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jdavidb on 2003-08-12T18:11:21

amichan, my beautiful blueberry ibook, has been in shock (there's a sad pun intended here with what I think was the initial cause of the trouble) since late last year, and been dead for about four months. Today I found out it would cost almost as much to fix as it would to get another blueberry ibook.

I shopped around used and refurbished stuff and came really close to bidding on a graphite ibook in ebay before I finally convinced myself I didn't want to deal with another refurbished computer. Refurbished equipment always worked out well for me before this one, and I may try again, but not right now. So, for about $1000 I have a new snow ibook headed my way, now. I decided at first that I might as well look at Intel laptops since practically all I do is run GNU/Linux, but I was aghast at the prices. I never realized what a good deal an ibook really was.

I'm officially no longer buying Apple for hardware; now I'm buying Apple for price. (Oh, okay, and maybe for GNU/Linux compatibility; Apple systems and peripherals are usually a less diffuse target to hit for free software developers.)

I guess everyone whose bought an ibook has had trouble, huh? But I guess the price will keep us around. Who'd've ever thought Apple would take the developer world by storm, and that they'd be winning on price?

I'm starting my master's thesis this fall. In mynew job (as of December), I'm having to commute to Dallas. I considered mass transportation but rejected it when I saw it would add at least a half hour to my daily commute. However, my plan now is to take the train and use the time to work on my thesis on the laptop. Instead of this removing thirty minutes from my day, mass transit actually adds the hour and a half I spend each day back in for research purposes. Shoot, I never get any time to read any more ... maybe I'll stick with this. No, wait, Sarah'll change that.

Update: Incidentally, I will probably be ebaying the old dead laptop. Estimated repair costs were $332; someone might want to buy it and see if they can fix it, or use it for parts. If I do auction, I'll try to post here.

Not everyone's had problems

Elian on 2003-08-12T19:31:41

My iBook's 20 months old and, other than a lot of scratches on the surface (which you can't see unless you look close, and are entirely my fault) is still going strong, with nary a glitch or burp. (Though I have had two power supplies die for a variety of reasons) None of the troubles that have afflicted some other folks have hit me, and this thing's taken a lot of abuse and logged far more miles than I'd care to think about.

I'd get the extended care warranty anyway, if you've got the choice. It gives a nice cozy feeling, and is useful if things do die.

Re:Not everyone's had problems

jdavidb on 2003-08-12T20:19:33

Thanks. I'm glad to hear there was at least one person who hasn't had to have his ibook repaired or scrapped!

masters and laptops`

gizmo_mathboy on 2003-08-12T22:22:26

Glad to here you're head to grad school. I'm sure that you know that CVS (or your versioning system of choice) and LaTex are your friends (if you go thesis that is). I've been meaning to whip up a little something for the grad students in the department I sysadmin about the virtues of CVS and LaTex.

I've seen way too many folks use MS Word and it goes wiggy (yes, that's a technical term ;-) when it gets large.

As for laptops, I just bought a Thinkpad 600e for about $440, it'll end up being around $50 after I finish upgrading the memory and shipping it. I would think the iBooks would still be a bit peppier since the 600e is only a PII 366. Good enough for my brother to use to surf the net, email, and goof around. In fact, I bought the exact same model for my sister and mom. I wasn't brave enough to load linux on it for them, I went with win2k.

Re:masters and laptops`

jdavidb on 2003-08-13T13:30:38

CVS I know well. :) LaTeX and I are not acquainted, and unfortunately as my school goes away from UNIX more and more (with a consequent decline in quality of education) professors who might have used it in the past seem to be disappearing. I'll definitely look into it, though.

They seem to provide an MS Word template for my thesis; I hope I don't have to use it, because whether I use LaTeX or not, I prefer to stick with free software as much as possible.

I had Word for Mac go wiggy on me a few years back trying to type some outlines. Word was absolutely incapable of numbering bullet points consecutively. About every three lines I typed, it got severly confused, and I had to cut and paste lines basically into a new document to get the numbering straight. I finally gave up, finished the outlines, and then did one final cut and paste to renumber. Never forgot the experience; wouldn't wish it on anybody.

I have seen cheaper Intel laptops now that I've made my purchase (isn't that always the case?); my iBook probably is a lot peppier (800 MHz, and it's a PowerPC), but that Thinkpad sounds like just what I was looking for. Oh well.