Got a tech question...

[stillane]

Hi all. Yes, it's another one of those posts. No, it's not nearly as high drama.

My question is this:

Biff the Laptop has been experiencing some fairly dramatic technical difficulties. I'm carting him off to the wizards on Wednesday, but I have the horrible fear they are going to inform me that he has gone the way of the dodo. Should that be the case, I'm wondering what you informed types would recommend in the way of Biff the Sequel.

The issues in question:

I'm broke. I do, however, have some theoretical graduation funds to put towards the newbie. I need something reliable and fairly tough, preferably something that can handle the sort of data processing that your average fangirl is prone to do, and something that will hang in there through the next stint of higher education. The Powerbooks are attempting to seduce me with their wily ways, but I've been a Windows girl for many years now. Will any of my accoutrements (DVD burner, external harddive, etc.) work with an Apple? Is it worth relearning all the basics? Is the 12-inch too small, and would the 15-inch refurbish be trustworthy? If the techs tell me Biff the First can be fixed, how much is it worth to sink into a four year old Dell Inspiron 2600? I really have no idea what to do.

Any suggestions?

Given that the thesis is coming due abominably soon, this does not please me. Nope. Not at all. Murphy, you are so toast when I catch you.

(Incidentally, this is the newest of the reasons why I haven't been reading all the gorgeous fic or ogling all the pretty pictures you've all been putting out. I haven't even seen last week's Supernatural yet. *sigh* I am cave-girl, hauling all her books and articles behind her for the next 18 days, until the Evil That Ate My Soul is turned in at the bio office. After graduation, though, I intend to go into a fandom-induced coma.)

Comments

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

If the Powerbook is one of the ones that shipped with a Toshiba MK8026GAX 80GB hard drive (unfortunately, I'm not sure of the dates of manufacture when they were using these drives), and it still has the original drive, I would not consider it reliable. I have heard many stories of these drives failing at about the 18-month mark, and I myself had two Powerbooks at work whose drives failed within a week of each other 19 months after purchase. And the aluminum Powerbook is an absolute bitch to take apart and work on.

That said, I really do love mine, and the hard drive is the only thing that I would consider not-necessarily-reliable. It might well have already been replaced on a refurbished machine. Whoever's selling it should be able to tell you what model drive it has.

I'm sure your external hard drive will work with a Mac, and probably the DVD burner as well, though it's worth checking with the manufacturer.

[stillane.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info! After some serious budget freakout, I went with the new Macbook. Staring down the barrel of a year with no educational discount and four years of heavy use afterward, it seemed like a good idea to shell out the extra now for the performance boost down the road. I'm hoping it will pay off. *fingers crossed*

I've been really surprised by how many people have said that they adore their Macs, even when they've had issues. I suppose I'll find out whether I'll join the cult of Maclove in about a week. :>

Thanks again for the advice.

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

It is a bit cultlike, isn't it? :)

[stillane.livejournal.com]

Just a smidge. But then, if this thing lives up to all the hype, bring on the black robes and secret ceremonies. *g*

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

No tech advice for you, but best of luck finishing your thesis!

[stillane.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm freaking out, but my thesis advisor is cool as a cucumber about it. I'm choosing to trust to her faith on this one. The academic advisor - He Who Knows All - liked the big research presentation the other day, so I have hope. *g*

Now I just have to figure out how to tell the world how cool my teeth are. Because they are. *g*

The icon cracked me up, btw. It goes in the same category as He Who Knows All's favorite prop: a tissue box prominently labeled, 'For Thecal Students'. I love this guy.

[theantimodel.livejournal.com]

IT IS SO WORTH IT! I've been a mac girl my whole life so I cannot tell you much about the switching over process but I can tell you that macs are fantastic and that if you ever run into problems there are a billion helpful communities and forums where mac geeks will be all, "you have a problem? let me fix it! see! I know how!"

I have the 12" powerbook and have never had a problem with the screensize. In fact, I wouldn't want a bigger one because this is the perfect size and wheight to carry around in a bookbag or to put on your lap in bed. Your external hard drive (depending on a bunch of things) is probably connectable but you'd have to reformat it first so that could be a downside. Your best bet on finding out the comapatability on the dvd burner is probably just to check the manufaturer's website or google the name of your burner and "os x" Pretty much if you want any info on compatability or program availability, just google what you're looking for and add "os x" to the search.

