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New I love my PowerBook
Here's one little example why. I have this uncle who's a total technophobe. He even calls me over twice a year to program his house thermostats when the weather changes.

He got a nifty new digital camera. He went on vacation and took about 600 pictures with it and wanted me to help him load them into his PC (windows something or other). The camera came with a CD bearing some kind of Kodak labeled picture management software and a USB interface. I install the software, plug in the camera, press send, the progress bar does the complete dance over 3-5 minutes and then the thing hangs with a "Searching for pictures" dialog. I do this about 6 times with various re-installs and get the same result every time.

I'm out of time and need to leave.

In exasperation, I whip my TiBook out of my backpack, jam the USB cable into the back and immediately see the iPhoto icon begin bouncing in the dock. The app launches and there is a lovely picture of this model of camera, its name, and a large friendly Import button - which I click. Spend about 10 minutes flipping all the sideways shots right side up, pop in a blank CD, select "last roll", click export, select the CD, click burn, wait 3-4 minutes, hit eject and hand him the disk so he can import it into his lame Kodak software thingy.

This thing is the swiss army knife of computers. It can do anything effortlessly. The more I screw with interfacing it to random stuff, the more believeable that scene in that alien movie where Jeff Goldblum uses a powerbook to implant a computer virus looks to me.

I love this thing.



Java is a joke, only it's not funny.

     --Alan Lovejoy
Expand Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:21:09 AM EDT
New Similar anecdote
My sister's fiancee is shipping out to Afghanistan at the end of next month. He bought a Sony Vaio Laptop, desktop, and camera thinking they'd all work together seamlessly. He spent a couple of weeks of pure frustration trying to get it all to work.

My brother and I were over at my sister's the other night helping them get their computer stuff organized because he bought another laptop (older Toshiba) to take to Afghanistan with him. I spent some time networking the PCs so he could get files off both the sonys, and my sister's compaq onto his Toshiba for the trip while my brother messed with the toshiba getting it to talk to the 2 different cameras he's taking.

I got all my part done, and the Toshiba still wasn't talking to the cameras right. Turns out we needed several updates to bothe the camera software and Win98. Took several hours over the dialup at my sister's (wish we'd done this at mine or my brother's place!).

Meanwhile, Fiancee Dude is asking about my brother's powerbook. He asked why it cost so much more than his $1100 Sony. My brother said "We've been working on getting these damn cameras to talk to this toshiba for like 3 hours now, and it took you like 2 weeks to your Sony camera to talk to your Sony computers. I'll bet you a beer that i can plug your camera into my powerbook and have all it's pictures downloaded in less than five minutes." Fiancee accepts bet. I start my stopwatch. Brother pulls powerbook (new 15" G4) from his bag, wakes it, plugs camera in, powerbook almost immediately recognizes it, and he has all the pics downloaded. Took less than 2 minutes.

Fiancee wants a mac when he gets back.
-----
Steve
New On a smaller scale...
I had a similar experience when my my brother bought a nice Logitech optical mouse for his PC. I spent a few hours over there, upgrade hiw Win95 to Win98, hoping this would that USB would magically start working. But no. Occasionally the mouse would light up, but Windows steadfastly refused to talk to it, no matter how much fiddling round I did.

I said "You should get a Mac"
"Why?" he asked.

I pulled my iBook out of my bag, woke it up, plugged the mouse in and two seconds later it started working.

"Ah", he said.
John. Busy lad.
New Apple Laptops
Computing Like It's Supposed To Be


Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
New Speaking of which
A friend told me that I could get an older model (G3) that ran OS-X for about $750. Any opinion about whether that's powerful enuf? And is that a good price?
New How fast a G3?
Mine's a 500Mhz, and it's OK. I'd strongly recommend >256 MB RAM though.
John. Busy lad.
New 933MHz G4/256MB here
Seems sprightly enough.


Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
New Little iBook starts at $1099
For the nominal increase you get a lot more computer. I'd value a 500 MHz G3 w/Firewire (w/o Firewire I'd skip it) and Airport card at $500.

