Wherefore Art Thou Laptop?
Posted under: So…I still don’t have a laptop.
I was scheduled to be on Cal’s PC/Mac Smackdown podcast last Thursday, but in a fit of inconvenient pique, he took ill and we were unable to record.
To my surprise, he still has an opening for tomorrow’s show, so I should be on it.
Which is good, as I am (as I said) still without a laptop.
I went to the Mac store in the mall last night and grilled the poor store employee who was unfortunate enough to catch my eye. I had a list, you see.
A three-page list.
(I don’t mess about when it comes to research.)
Unfortunately, although he answered all of my questions to the best of his ability, I left the store feeling unsettled rather than excited about a new Macbook purchase.
With Windows 7 on the horizon, and whispers of Snow Leopard already being bandied about, the danger of purchasing a soon-to-be-out-of-date OS and hardware is at the forefront of my mind.
If I could be patient, it would make more sense to wait until probably early next year to make the purchase.
Patience, however, has never really been my strong suit.
I am dismayed by the lack of security on the Mac. So far, it seems to be based entirely on a “fingers in my ears, la la la, can’t hear you!” philosophy. I find that more alarming than the necessity of having virus scanners and spyware scanners on a windows laptop.
Also – really? No free ftp software? That’s gotta be a mistake.
And I felt clumsy and oafish when trying to work my way through the mac software. I KNOW that would change with use (and it’d be a great excuse to go hang out with Deb and have her show me the ropes).
The Apple Care plan covers a lot, but falls just shy of me being delieriously happy with it. I can understand why they don’t cover things like drop damage and liquid in the keyboard, but those are the most likely things to go wrong. At least they cover the battery.
And to top all of that off, it probably wouldn’t run WoW very well. *grumps*
Hey, a girl’s gotta have priorities, right?
To assuage my technology inspired grief, I went into Hot Topic and bought the hubby a fabulously low-key Umbrella Corporation t-shirt and myself a pair of large hoop earrings decorated with a t-rex skeleton.
The earrings are fabulous. We have Very Important Visitors at work today, so I chose to exercise a bit of discretion and wore simple, small, silver hoops. Tomorrow? Tomorrow, it’s Dino Day.
I need a pair of matching bone studs for my second earring hole to complete the theme. I feel positively ferocious wearing them, and utterly eccentric.
Those earrings sound awesome. If you do not wear them when I come up to see you, I will be devastated.
@Michael
*grins* As you wish, good sir!
Best FTP software, hands down, is FileZilla: Works equally well for Mac and PC. I swear by it! In fact, it’s so good, I’d pay for it. (Does Windows have built-in FTP software??)
My MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM (I added 2 GB after purchase) runs WoW extremely well (although I admit I haven’t done any instances or raids with it).
Not saying that’s why you should get a Mac (there are some idiosyncrasies with Excel, and, I think Word (but that doesn’t matter with you :p), that I don’t care for with the Mac (Office 2008)); however, I’ve been extremely happy with mine.
The ONLY thing I really miss is Windows LiveWriter, as we’ve discussed before. However, I also haven’t worked very hard at finding a good alternative for the Mac.
@Steve
Windows doesn’t have built in ftp, but I use winSCP at home and at work and I love it.
MacBook Pro can handle WoW – MacBook (minus the pro)…not so much.
I don’t think I can justify the extra cash for the Pro, not for the activities I have planned on it.
<3
One of these days, I’ll have to take up “reading for comprehension.” In fact, you didn’t menton “Pro.” My bad. :(
:3
@Steve
*laughs* I don’t think I specifically said “not Pro”, either. ;)
Windows does have the old-school FTP program for DOS, available from your command line. Of course, that’s not really a vote for it, by any means.
@Gauntlet
*laughs* no, not really. I like WinSCP, personally. I love the interface on it.