The basics are pretty easy to learn, and so, so worth it. os x has a billion little things that make life with a mac so much better and some big things too like stability and better performance than your average windows computer.

[stillane.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm apparently going to be giving these guys a whirl. I broke down and went with the Macbook. The sticker shock is still making me numb, but if it is as shiny and glorious as it's billed to be, I'll be in tech bliss.

Would you by chance be up for questioning during the initial learning phase? My experience is rather limited. *g*

Thanks for the help!

[theantimodel.livejournal.com]

Eeee! You will love it once you get used to it, I swear. And I will totally answer any questions you've got. Also, if you haven't already, you should consider friending isilya, she's a mac girl and gives handy hints and tricks and bootleg applications out like candy for fellow mac geeks.

[stillane.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Haven't actually made the acquaintance of the lady in question, although I'm familiar with the name. I'll skip on over and say hello. Thanks for the heads up.

I'll keep you posted on the technological joy. *g* I'm not sure whether there are any web editing programs included in the bundle, but at some point I need to skip on over and fix 'Cohesion'. It managed to mangle itself for no apparent reason when I wasn't looking. *sigh* All thing more complex than the wheel seem to hate me this week. Maybe it's a good thing the new baby needs to ship. Might give it time for the bad mojo to wear off. *g*

[theantimodel.livejournal.com]

isilya is totally awesome, you definitely should :D

For reference in 3 days when you get the computer, here's my list of favorite free applications:

Acquisition. For p2p file sharing, good for music downloading.
Adium. A good instant messaging program, works with AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more.
Azureus. for bittorrenting.
CharCounter. A nifty, no frills little app that counts characters and words when you cut and paste into it.
Cocktail. A general purpose maintenence utility. os x has a set of maintenence scripts set to run at like 4 or 5 am but most people shut their computers down or put them to sleep at night so cocktail will let you choose when to run them (and more.)
Firefox. Great web browser; useful extensions: flashblock, tabs mix plus: saves your sessions in case of crashes and more.
igetter. A good download manager for os x.
mplayer. A nice, simple media player for avi files.
Quicksilver. The best thing to happen to os x ever. especially if you're on a laptop and you're completely reliant on your keyboard and track pad. This tutorial might be helpful.
Smultron. A really nice, non processor intensive html and text editor (unlike dreamweaver if all you want to do it edit html.) I love this app a lot.
vlc media player. Another media player, much like mplayer but it can sometimes be useful to have both just in case one doesn't want to play a fil and another one does.
xjournal. My favorite of the available downloadable livejournal clients.

Lastly, it's not free but it is a good ftp application: transmit.

[stillane.livejournal.com]

Whee! Thank you. I'll definitely be trawling through all of these, as soon as the Magic MacBook Machine arrives.

[cetpar.livejournal.com]

Hey. I wandered over to your LJ to read 'The Ratio of Burning' and saw this post.

I thought about going with a Mac with my last computer, but like you I'm a Windows girl. After thinking about how much it would take to learn a new system, and more importantly how much it would cost to replace all of my software for Mac OS compatible stuff, I decided against it. Now that Macs are going to be able to dual run with Windows too, it would be something to reconsider, though.

I've been a Thinkpad user myself, and I've been very happy with the reliablity of them. Thinkpads are probably more expensive than other-brand equivalent systems, though. I think it is worth it for what you get, as far as reliability, service, support. I also absolutely love the Thinkpad keyboard and trackpoint system. I don't know what specs you want on it, but I have a T41 which I really love. My understanding is that the R series is very good, too, and generally less expensive. Those are heavier, though.

Good luch with computer shopping.

[stillane.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice on the fly!

The Mac types won me over and I went with the dual compatible system after all. Given that the dearly departed Biff was something of a dinosaur, I might just start reeling from the speed. A whole gig of RAM? Be still, my heart. Fingers crossed it does all the good things it's supposed to.

Thanks again for the help, and the luck! *g*