard drives scare me – the bigger the hard drive the more data you lose when the hard drive dies – and so few people ever think to back up till they’ve lost everything.
Wow! Awesome stuff! I has Apple send me the new 80GB iPod to review it, it’s very nice.
Congrats on the MacBook Pro, any chance of a few pictures of your blogging computer setup? :-)
Can we get a few pics? I’m seriously considering buying a Mac Book. Maybe you could post a review after using it for a month.
Will post some pictures in the days ahead :-)
Awesome! Looking forward to it.
Very nice.
I got my laptop late last year and tossed up between Mac and PC,went with PC as it’s what I knew. I wish I’d taken the dive into Macworld as I’m now saving my Googlies for a Macbook.
I’m jealous. My little iBook G4 is getting old and feeling a little slow. Now I’m lusting after the MacBook Pro, especially since I can also run the Windows virus for those few essential apps…
Wow, I’m jealous. You’ve got some real nice stuffs there for Christmas. Congrats and happy advanced Christmas for you then! Cheers.
Congrats and happy advanced Christmas for you and V.! I haven’t Mac and its my dream (even G4) so I’m very happy for you!
Congrats on the new Mac! Like many others, I had toyed with the idea of going Apple. Not to make this a tech talk, but what are the major downsides of going Apple(if any?)
I am positively green with envy although my preferred machine will be a Core 2 Duo black (to go with my iPod) MacBook that has the most memory, biggest drive and fastest processor I can afford. Anything bigger than a 13″ MacBook is too big for my needs. My current machine is a 12″ PowerBook which I have loved using.
Wow! Awesome stuff! I has Apple send me the new 80GB iPod to review it, it’s very nice.
I’m with Stuart. You may have a huge hardrive to fit almost all of your files and more, but it’s like putting all your eggs in one basket. If it fails, all you eggs…err files goes down the drain as well. Then comes the frustrations, the agony and the loss of productivity.
Everything is better with a mac. It’s a necessary tool for living a focused life!
I’ve had my 12″ PowerBook for about 2 years. I’m holding out for it to die before I get the upgrade. It’s still going strong. I love these things!
Good luck with your new MBP.
One of these days I may upgrade to a newer computer, I’m currently on an iBook G4 which is fairly fast, but is getting hard because I regularly compile thousands of lines of source code. Probably won’t get a new laptop until the warranty is finished on this… it has just under a year to go. Guess its time to start saving.
Darren also got his PowerBook working again, it was a battery problem so now he has 4 Mac’s in his household :-)
Congratulations!! I, too, am envious. I must say, those are very slick, compared to my 12″ white G4 iBook.
Alas, I wont be joining you though. My needs have shifted, and I must get a desktop far before I upgrade my laptop. My iBook has been serving both roles (with the help of an external monitor, and some external hard drives), but nonetheless, I am excited to see what the new Apple lineup will be for Christmas and, more importantly, early 2007.
Good luck with your machine, and if you can, try to sell the older ones…they can still fetch a pretty penny (for some reason, macs hold a great resale value).
Darren, I am really enjoying your site. Just discovered it a short time ago. On the Apple, I love the Apple, I use a G5 Powermac and have used the G4 Powerbook. Just curious, what programs do you use on the Apple? For blogging that is. And do you use very many of Google’s available tools?
Thanks
Deborah – pretty much the only mac specific tool I use for actual blogging is ecto for mac as a desktop blog editor.
Darren,
Dare I ask how it feels that they’ve just updated the MBP range with Intel Core 2 Duo chips? You still have a fantastic machine, of course.
I did a similar thing last year and bought my Powerbook about a month before they all went over to Intel!
Technology never slows down does it?
hehe – yeah I was waiting for someone to point this out – in short – it sucks :-)
Of course it’s not a massive upgrade (phew). I already went for 2gig of RAM so that isn’t a massive concern (and the upgrade to 3 gig is expensive) but it would have been nice to have some of the other stuff…..
wonder if I can find something wrong with it to take it back :-)
Well, this didn’t last long.
My iBook G4 hard drive just died… :(
At least I keep good backups and my external drive is bootable… and at least most of my important stuff (website junk) is all online. Time to call up Apple support it seems…