Geek Cred
I'm lacking in this important department. Street Cred is something rappers want, Geek cred is something I want.
I haven't upgraded my computer in 5 years. I have an Athlon XP 1800 (1.5 GHz) with 512 MB RAM. Video cards now have this amount of memory. I just bought a new keyboard after using my previous one for 8 years. It was dirty (<-- understatement). My monitor is not even widescreen. I don't even bother with new computer games anymore because I know I can't run them.
My current dilemma is whether to buy a desktop or laptop. I've decided to get a laptop first to help with my constant moving around and then when Starcraft II comes out, to get a new desktop.
But here's where the geek cred comes in. I'm going to get a Mac laptop. Probably not a Macbook Air, as it's crippled is a few ways, even though it's undeniably sexy. I'm probably looking at the low end Macbook Pro. I have to experience the UI everyone keeps raving about. I have to play with Unix. I have to feel the sleek form factor. I have to see what a big difference integrated hardware/software can make. I have to virtualize ftw!!!
The bad thing about Apple is the insane pricing. Because there is such a big difference, I'll probably get my sister to buy it in the States with her Education discount (She's a teacher in the USA). That will result in a savings of $500-$550. I can't believe it's such a big difference and it only increases with the pricer models. Even with that discount, it's still going to be pricey, especially when compared to a PC. Now if I could only convince my family to become exclusive Mac users...
I haven't upgraded my computer in 5 years. I have an Athlon XP 1800 (1.5 GHz) with 512 MB RAM. Video cards now have this amount of memory. I just bought a new keyboard after using my previous one for 8 years. It was dirty (<-- understatement). My monitor is not even widescreen. I don't even bother with new computer games anymore because I know I can't run them.
My current dilemma is whether to buy a desktop or laptop. I've decided to get a laptop first to help with my constant moving around and then when Starcraft II comes out, to get a new desktop.
But here's where the geek cred comes in. I'm going to get a Mac laptop. Probably not a Macbook Air, as it's crippled is a few ways, even though it's undeniably sexy. I'm probably looking at the low end Macbook Pro. I have to experience the UI everyone keeps raving about. I have to play with Unix. I have to feel the sleek form factor. I have to see what a big difference integrated hardware/software can make. I have to virtualize ftw!!!
The bad thing about Apple is the insane pricing. Because there is such a big difference, I'll probably get my sister to buy it in the States with her Education discount (She's a teacher in the USA). That will result in a savings of $500-$550. I can't believe it's such a big difference and it only increases with the pricer models. Even with that discount, it's still going to be pricey, especially when compared to a PC. Now if I could only convince my family to become exclusive Mac users...
posted by Nelson at 10:41 PM
9 Comments:
Don't get me started on the Apple MacBook and its Apple Care (which is crap, it covers nothing but "warranty" stuff, no coverage for spill like Dell/IBM's "Complete" Care)
Glad my dead white MacBook was a company one that I didn't lose $3K on.
I got this $200 desktop from boxing day
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10096472&catid=24137
Also have IBM R61e laptop coming from Lenovo price error (Core 2 Duo+1GB RAM+250GB HDD for $600)
You don't need Apple to try Unix, don't join the dark side =P
or might as well get MacBook Air!!
lol, i was just pricing a laptop a few days ago - asus g1s-a1 with a decent vc for <1500 before tax. but i dunno, i think sc2 will be delayed, AND you prolly dun want a vc that it's recommended for... but rather something even better to handle everything for sure (the 8600mgt in g1s i think supports dx10) and everything else on the machine should allow u to run sc2 for a while so u can wait after it's released b4 buying a much better system for sc2 and future games... however, that being said, i've no clue how much the macbook u're looking at costs... (and if u want unix, just dualboot!) as for additional vc memory, APPARENTLY unless you're running at a high res, 256vs512 doesn't really make much of a diff... as much as 128vs256.
can your sister help me buy an iphone with her student discount?
