I have posted a few images of the new laptop that I picked up for the office as a replacement for my primary machine, a great Dell workstation running XP Pro. The Dell has been my only computer since day one at CPD. As a matter of fact, they ordered these machines before we were hired but thanks to University shipping problems, they took longer to reach our office than expected. I worked on a dinosaur for the first few days, anxiously waiting for 6 big boxes (3 workstations and 3 CRTs) to come to the doors so we could finally get some work done.

Why am I making the change? well, with the new role at the office, I needed to have some independence from my desktop machine. I found myself taking my own laptop into a few meetings over the last few weeks. In addition, we needed access to Apple’s Intel platform for testing and development purposes a the office. I also believe Apple better fits my current needs and computing habits. I will continue to have access to Windows and continue to support our staff’s machines so I don’t anticipate losing touch with developments on that area. As a matter of fact, we’ll be testing a Vista machine in the near future as well.

This will be an experiment, an experiment on integrating this machine into the ASU infrastructure and in particular within our own department’s infrastructure. Will I be able to access out network storage shares? What about access to the SQl server given the current security policies in place?

I already know of one application that is Windows-only and it plays a pivotal role in our daily operations. For that, I am running XP on a Parallels virtual machine. What about email? I am not quite sure at this point what I am going to use, probably be testing a few programs as I go along, navigating the Enterprise world with the new Macbook. Just like the home experience was a few months ago, this should be a fun adventure.

Note: It should be noted the laptop was bought a few weeks ago and shipping was delayed a few days. Why would Apple deliver the new machine on the same day the announce iLife ‘08 and will not allow me to upgrade for the $10? At least they didn’t announce a price drop, or worse yet, a processor upgrade.

A friend of mine told me about the incident he had with his powerbook where he dropped it by accident and the power plug and speaker (he has the 17″ powerbook) right next to it were damaged and needed to be replaced. When he took it in to have it serviced, he was told that his airport card had been damaged as well and needed to be replaced as well. Parts and labor were going to be in the $500 figure. His machine is beyond the 1 year warranty period and he does not have AppleCare.

I usually bring my powerbook to the office since I usually need to do some things during lunch or whatever. This afternoon, for some reason, the machine would not wake up some that has never happen before. I ended up having to power off the machine, wait a few minutes and power it back on. Everything is working just fine but that little incident reminded me that I am almost done with my 1-year warranty period and I had been meaning to look into AppleCare.

I was thinking of not extending the warranty since I have not had any problems with this machine. Especially when I checked the price ($349) this morning at the Apple store. Aside from the story above I asked a friend of mine if he would buy the warranty for a laptop. He told me that given the Apple issues with logic boards and other things that have been identified after 1 year, plus the fact it is a laptop that he would. I checked online to see what other people in a similar situation decided to do and that really didn’t help since everyone had their own opinion.

I ended up buying AppleCare, extending my warranty period to three years, because of the little incident that I had this afternoon and also because I qualify for the educational discount dropping the price to $239. Not a bad price when you consider how much I paid for the powerbook itself. I rather have the peace of mind knowing that my machine will be covered by Apple for 2 more years. I might be ready to get a new one around that time too!

Apple announced a few days ago the release date for its next version of OS X (10.4) named Tiger. I have been trying to do some research about the benefits of upgrading, since this is the first version update since I bought my Powerbook. The need to evaluate this decision is because of the $129 fee for this upgrade - $95 if you pre-order through Amazon.

From a developer point of view, I would love to upgrade in order to remain on the leading edge of this OS X. Apple lists over 200 new features with Tiger but I wonder how much of this is actually marketing talk vs. true value for the user. As a regular user of OS X, the two applications that I am looking forward to is the new search technology named Spotlight and any improvements made to Mail.app. Anything else would be extra as far as I am concerned at this point in time.

I have also been reading how Tiger is not worth $129 for the new features that it provides. A lot of people have been talking about Dashboard but I don’t see much benefit from this technology with regards to my daily activities.

I also would like to see this OS in production before I go ahed and make the investment. I am assuming that a lot of the new Windows users migrating to the Applie Mini will face this same question. It will be interesting to see the adoption rate of this version from users other than the true Apple fanatics. We have an older Mac still running Panther (10.2) at the office so I might suggest we buy the upgrade for that machine and see it first hand.

update: I just checked with our campus bookstore and they offer a maintenace plan where they will cover any Apple release for the next 3 years (starting this past March) for only $79. They expect 10.4 and 10.5 to be released within the 3 year space. Even if they only release 10.4 within the covered time frame, it is still a cheaper alternative to the $95 from Amazon. This could be a good alternative and most likely we’ll do it of our Mac at work.

update II: we bought the 3 year maintenance deal from the campus bookstore for the office Mac. Once I am able to see Tiger first hand, I will decide if it’s worth doing the same for the Powerbook.

The Network Utility in OS X gives you a handy suite of network tools, including among these tools is a whois search interface. However, I wanted to change the list of servers available through the default setup.

Edit the section under the <key>NUWhoisServers</key> heading in the application’s preference file. The file is located in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.NetworkUtility.plist

Coverage from Apple’s MacWorld will be all over the web for the next few days. Today, Apple introduced the Mac mini and the Ipod shuffle. It is usually the case that as soon as one buys a computer, specially an Apple, they announce an upgrade that makes your 2-day-old machine basically obsolete.

I wish Apple would’ve made this announcement prior to the holiday season for two reasons. My sister gave my brother-in-law an MP3 player for Christmas but the Ipod shuffle + iTunes combination would’ve been perfect for him. Also, over the holidays, I was telling my dad how perfect a Mac would be for his hobbies: music, photography, poetry and anything that involves all three. He was sold on the idea until we discussed the pricing. Before I came home, his mother board finally gave up and ended up buying a Dell. He would’ve put his order for a Mac mini without thinking twice about it. Steve Jobs was speaking to my dad when he said We want to price this Mac so that people thinking of switching will have no more excuses.

A quick trip to the Apple store might be in order over the next few weeks to check out the new toys first hand. Would I trade my powerbook and 20GB Ipod? Absolutely not but it still fun to check out new toys.