When the moon is in the seventh house

[austin_dern]

I mentioned in, I think, adequate and appropriate amounts the recent signs my computer is ready to retire: the fullness of its hard drive, the increasing numbers of softwares I can't run due to having a G4-based microchip, the keyboard which is failing me faster than my fingers are failing me, and most recently the power cord which has worn out. The obvious path to take has been clear for months; so, after only months of diddling about and with the aid of skylerbunny in rousing notions into action, I did it. I bought a new computer.

It's a new Mac, as those who know me would expect. It's one of the 15-inch MacBook Pro, newest-line model --- the newest computer I've ever bought, as this edition was just released a few weeks ago. In keeping with my father's policy about rare and durable (modulo the market) purchases I over-spent, getting the faster chip and the higher-pixel screen on the theory that if I keep this for years I shouldn't have any nagging feelings of ``if only I'd spent a hundred dollars more and got the slightly fancier model''. It represents several new frontiers for me, being my first Intel-powered computer, and the first with that button-free trackpad thing, and my first web camera-enabled computer (discounting the one at work because it's not my computer and I stuck a Post-It note tab over the camera the day it was brought in).

I'd like to report on its performance but it's about three hours into what it estimated as 14 hours, 29 minutes of transferring the 25.9 gigabytes which made up my previous computer's existence, from Time Capsule, onto the new machine. I suppose I could have just built from scratch, but if migrating your data is supposed to be a good thing, and I think it is, I'm going to take advantage of it. So I have another day to consider just which programs I want to have on my new machine, and how to organize everything. I could use some organization; I've never had it, myself.

Trivia: Josiah Willard Gibbs's 1876 paper establishing the theory of chemical thermodynamics he had published only in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, where it languished in obscurity until 1883 when Wilhelm Ostwald translated it into German. Source: Asimov's New Guide To Science, Isaac Asimov.

Currently Reading: Dick Tracy: America's Most Famous Detective, Editor Bill Crouch, Jr. It's articles and original writing and many, many strip examples including several complete stories, originally published about 1990 so it gives away spoilers for the movie. And I'm definitely going to have to quote various bits at length, which I'll save for later in the week.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you've selected a new system, and I think overspending on the higher-res model will assuredly be worth it in the long run, indeed. Good luck with the data transfer, and we'll look forward to hearing further reports!

I took the opposite route with my netbook, but that was a a question of "Is $242 with tax and shipping worth it?" It has been, and I'm taking a perverse pleasure in not upgrading it* nor buying accessories. (Beyond one mouse, which has since been given to K.) Two years later it still works for the 4 hours a month I need it to.

--Chi
[*1] I did spend an extra $25, maybe $26.50 with tax, to have the 512M of Ram upgraded to 1 Gig at factory. That seemed sensible.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The early results on the new computer are looking very positive, although there is that detailed process of getting everything set up. A computer picks up a lot of quirks of how things are Really Supposed To Look over the years and they just don't get transferred even by a migration assistant.

The tight and rigorously followed budget is the other approach to this sort of purchase and there are good sides to it: I'd probably buy computers more often and enjoy the regular upgrades of performance and features more often if I spent less on them on average and in aggregate, for example. This is just how I like to look at machines.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Buying the cheapest consumer model refurbished has worked fine for me so far.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It has, yes. I was thinking quite seriously of a refurbished computer, but the new model seemed sufficiently more advanced to be worth the extra expense.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Well, when building this PC (Something I'm not planning to do again) I managed a fairly expensive, long-term build that still managed to come in at about $800-900 all told; I went very deluxe with that as I'd intended it to survive for the better part of a decade. (And it has thus far, with only memory and monitor upgrades.)

The Netbook is a different beast. It's of inconsequential regular use and will last me five years because performance and features don't matter; it is a triumph of "Yeah, this will get me by."

--Chi

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I suppose technically my PowerBook went for the better part of a decade, but only by a week or so above five years.

The big-main-computer and small get-me-by computer model is another decent way to plan this sort of thing. I'm still getting used to the idea of having my main computer and my iPad, but then I also feel a little decadent having two different scents of soap in the bathroom sink and shower.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

The iPad is an excellent second computer, as netbooks and tablets and smartphones all seem to circle nicely around there. for some people it's their main computer, which.. well, it'd work okay for my Mom but I need a computer to compute.

My phone has become my *daily* Second computer. my netbook has become my *monthly* second computer. It's a weird land.

--Chi

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I, in fact, do understand and don't find the difference nearly as weird as you might think.

I'd need to have several terminal windows open simultaneously to get the most frequent important activity done on the iPad. I'd also make use of the Bluetooth keyboard, but just because I really need the cursor keys and they're inexplicably absent from the touch-screen keyboard.