I recently upgraded my PC, which is based on a Shuttle barebones. The specs when I first built it were fairly standard, but I recently upgraded. RAM is so cheap these days, that I went with 2*2 GB sticks. I also upgraded the HD as I was running out of space. So now the system is:
- Shuttle XPC SN27P2 barebones
- Athlon 64 X2 2.0 GHz CPU (dual core)
- 5 GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM
- 2*750 GB 7.2k SATA2 drives, RAID1 mirrored w/ nVidia RAID controller integrated into the mobo chipset
- 320 GB SATA2 drive
- no name video card
- 24" LCD (basically my TV)
- 19" LCD (on my desk)
- 100 Mbps FTTH Internet connection
- Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit
The greatest thing about 5 GB of RAM is that the system NEVER pages out to disk. Take a second to imagine how responsive your computer would be if it never paged to disk. Yes, it's that fast. With a couple of VMWare machines running I've managed to bring it down to about 3.5 GB of RAM usage. Windows Vista is, I think, a really nice OS, but it needs lots of RAM to not lapse into being annoying.
Vista is obviously another large step over XP in many different ways, but the biggest difference I notice is the totally re-written network code. Certain applications tended to bring my PC to its knees under XP or 2000 when they started making hundreds of TCP/IP connections, but Vista has no issues with this.
I freaked out a bit when I first powered it up with XP 32-bit running as the reported RAM was around 3.7 GB, but then I remembered that 32-bit OSes can only address 2^32 bytes. :)
Another interesting thing is that my ~$30 no name video card with 128 MB of its own RAM reports that it has 2.2 GB of RAM in the nVidia control panel since it borrows memory from main memory.
Of course, the dual 750 GB RAID1 (mirrored) drives will turn into 3*750 GB RAID5(2+1) drives once I fill things up. Or maybe I'll just buy another 2*750 GB drives. ;)
I can't stress enough the importance of data redundancy, especially given my current employer. We all know how unexpected and disastrous HD crashes can be. Really, RAIDn isn't good enough: you need an off-site backup as well. Have been thinking about Mozy (EMC just acquired them) or a similar service. I have a Linux PC in Canada I was going to use to roll my own solution, but it died months ago.
But if you want serious storage, I recommend the new EMC Symmetrix DMX4 with some 146 GB SSD flash drives on its 4Gbps back-end, 256 GB of cache, and 4*4 Gbps HBAs to connect to your new PC. Cash or cheque?
http://www.emc.com/about/news/press/us/2008/011408-1.htm
Jeff
woo, ssd! i've always wanted to know if there's been a comparison of lifespan of ssds vs hdds during actual use (since hdd mttf/mtbfs don't always reflect the true lifespan) in a controlled setting?
Jeff, I'm guessing the small form factor is important for someone living in Japan? Yeah, the 512 MB of RAM is killer for me right now. Maybe I should just upgrade that in the short term. What is the 320GB SATA2 drive for? Right now, my backup scheme is crappy as I manually backup my files onto my portable HDD. It's not ideal for obvious reasons, but I'm too lazy to invest in a NAS or set up a RAID system. I'm just waiting for Google to backup all my data for me.
Did you really mean 256 GM of cache????
Keith, I'm not too worried about starcraft 2 being delayed. I'm guessing it's going to come up sometime in mid to late 2009. I'm not in a big hurry. Also, I know I can dual boot into Unix, but it'd be nicer to virtualize a MAC instead.
*in my last post I meant to say 256 GB, not 256 GM.
Nels: Yes, 256 GB. You should check out Mozy (www.mozy.com) for backups. $5/month for unlimited data.
The 320 GB HD was the old one, before I bought the 2*750 GB drives. It's not really doing much now, as I've moved pretty much everything off of it.
Small form factor is definitely key: my apartment is only 240 sq ft, and (besides hallway/kitchen/washroom) just one room. So (lack of fan) noise is also key.
Keith: for SSDs, with the built-in hardware algorithms for rotating write locations (works because the fact that it doesn't matter where you put the data), it would be several years with 24x7 continual random writes before you would start to see single bit errors. EMC wouldn't have rolled these out if they weren't confident of their longevity.
Mac is not straight Unix, you need apps compiled against it's BSD kernel of which many of the common ones are, but you can't just download random packages.
In any case, the Unix element is not that useful, what would you do with it anyways?
Post a Comment
<< Home