Laptops less than 6 years old are cool

[zourtney]

So last week at work, I was sent a MacBook Pro to experiment with. Mostly to see how the accessibility features work on OSX/Safari to help with the web-stuff I'm developing. The computer actually doesn't even belong to my employer, but I am "keeping it safe" for a while. I haven't spent any notable amount of time in the Mac OS since middle school...and it's nice to do it under the guise of "development"

Anyway, I realized how nice it is to have a usable laptop around. My old Dell (c. March '05) has certainly seen better days; it only runs Ubuntu (slowly), and the optical drive doesn't work, is about 3 times the thickness of my loaner...you get the point. All this is to say, Dang you technology! Stop making me want new stuff! I really don't really "like" spending money on more stuff that's very similar to what I already have...but this computer is screaming-fast...like addictingly fast. Even my newish desktop is now nearly 2 years old.

Time marches on. New computers are fun. Now I want a new computer. Yikes!

[Nick]

You should try xfce on the ubuntu front (xubuntu) it runs smoothly on an old p4 laptop that I have (only 512 memory, system uses 19X idle running fedora and LXDE (a similar desktop to XFCE)) Grub and KDE are huge by comparison. But that will only help with memory usage for the most part.

Other then that I don't know what can be done... other then spend monies for more ponies. And, why no XP on the laptop?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_Window_System_desktop_environments <- wikipedia on the desktops

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_desktop_vitals&num=1 <- in-depth comparison

Also.... there are ways of putting  the macos in places it does not belong.... drivers permitting. But that's a whole other topic.

[zourtney]

I haven't tried xfce for quite a few years, but I do remember it being pleasantly minimalistic. And oddly hard to recall its name from memory. But maybe I'll give that a try. That old laptop somehow turned into the Linux test machine. So it's not really much of a priority...kind of one of those "rainy Saturday projects."

As for Windows...I haven't tried installing it on there in a few years (I might have if I used it regularly). But my last attempt at installing Windows had the computer shutting off in the middle of the install. Not an unexpected reboot as if it had encountered some bad memory read/write operation or had unexpectedly overheated. Nope. Off. Totally unprecedented in my history of software installs...and therefore pretty confusing. And it did so consistently, so I went the 'buntu route. And I do like it.

But it's still an old computer 

[Nick]

Is this your sony? Or the one you got after that?

[zourtney]

Nope, a 12" Dell. It got a lot of good use in college but I stopped needing it as much after that. Then it became semi-busted and neglected.

[zourtney]

As the internets have apparently already been told, I bought a laptop this week. It's a 13" Intel i7 MacBook Air with 4gb RAM and 256gb of the solid-state goods. It's super thin in size and performs quite snappily. It comes with the new Cat's Meow, which is nice enough. The trackpad gestures take the cake, though¹.

It's working quite well for my relatively simple development and play-time purposes. I have my good ol' Apache/PHP/MySQL stack (almost) all set up and will be playing with the randomnets and other projects in my spare time. All of which is actually pretty easy to configure, since I've done it about a dozen times in Ubuntu, Redhat, etc.

UNIX

[Nick]

That's a big Unix.

Cool. I hope you like it. You old one was getting quite old for a laptop (but not say, for a child.)

Having a good time with the MocOses? Miss the Redmond view?   

[zourtney]

that's what the big Unix is for. I actually like Windows 7 a lot. It's a little prettier and has nicer folder features (libraries, namely).

For basic admin stuff though, a command line is really very useful. But, Micosoft's has always felt second rate...as in I would never use it because it actually made things more difficult. But, as Mac stuff is BSD based, every linux command I know has worked from OS X's terminal. That's the part worth liking. I almost always have a terminal window or two open. So, for development and general geekery, it's the better of both worlds -- nice UI with command line power. And you can escape the dull headaches X-Windows provides.

I will probably put my copy of Windows 7 on a secondary partition at some time. Just because I can.

[Nick]

That's probably how I would do it to. Give windows a little 20gig reservation to sit on for the few things that wouldn't work on OsX. You can even install many source based games from Valve onto a mac now!

[zourtney]

Sweet, I might have to give Valve a try. The graphics won't be spectacular, but it could be fun anyway. Wonder if I can install that to an external device?

[Nick]

You can have your steam install any place you like. You can even move it after install and downloading games. But this info comes from a windows user.

[zourtney]

I would assume they'd keep things the same, cross platform. I use Windows too Perhaps it'd be better suited for my desktop, but obviously less portable.

I should just suck less at playing games!