Happy Birthday To Me...

[iMac600]

That's right, i've advanced another level today, to the age of 19. Since for the most part i'm a quiet fellow (har), i'm unlikely to receive any gifts. I'm perfectly fine with that, spending time (see "getting smashed") with the people I care about is really all that matters to me.

What does one present hurt though?

MacBook (Late 2006)

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

4GB RAM (3GB addressed)

320GB Hard Disk

Intel GMA 950 Graphics

Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Fantastic Condition Battery

Included Carry Case for machine

$499 AUD. Oooh, steep price for a conquest. For such a long time though i've wanted to do away with the last of my PowerPC based Macs since they're just no longer sufficient for my line of work and I needed the extra kick of the Dual Core 64-bit powerhouse at the heart of this thing.

That's the machine, still pending a bit of a clean up which it will receive tomorrow. Affixed to the top of the display bezel are an early test of a little experiment that so far has succeeded, by introducing a 0.7mm gap between the top case and the display bezel when closing or when closed. They're shock absorbers, intended to stop the top case from cracking. I'm thinking of getting them remade in white.

It scores 2900 in Geekbench testing. As per my nature of pushing machines above and beyond, i'd like to crack the 3000 mark and I would be more than happy with 3100. This machine will be modified, issues fixed and prevented, better thermal conductivity, faster components and generally more power. All tasteful of course, so even though I have a few spares, I won't be swapping on Black MacBook parts or anything any time soon.

Cheers

~mb.

 

[Byrd]

Happy Birthday! And the Macbook looks great. My recent first Hackintosh (lasted about a month, now gearing up for a cheap C2D setup), a dual 2.6Ghz AMD Opteron - scored ~ 3000 so you're doing pretty well as it is. I can't see you getting much more speed out of it apart from a nice 7200rpm HD.

 

[PowerPup]

Happy belated birthday iMac600! 19 huh? Hey cool that means we were born in the same year.

Nice laptop. Someday I'll get a Intel Mac, the newest mac I own is a Powerbook G4 Titanium with no screen.

Anyway, hope your day was a good one.

PowerPup.

 

[iMac600]

Thanks. Mostly quiet actually, don't really have any family and only a couple of friends at best, but those couple of friends have been great. So i'm not disappointed. Certainly wouldn't have minded a bit of a bash though. Saturday for sure.

Currently have the MacBook at work, we've given it a system health check and are sussing out the display at the moment which appears to have a nice minor case of backlight flicker. Happens very infrequently. It's probably not worth sending it back to the supplier, since the inverter is relatively inexpensive and we do have spares for this model. In addition, the Apple Battery and Adapter Diagnostic has returned "Battery Consumed", although the 5 hours of life it's getting begs to differ. Apparently i'm also eligible for a free top case replacement, not that I need it yet, but the parts are covered when and if I do. Nice little fact.

Overall it's a very quick, very useful little machine. It's being well cared for, every morning and afternoon it gets a quick wipe over with a cleaning fluid to keep the plastics clean and conditioned. Display is regularly wiped over with a soft cloth. It's amazing how dirty some of these MacBooks can get, discoloured top cases and displays that look like they've been literally smeared with mud, and I can't see how or why someone would let the machine get in such a state (especially some of our customers who, by trade, are supposed to have clean hands and equipment, doctors for example). This one is clean and I intend for it to stay clean.

Overall it's a killer machine and the single layer glossy (non-glass) display is a dream to use in so many ways. For $499, far less than the price of a netbook, I consider this an absolute steal.