Tech Blog

[#1]

We had a friend over last night for dinner and as you'd expect eventually the topic of computers came up. Our friend has a successful (competitor) store selling vintage clothes that she buys, cleans, and alters. Her current machine is, as you'd expect, a Windows desktop machine.

When she said, I really need to get a new computer next year, my fiancée and I both said to get a Mac. I showed our friend my Hackintosh, which isn't really an option for her, since it's more of a geeks tool (given the more than occasional hacks and fixes required to make it work), and then she saw the MacBook Air.

We a SQUEEE of delight that could only be rivaled by a Mac fan-boy on Apple product launch days, she said she looooooovvvvved the MacBook Air and wanted one. I'm pretty sure that she liked it because of the a) pink hard shell I put on it (especially since it also comes in purple) and b) the esthetics of OS X. not anything to do with how it worked and such.

Which brings me to the subject of today's post: how and why did you choose your current computer(s)?

I'll start off here, because that's the polite thing to do, I think. Here at the Chez Hussey we have three computers in active service, one as a backup and Windows test environment machine, one waiting for retirement, and two in my closet waiting for their time to be donated to have better lives as Linux boxes for people without computers.

Let's start with the active service units...

My 15" MacBook Pro was the replacement for my Windows laptop (which is now the extra machine and what I use when I need to test something in a Windows environment) when it started to break under the strain of my photo editing needs (even with a bump to 4 GB of RAM). After doing some research into how much laptop I needed for serious photo editing it became pretty clear that I'd be paying almost the same amount for a Mac as I would for a PC. The time for the closet Mac fan boy in me to finally come out arrived. I used Apple machines (starting with an Apple IIe) from 1984-2000. Sure I had to use PCs for work and such, but my go-to machine was my Mac(s). I picked my machine based on performance and size. Not to mention I had lots of friends with the same model and loved it. Done.

The MacBook Air was my present to my fiancée after she had been using my old Windows laptop for a while and it was still randomly shutting itself off. I found it on sale as a used machine and a deal too good to pass up. Yes, my fiancée would have been just fine with a basic Windows laptop and didn't really need a new (to her) machine, however I wanted to bring her into the fold of Mac-ddom. She is a basic, average computer user. She's transitioned to the Mac pretty well. I did have to pick up the Apple SuperDrive for her because she often needs to copy CDs and make CDs for her voice students to practice with. We've also found that she filled up the harddrive already, so my 40GB external is now hers. With her on a Mac it's easier for me to help her with stuff and I can take advantage of the family pack licenses for MS Office, etc that I have.

My Eee PC 901 was a splurge purchase before my vacation to Jamaica in 2008. I wanted something small and light that I could take with me to write a little and be able to offload pics to as well. This machine has gone from it's stock Windows XP install to several different flavours of Ubuntu and Linux and now OS X. This is my "have by the couch to look something up on Wikipedia", zap off a quick email, or jot down a quick thought machine. It's nice to have around and now that it's a Hackintosh I'm going to try to get more use out of it. I might pilfer a 2 GB RAM from the Windows laptop to put in it though. 1 GB just isn't really enough.

My fiancée's old Windows desktop is destined for wiping and either donating (her preference I'm sure) or become a little sandbox server for me. I'd love to have a little SSH or VPN machine that I can bounce through when I'm out and about. She got it like most folks, her dad and brother picked and configed it for her. I'm not so sure they made great choices though. Course then I would have to maintain it. Sigh.

The semi-duty Windows laptop isn't destined for another life anytime soon. I like having it around for testing and such. I chose that one when the power brick on its predecessor literally melted (like burning to touch, bad smell, probably even magic blue smoke) and I needed something newer, lighter, and right-freakin'-now.

There you have it, a bunch of machines and their stories (the ones gathering dust in the closet don't really count, except one is a Power Computer Mac clone from the late 90s, so that is pretty cool). Now, what's your story?

[#2]

I've got two computers; my desk top and laptop.

My desktop is my main workhorse. Built it from parts around 3 years ago, shortly after I started working at Future Shop. Was jealous working on all these pretty new machines while I was running Windows 98 at home, on an old 1.3Ghz machine. I've frankensteined parts from old computers into it, and it's a decent machine, even if some of the stuff is kind of old. The case doesn't have any USB ports on the front -- I've taken some USB ports from an abandoned computer and wired them through the floppy drive bay. Heh. Still, it's rockin' a Radeon X1950 Pro, 2GB RAM, some flavor of AMD dual core, more than enough for everything I do with it.

My laptop was a bit of a binge purchase. Due to some family matters, I knew I was heading out west next year, and I wanted something to keep me occupied during what I thought would be a plane trip and turned out to be a bunch of motel stays during a real long roadtrip instead. Anyway, the laptop needed to be decent sized, not small, not big, and I was hoping for an Intel Core 2 Duo with at least 2 GB RAM, all for under $600. Turns out there was an LG R200 on clearance at the time that matched those specs, and the little screen on the top of the case looked pretty cool, so that's what I picked up. Didn't quite cost $600, but I got a good deal on it. It runs W7 natively, but I've got a virtual machine running everything else -- Windows XP, 2000, 98, 3.1, Ubuntu, MS-DOS... With the trip now over, the laptop serves as a backup for all my stuff (as well as a backup computer if something were to happen to my desktop), and a way for me to keep track of character powers and stats when I play D&D once a week.

Not nearly fun or interesting stories, but, hey, there ya go. =P

[#3]

I chose my current computer based on portability, performance and price.

[#4]

Well actually there is a funny story behind mine...

 2 years ago I had a computer that I had built myself. It was a 2 year old Windows box 1.8GHz AMD processor with 1GB of ram and a 60Gig Hard Drive. Not the nicest computer on the block. I constantly had issues with it and I was just waiting for the day it would just burn.

Funny enough one day when I was in my living room I noticed a burning smell, it turned out my CPU had nearly caught fire and my computer had turned it self off. I tried re-starting it with no result. I threw up my hands and said "Thats it. I am buying a Mac." without skipping a beat I went to the Eaton Centre walked right in the Apple store, went to the first person I saw and said... I need a Mac Mini.

The reason why the Mac Mini. Less chance of virus/spyware/adware attacks. Easy to use OS, Did not take up very much room, Potentially less issues and Macs are just plain cool.

[#5]

Great stories! Nothing motivates getting a laptop than travel and nothing gets you buying a new machine than the magic blue smoke!

So, who's up for one of the new iMacs? I'm drooling over the MacMini server edition! (hee hee)