Ever since Windows 7 was released I’ve been running it on my MacPro for gaming. I have 2×1TB hard drives for my Mac side, but I’m only using 2×180GB drives for Windows. Not exactly horrible, but with all the gaming madness I’ve been stricken with I’m actually juggling drive space often and I really need to buy another TB drive for Windows eventually, I guess.
But that’s not what I’m writing about here. Windows 7 is good. I hate to admit it, but it is. I was okay with Windows XP. Like every sane person, I despised Vista. Games run AWESOME in Windows 7. The interface for the OS is nice. However, out of curiosity (I just misspelled “curiosity”, Windows told me so, but didn’t offer the correct spelling, doh! Big minus points there!), just to see how useful and comfortable Windows 7 is for me, I’ve tried to push it further by doing web dev and other things while in the Windows environment. I can’t do it.
Photoshop in Windows? Nope. It’s so close to being the same but it’s not. Notepad++ and Sublime Text are great editors, but neither compare to TextMate. Windows 7 achieves so much but yet falters with it’s little things that drive me crazy. I hate the start menu. I try to use Launchy, but it’s no QuickSilver or LaunchBar or Butler. Internet Explorer sucks. So, I tried Safari for a while. It’s not bad in Windows, but I’ve found myself using Chrome when I never use Chrome in Mac OS X. Chrome works. Well, not for Super Farkle on FaceBook, but I can forgive it that since I can open an IE tab in Chrome for gaming.
Windows 7 is awesome for gaming. It’s pretty. But it’s still no where near as nice as Mac OS X. Will Microsoft ever get me to switch back? Maybe. Windows 8? We’ll see. But it’s unlikely.
Popularity: 1% [?]
After Apple announced the Magic Mouse a fews months back, my interest was seriously piqued. I never was fond of the one-time named Mighty Mouse with its little scroll ball, but the Magic Mouse looks and sounded like it would be a great mouse. I finally had a chance a few weeks ago to try one out and yep, it’s a nifty piece of hardware. I love the shape, the weight and all the sweet features of the multi-touch Magic Mouse. Being able to click anywhere, scroll in any direction, and swipe through images on its smooth, seamless top shell really makes the mouse magical. The price is a bit much at $69.00, but it’s not ridiculous for what the mouse is capable of.
I’m currently using a Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000, which is alright, but I really am jealous of those with the Apple Magic Mouse. Soon, I tell myself, soon. Just like the ~23″ HD LCD display I want, the XBOX 360 and everything else on my want list. Soon. Yeah.
Popularity: 1% [?]
I was originally given a shipping date of March 30th for the Mac Pro that I ordered on March 9th— last Monday. Then I received an e-mail from Apple last Friday, March 13th, informing me that it would ship early— on March 23rd. But Saturday morning, March 14th, I received another e-mail from Apple informing me that my Mac Pro had shipped.
This morning when I checked the tracking number with FedEx my Mac Pro is indeed showing as shipped and set for delivery by Friday, March 20th. So very cool when I was originally expecting to have to wait until April 3rd to play with my new Mac Pro. That’s two whole weeks earlier than I originally expected.
Now I assume Apple was just being cautious with its original date of March 30th, but never before have I ordered a pre-built system of any kind and received it earlier than expected. True, I have not yet actually received my Mac Pro but my experience with ordering systems from Dell and Gateway for other people in the past always led to waiting extras weeks… definitely not early deliveries.
I hate to feel the tiniest bit impatient now. Two weeks earlier than expected is a good thing. Yet, now… these four days ’til Friday are going to be very slow. So human of me, I guess. I could be waiting another eighteen days like I was originally expecting.
Popularity: 83% [?]
I ordered myself a quad-core Mac Pro yesterday. Order status currently has it scheduled to ship on March 30th, but who knows if that’s accurate? I didn’t bother to pay for rush delivery. It’ll get here when it gets here, even if I do want it yesterday.
My custom ordered system specs:
- 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processor with 8MB of L3 cache;
- 8GB (4×2GB) of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory;
- ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 512MB of GDDR5 memory;
- 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200 rpm hard drive;
- 18x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
- 4 PCI Express 2.0 slots;
- AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi Card with 802.11n;
- Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
- 2 FireWire 800 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports and a headphone mini-jack up front;
- 2 FireWire 800 ports, 3 USB 2.0 ports , optical/analog in and out and dual Gbit Ethernet ports in the back;
- Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Mighty Mouse.
Can. Not. Wait.
If only I had the cash to upgrade from my Mitsubishi DiamondPlus 74SB 17″ CRT. It’s a great monitor, but it’s time to move up to a 24″ 1920×1200 LCD. Though, I will not be purchasing the Apple 24″ model at $800 and I don’t know which brand/model I will get when I can afford to buy one.
Popularity: 32% [?]
Now if only I’d seen Brian Mastenbrook’s article on installing Safari 4 without replacing Safari 3 before I installed Safari 4. I’m hoping to uninstall Safari 4 then follow the instructions provided and have both together living in some sort of harmony. That would be sweet.
Brian has “whipped up” a script that will allow one to install Safari 4 “so that it can be run without replacing Safari 3.” Looks simple enough. But any attempt you make (as well as myself) to do so and everything falls apart, don’t go blaming Brian or anyone else… especially me.
Popularity: 64% [?]
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