Are You A Mac Or A PC?
December 12th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
I purchased a new computer recently. My MacBook was getting a bit long in the tooth. After four years and three hard drives, I figured it was about time to replace it.
As the concept of cloud computing is getting more practical, I have been migrating most of my workflow to the cloud. I do all my email via GMail, much of my writing is done using Google Docs, I keep my calendar on Google Calendar, my personal website is hosted on WordPress and my work related blog is on Blogger.
A few months ago, my MacBook hard drive failed for the third time. I was without my MacBook for a little over a week and ended up using my Dell Mini 9 netbook which runs Ubuntu Netbook Remix linux solely for that time. With the exception of iTunes, I barely noticed any changes in my workflow.
My wife gave me the go ahead to purchase a new laptop. Because of some writing and other projects I have been working on lately, I really have been wanting a laptop with a 17” screen. I looked at Apple’s 17” MacBook Pro. As I priced it, I found that I was looking at spending nearly $3,000 to get what I wanted.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized how much overkill this would be for what I usually do. If I can do nearly everything I need to on a $229 netbook (with the exception of screen real estate) $3,000 was just too much for me to spend. Instead I ended up purchasing a 17” Dell Inspiron for about $800.
TechCrunch had a good article on the difference in philosophy between Macs and PC’s. In it, they liken computers to cars. The PC would be a Toyota Camry and the Mac would be a Porsche.
That’s not to say the Camry sucks or that the Porsche is perfect. They’re just two different cars that cater to different markets. And they represent the two different goals that most Windows-based PCs have (market share) versus Apple’s Mac computers (high-end revenue share).
I was driving home from work the other day and someone in a Porsche convertible passed me. It was a really nice car and I am sure it’s a blast to drive. However, as I continued home in my Toyota Corolla, I thought about the fact that as nice as the Porsche was, I would likely never own one. I just don’t have that kind of money.
I guess that figured in to my decision to purchase the Dell over the Mac. It’s really nice, but I really can’t justify spending that kind of money for what I want to do. I know this is likely to disappoint some of you but so be it. If my geek cred gets too low I’ll install Ubuntu on it and set it up to dual boot Windows 7 and linux.
My New Dell Mini 9
March 18th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
I got my Dell Mini 9 netbook yesterday. I have always been intrigued by small gadgets. When the netbook craze started I wanted one in almost an “ashamed to admit it” kind of way. I am supposed to be some uber geek and here I want this “toy”. It’s kind of like a guy admitting that you like the 80′s stadium rock band Journey. Real guys don’t like that stuff do they? (I hate to admit it, I do like Journey…I’ll hand over my man card now.)
While the Asus netbooks that started this craze were interesting I really wanted to wait until one came out from a major manufacturer before I took the plunge. I know that Asus is an OEM for a number of big names but I still had concerns and the toylike size didn’t help it either. I’ve always had a preference for Macs but for the Windows machines in the house I generally buy Dell’s. They’re based close to where I live and I have a few aquaintances that work there. When Dell came out with the Mini 9 the cracks in my resolve began to appear. My resolve gave way completley when tech columnist Andy Ihnatko wrote that he mananged to get Apple’s OSX running on his. He wanted a small, ultraportable machine to drag around in case he needed to bang out a quick article without having to drag a real and expensive MacBook around. I had similar reservations about dragging my $1200 MacBook all over the place.
I vacilated between buying an new one and trying to get a deal on one from the Dell Outlet website. I started seeing some on the Outlet site for about $219 with Ubuntu linux, 1 gb RAM and a 8 GB solid state drive. The first time one appeared at that price I clicked the Add To Cart button and by the time by browser registered the click someone else got it. This started a cycle of clicking refresh, finding a machine with what I wanted and clicking Add To Cart only to find that someone else got it…again, and again, and again. I was about to give up after about 30 minutes of this when I saw a machine pop up for $209. I clicked Add To Cart after muttering a quick prayer to the gods of HTTP (there was no time for animal sacrifice), crossed my fingers and waited for my browser to register the click. This time, Success!
I ended up with a black Dell Mini 9 with 1GB RAM, an 8GB SSD and loaded with Ubuntu Linux 8.04 LTS. I picked Linux as opposed to Windows XP as I really wanted to see how an OEM configures Linux on a commercial machine. I’ve used many flavors of Linux from Red Hat, Slackware, Knoppix, SuSe, Debian and Ubuntu as well as a few other more obscure distros. In fact, the last desktop machine I bought from Dell I wiped XP and loaded Ubuntu on it for quite a while.
It’s hard to imagine just how tiny the Mini 9 is just from looking at the pictures. It is dang tiny though. About the size of a hardback book when closed. To get this tiny form factor the keyboard has been shrunk a bunch. It’s not too bad to type on though. The letter keys are about the size of a normal laptop keyboard although there is very little space between the keys. Also, they shrunk the symbol and other keys to little bitty and also managed to stick them in some unusual places. For example, the quote / double quote key is now below the period key instead of above it on normal keyboards. With a little practice it’s not too bad. In fact I typed this entire article on it.
The trackpad is right up to the front edge of the netbook and the button keys are small, slim and take quite a bit of getting used to. This is probably my biggest complaint so far. That a Flash not working in the web browser. I did manage to get Flash working by using using SWFDEC even though Adobe Flash was already installed. Every time I’d go to a website with Flash content, the content wouldn’t work and I’d get the usual ‘do you want to install Flash’ dialog. Dell is going to have to get this right if they want to sell more Ubuntu boxes to the masses.
Other than system updates I haven’t installed much on this. My plan is to see how much I can accomplish using web applications and letting my data reside “in the cloud”. It will be interesting to see if I can do it. It will also be fun to see if I can adapt to the form factor as well as keeping this machine away from my daughter. She’s already got her sights on taking it away from her dad.
Shalom,
Scott D
