Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment
I seem to be out of the hardware woods, at last. After my old box died, I thought carefully about its replacement. My computer has, among other things, become my chief music library and source; it's also where I edit family videos. The old computer, an Athlon system I'd rebuilt twice and extended with far too many expansion boards and IDE devices.
Scott tells the story of replacing his old Athlon based PC. There's also a link in there to the story of his "Black Screen of Death". Well-trodden roads -- I've seen several generations of PCs come and go (Atari 800, Commodore 64, Mac 512e, Compaq Deskpro 8086/V30, PC286, PC386, Mac IIfx, PC486, Pentium, Pentium laptop, Pentium II, Pentium III laptop x2, Powerbook Pismo,...). I currently have an old Athlon 1GHz system managing printers, iTunes, and backup storage for the house network. I just retired (from my personal use) a nice Fujitsu 2.8 GHz laptop.
I replaced it (and a 1GHz eMac G4) with a 1.33 GHz 12" iBook G4. The iBook does everything I need unless I'm going to be programming for Windows. There might be a utility or two that I haven't discovered I need yet, but I write with a variety of tools (Omni Outliner Pro, bbEdit, AppleWorks, Pages, NoteTaker, StickyBrain), I use two spreadsheets (Excel, AppleWorks), and I have a whole variety of creative tools available to me that simply aren't available on the PC (FCE, Soundtrack, GarageBand, DVD Studio Pro). And at less than 5 pounds, I can carry the iBook everywhere (and I do).
One of my "tipping points" on moving off Windows was Microsoft's announcement that they would now be scanning hard drives before running Windows Update. To the best of my knowledge I am running no illegitimate software, but I don't want Microsoft (or anyone else) rummaging through my hard drive, my registry, or any other part of my computer. Another was the constant fight against virii -- as household IT, I see malware every time I back up a kid's computer (never on mine, never on Sara's PowerBook, but always on the kid's computers if they are allowed on the network). Yet another was the tweaking necessary to get Windows to behave the way I wanted. I've spent a lot of time accommodating myself to Windows, and I'm tired of doing that.
The eMac will still sit on my desk, but it will be used almost exclusively for creative projects like video editing. Devi is hoping to get into another film class at school this year, and I'd like her to have access to an editing station at home. I like to be able to read email, browse, and write alongside video editing, and the eMac just doesn't have enough power to do that easily. Now the video / sound work happens on one computer and the writing on another. If I'd wanted to shell out $2K - $3K US for a dual G5 I probably could have been happy doing that on one machine, but it wouldn't have been easily portable.
BTW, the MarWare SportFolio neoprene laptop cases are incredibly wondrous. I got a 12" SportFolio II in black for the iBook and I'm incredibly happy with it. It's a minimalist case: you can't carry much more than your laptop, power supply, a couple of accessories (Mighty Mouse!), a thin notebook and a novel, but that's enough for me for almost any occasion. If I want to "dress to impress", I've always got the Zero Halliburton briefcase Sara bought me a couple of years ago (and the iBook will actually fit in it, unlike the Fujitsu!), but for daily use, the SportFolio is for me.
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