Sitting at Oleg's kitchen table last week, composing a post, I realized that while I had blogged from that very chair many times before, it was the first time that I'd done it with anything but my old G3 iBook.
When I picked up that 17" Dell in New Hampshire earlier this year, it ended an eleven year run of using the key lime clamshell Mac laptop to do my interwebbing from the road. That's a heck of a run in today's world of disposable electronica.
It's still usable as a backup, too. Maybe I ought to look into getting a spare battery or two for it. You know, just in case.
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I'm using a 2007 vintage 17" MacbookPro that has seen some hardware upgrades (SSD, more RAM) over the years. The case is dented and the battery once exploded from underneath (not an exaggeration, it actually threw the computer about 10" into the air). But it's my primary carry computer and I can probbaly get a few more years from it.
I did look at the new "Retina Display" models and came close to getting one last week when I left my machine 800 miles from home (a first). I am a pixel-whore and like high-res. The new machines sure are pretty, but they suck for me: memory is soldered to the board, and the hard-drive uses an exclusive connector and is glued in. No Ethernet port unless I buy a $30 dangle-thingy and no DVD unless I buy yet another dangle-thingy and an external drive. In short, it sucks.
Next stop is a Linux notebook, when I need it.
I have a 2003 Gateway that serves as a media center for the downstairs stereo. It is also the recipe look up machine.
The monitor has become disconnected from the keyboard, there are a couple missing keys, some weird stains on it here and there, and crayon and marker on the sides. I'm sure if it was intelligent we would be able to work on it over it moaning for the final release, but it works for me. As long as I don't move it, if I move it the screen falls over, the power cable stops working and I lose the wireless connection half the time.
I have a little iBook G3 (opaque white) that I picked up for $50 of eBay that I use for a low risk laptop in coffee shops for browsing. It has no client files on it so I don't panic about its loss.
But since Apple does not maintain its OS X for it, I put a Linux port on it.
"I have a little iBook G3 (opaque white) that I picked up for $50 of eBay"
Are they really getting that cheap? I need to get one of those for my Mac collection. (A G4 Powerbook of some sort, too; maybe a TiBook.)
My circa-1999 Dell laptop sits on my reloading bench to this day for use looking up load data.
If it aten't broke, don't fix it.
My Toshiba Satellite has accompanied me on every World Tour since the second (2002), and needs only a CMOS battery to be in something resembling original condition, which is neat considering it was bought as a factory second with no discernible warranty.
The Compaq R3000 my wide bought as a "desktop grade" machine when she started up her freelance copy editing job in 2004 is still in use by friends of ours as a primary machine. Until a year or so ago, the Windows Mobile device we got my mother in 2003 to be an electronic calendar and Rolodex was still in daily use as our primary alarm clock after we inherited it when she passed. (We got Androids, and they have a better app for that, which will run Pandora).
The cake its taken by the Monkey Ward TV my parents bought in 1984 that soldiers on as a monitor for a Wii, however.
Tam, the popularity of the iBook G3 and G4's took a bit of an uptick over the last months as the popularity of putting PowerPC Linux Mint on them grew but if you get a lucky break you can still snag one off eBay for $50 to $75.
Tam,
I've been using Macs since I was 4, back in 1991, and have read Low End Mac for at least 8 years. I can't believe I never noticed that you had articles there!
I don't think that the folks at LEM remember that you're female...
"Low End Mac pays it's writers a modest fee. If you've found Tamara's advice and commentary helpful, you can make a personal donation to him via PayPal using this button:"
from http://lowendmac.com/donate/tamara-keel.html
In case anyone else is interested in Tam's other LEM articles, the listing for them is: http://lowendmac.com/scripts/keel-date.html
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