10.16.2008

Officially a Mac

And it's done! I went with the 13" MacBook, will be upgrading to 4GB RAM in the next week or so, Adobe CS4 will be shipped to me after release (yay!), and Alex couldn't resist getting us a family MobileMe account.



Last night, we charged and started up the MacBook, which is dubbed, like my previous two laptops, Interceptor. Um... yeah, there actually is a crazy story behind that. Our computer naming scheme is... sigh... Star Wars vehicles. You can't blame one of us more than the other for that; Alex and I really are that equally geeky.

Our machines, old and new:
  • Alex's desktop: Executor (Darth Vader's flagship, a Super Star Destroyer)
  • my old desktop: Jadesfire (um... it's from a Star Wars book, let's leave it at that embarrassing revelation)
  • our Wii (yeah, it counts!): Tiiderian (after the shuttle Tiderian, and Wii's two-i-name... yeah)
  • my laptop(s): Interceptor (after the TIE Interceptor--because it's small and maneuverable, get it?)
  • our router: TieBomber (mostly because it's small)
  • the printer machine: PrintBoy (okay well it had to fall down somewhere)
  • Alex's hoped-for MacPro: he's currently debating names, but my favorite option is Death Star
And now, having completed my Statistics midterm and updated the blogosphere on my current computery-ness, I shall depart for work and some presentations that need brushing up for next week.

10.15.2008

I'm a PC... No Wait, I'm a Mac!

I've done a lot of research and thinking and pro-con-ing over the last two weeks, and now that Apple has finally shown its hand, I'm close to a decision. Yes, I'm joining the Apple Cult, after many years of wistful envy. Alex getting a MacBook Pro for his work machine, which often comes home with him, pretty much sealed the deal. For years, we've been trying to decide on some kind of primary media server and content backup system, and about all we ended up with were a few small external hard drives that I remember to backup to about once every six months. But with Time Machine on his MBP, as soon as Alex boots up, his machine is auto-synched and backed up to our external hard drive.

Um... sign me up.

And add to that:
  • If I use a non-Mac laptop and mp3 player, we have to rip all our content in more than one format. Or we rip it all through iTunes as mp3s--which I started doing, and now my non-Mac laptop is putting music in three different places: iTunes, Vista's "Music" folder, and the old-style Windows "My Music" folder, which I have unsuccesfully tried to nuke several times. This makes me crazy.
  • iPhoto, and Cover Flow, and everything else about Macs that is so darned gorgeous. Gimme.
  • Adobe CS4 is available for ridiculously dirt cheap both through my educational discount, and another $300 off for buying it with a MacBook or MacBook Pro. Again: Gimme.
  • LED screen.
  • Huge trackpad.
  • Illuminated keyboard.
  • Alex and I compared file-loading on both our machines last night. Yeah. Wow.
  • And lastly: the things automatically hibernate when you close them! This may seem a silly kind of a feature, but if you knew the amount of time I spend every evening booting my laptop up, waiting for everything to load, then waiting for Firefox to show up... yeah. And then I have to wait again, whether I hibernate it or shut it down. And hibernating it screws up my machine after about a day.
Alex has hibernated his Mac, without shutting down, for at least a month. GIMME.

All that to say: tonight at the Apple store, I hope to make my final decision. It's come down to this:

13" MacBook, 2.4GHz, +4GB memory, 250 GB hardrive
vs.
15" MacBook Pro, 2.4GHz, +4GB memory, 250 GB hardrive

The only real differences between these two machines are: screen size/resolution, weight (the 13" is a full pound lighter), better graphics card option, and the 15" has an ExpressCard slot that I could put a SD card reader into. But for the $400 price difference, I'm leaning toward that 13"! I can always hook it up to a monitor or two at home/work if I find I'm needing more screen real estate.

But any final Mac-user advice would be appreciated!


10.06.2008

Confession

Yes, when I received this message from LexisNexis this afternoon, what immediately drew my eye was not the message about the Congressional Record*, but those amazing shoes and how on earth I could get a pair.


Sigh.
Bad librarian!

*NOTE: I am neither endorsing nor slamming the LexisNexis product. This is purely an admission of guilt, not an advertisement, review, critique, or other value judgement about anything beyond how awesome those shoes are.

Librarian Fangirliness

I'm not saying I was obsessively bit by the Twilight bug or anything (yeah yeah, we can discuss the last book later).... but here's a little something from libraryland to further the girlish shrieks of delight.

Of course, it can't beat the Yoda or Batgirl READ posters... or the other DC ones, or all the LOTR ones, or Neil Gaiman and Sandman. But still.

I can see I need to add quite a few items to my Christmas wishlist... furthering my family's evidence of my intense geekery and nerdishness.

10.02.2008

Thursday Meanderings

Want to help NPR fact-check the VP debate tonight, using Twitter? Sounds like a cool project. Yet another fascinating use for Twitter--this application is not only addictive, but surprisingly useful. It's become my first web-based source for news, since I can glance at my page at any time of day and see headlines from CNN, NPR, stock analysis, NASA, State Dept., etc. etc.

My guest-blogging month is complete now at FGI; here are all the posts:
Now I've got to get on two PowerPoints for DC, plus finish getting an OPAL ready for next week. Oh, and there's that matter of getting the new nodes published on the ALA GODORT website. And and and... yeah. Deep breaths, one item at a time, eh?

And don't forget, fellow Texans, Monday Oct. 6th is the deadline for voter registration!