Bunsen
Admin-Witchfinder-General
In which Bunsen joins the 21st century at long last.
So I was driving home the other day, and noticed I was in the general vicinity of a branch of Cash Converters I hadn't visited for a long while, and had some spare cash in my bank account for a change. I dropped in to have a random look at what they might have. I was mighty tempted by a tiny Thinkpad for $110, thinking it would make a good little hackintosh ...
... till I spotted the $200 MacBook Pro sitting next to it A quick check of my bank balance later and I was out the door, with my first ever Intel Mac. Stock 1GB RAM, 120GB HD, dead battery, 30 day warranty.
I've since bumped it up to 3GB RAM with a stick out of my dead netbook. Next upgrades; a working battery (they start around $30 shipped on the eebilpay); a small SSD boot drive (moving the spinning drive to the DVD bay); possibly a BookEndz docking station (or DIY equivalent).
While my 2002 dual 1GHz G4 Quicksilver has served me surprisingly well up till now, this is a substantial leap forward - to 2006, a whole four Moore's law generations, or two tax-depreciation cycles; and puts me within running distance of the present OS refresh cycle. And while $200 MPBs might be common as dirt on the US market, this is an absolute bargain for here, even with the battery issue (which hopefully will be the actual battery and not the charging circuit - tbc)
So I was driving home the other day, and noticed I was in the general vicinity of a branch of Cash Converters I hadn't visited for a long while, and had some spare cash in my bank account for a change. I dropped in to have a random look at what they might have. I was mighty tempted by a tiny Thinkpad for $110, thinking it would make a good little hackintosh ...
... till I spotted the $200 MacBook Pro sitting next to it A quick check of my bank balance later and I was out the door, with my first ever Intel Mac. Stock 1GB RAM, 120GB HD, dead battery, 30 day warranty.
I've since bumped it up to 3GB RAM with a stick out of my dead netbook. Next upgrades; a working battery (they start around $30 shipped on the eebilpay); a small SSD boot drive (moving the spinning drive to the DVD bay); possibly a BookEndz docking station (or DIY equivalent).
While my 2002 dual 1GHz G4 Quicksilver has served me surprisingly well up till now, this is a substantial leap forward - to 2006, a whole four Moore's law generations, or two tax-depreciation cycles; and puts me within running distance of the present OS refresh cycle. And while $200 MPBs might be common as dirt on the US market, this is an absolute bargain for here, even with the battery issue (which hopefully will be the actual battery and not the charging circuit - tbc)