It'd be a fine casual user machine. (My wife has one she uses daily)

For development (particularly Java) it'll make you want to slit your wrists.




Java is a joke, only it's not funny.

     --Alan Lovejoy
Expand Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:22:36 AM EDT
New Heh.
For development (particularly Java) it'll make you want to slit your wrists.

Developing in Java alone makes me want to do that.
New check Low End Mac
[link|http://www.lowendmac.com/ibook/ig3deals.html|Best iBook G3 Deals: New, Used, and Refurbished]
This week's standout deals (marked in bold below):
  • used 12"/300 CD-ROM, $390, MegaMacs
  • used 12"/366 CD-ROM, $480, MegaMacs
  • used 12"/600 CD-ROM, $650, PowerBook Guy
  • new 12"/800 CD-ROM, $700, Club Mac
there's more than that listed, those are what they show as the best deals. I'm using an older Blue & White PowerMac(minitower) that's got a G3 @ 450MHz w/288MB. Works very well with OS X. I am planning to upgrade the CPU in the near future though as I'd like to use iChat AV for video conferencing. I'm already using it for IM and audio, but the video conferencing needs a 600MHz G3, or any speed G4 or G5.
Darrell Spice, Jr.                      [link|http://www.spiceware.org/cgi-bin/spa.pl?album=./Artistic%20Overpass|Artistic Overpass]\n[link|http://www.spiceware.org/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
New Re: Speaking of which
Hi
This link will provide you a cheap one.



[link|http://http://www.dvwarehouse.com/index.php/cPath/253_53_120| mac ]
New cute but how does target = blank get you to microft?
"You're just like me streak. You never left the free-fire zone.You think aspirins and meetings and cold showers are going to clean out your head. What you want is God's permission to paint the trees with the bad guys. That wont happen big mon." Clete
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
New SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM!
Burn 'im real gud. 'ow do I know 'es a witch? I's just do.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey

Give a man a match, he'll be warm for a minute.
Set him on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life!
New No it won't
Jeez. You don't get the quality of spammers that you used to around here.


Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
New did you click the link?
"You're just like me streak. You never left the free-fire zone.You think aspirins and meetings and cold showers are going to clean out your head. What you want is God's permission to paint the trees with the bad guys. That wont happen big mon." Clete
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
New Yep.
Document contained no data.


Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
New huh, I get redirected to www.microsoft.com
"You're just like me streak. You never left the free-fire zone.You think aspirins and meetings and cold showers are going to clean out your head. What you want is God's permission to paint the trees with the bad guys. That wont happen big mon." Clete
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
New M$ here too - using Firefox 0.8 under OS X
Darrell Spice, Jr.                      [link|http://www.spiceware.org/cgi-bin/spa.pl?album=./Artistic%20Overpass|Artistic Overpass]\n[link|http://www.spiceware.org/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
New Pornography (78K of SIN!)
[image|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org/filth.jpg||If you're looking at pictures of an iBook with Lynx, I don't even wanna talk to you.||]


Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
     I love my PowerBook - (tuberculosis) - (18)
         Similar anecdote - (Steve Lowe) - (1)
             On a smaller scale... - (Meerkat)
         Apple Laptops - (pwhysall) - (14)
             Speaking of which - (ChrisR) - (13)
                 How fast a G3? - (Meerkat) - (1)
                     933MHz G4/256MB here - (pwhysall)
                 Little iBook starts at $1099 - (tuberculosis) - (1)
                     Heh. - (mmoffitt)
                 check Low End Mac - (SpiceWare)
                 Re: Speaking of which - (Amir) - (7)
                     cute but how does target = blank get you to microft? -NT - (boxley)
                     SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! - (folkert)
                     No it won't - (pwhysall) - (4)
                         did you click the link? -NT - (boxley) - (3)
                             Yep. - (pwhysall) - (2)
                                 huh, I get redirected to www.microsoft.com -NT - (boxley) - (1)
                                     M$ here too - using Firefox 0.8 under OS X -NT - (SpiceWare)
         Pornography (78K of SIN!) - (pwhysall)

I don't think these were sliced from anything.
154 ms