Rocking the New Computer

So I finally got my computer.

It’s amazing.

I ordered a MacBook Pro from Apple at the discount student price.  I had them swap the 200GB 5400RPM HD for a shpeedier 7200 RPM 200GB HD.  The processor speed is 2.4GHz, and it carries a 15in widescreen.    I picked up some new RAM off NewEgg (4GB worth) to put in it.  It came with a $299 credit towards an Apple iPod (touch or nano) so I went with the Touch, and upped it to 16GB (which cost me an extra $100).  I plan to sink another $10 into it for the 2.0 firmware.

Using my Fraser Broadcasting Scholarship, I picked up some software to help me broadcast, including Adobe Design Premium CS3, Final Cut Express, and a standard issue Microsoft Word package, all at super discounted prices at Ball State.  They also offered me a free antivirus software package, which I downloaded today.  I picked up a 750GB external HD on Kerby’s recommendation, and partitioned it for scratch disk and storage, Time Machine, and Carbon Copy.

I also have an older 17in monitor that I use, and Kerby was kind enough to give me a DVI cable so that the image is nice and crisp.  I have an old dell mouse, an old Apple Pro Keyboard (also courtesy of Kerby), a Wacom pen tablet that I’ve had around a couple of years, and a USB hub powering it all.  My printer is around here somewhere, but it’s low on ink, so it’s not getting much use.  I also have my old flashdrive (2GB, which has been my computer for more than a few months), and a couple of other flash drives hanging about.  The keyboard functions as a USB hub for my Logitech headphone/mic pair and the mouse, since neither of them require a lot of power or speed.  The external HD occupies a FW 800 port, though, for good reason.  The transfer speed is quite pleasant!  They’re both 7200 RPM, my internal and the 750GB.

There’s a 60GB external Maxtor HD that I’m trying to configure for Boot Camp and more storage space.  I’ve been reading some posts here that say I might be able to manage it.  Ball State offers a free copy of Windows XP to students, to I’ll do that, just for kicks: a challenge, something to do.  Partitioning is fun, by the way.  It makes it seem as though I have 5 HD attached to my computer:

When in reality there are only 2, just partitioned so that the computer sees 5.  In terms of applications, I have the standard iLife, iChat, FCE and CS3, of course, but also free web apps including Firefox 3.0, VLC media player, a reverse iPod rip app that got me my music back off my 5G video iPod, called Senuti, Handbrake, for ripping DVDs-in my case my oldRadio-TV projects to put them on the internet here-and Carbon Copy, which is donationware, for creating a bootable copy of your HD.  I recommend both using and funding this application.  Microsoft Office is here, as is Front Row and Photo Booth.  I upgraded to QT Pro with the Fraser Scholarship as well.  Time Machine has been working fine so far, as well.  I don’t particularly like Mail, though, it’s trying to download every message I’ve ever had off gmail and treating them as if they’re brand new-it doesn’t quite interface with the “archive” feature that is so great about gmail.  So, I keep gmail as it was designed to be, as webmail, and that works fine.  I use the Mail app on the iPod Touch, though, and that works all right, it only shows my new mail.  iCal I use from time to time, but I’m more a fan of Dashboard sticky notes and notes on the Touch to keep me organized.  Other Dashboard widgets I use include FreeComics, which pulls the comics off freecomics.com and puts them right (ish) on my desktop, minus all the annoying scrolling around and clicking links.  Other than that, though, on the Dashboard it’s mostly the calculator, calendar, and weather widgets.  Similar to my usage on the Touch.

I don’t use Safari, mostly because I dislike its keyboard shortcuts more than anything else.  Also, I had some trouble RSS’ing with it, so I just switched back to Firefox (3.0 now!  It’s skinned like a Mac app now, and it looks great.  Plus, my bookmarks bar is right there across the top-I’ve added some more, so now it looks like below.  The blurred out sections are other’s blogs.

So yeah, that’s Firefox.  I’ve got the big important bookmarks, like gmail, facebook, meebo (online im), igoogle, wikipedia, an RSS for digg, an RSS for ars, FRED (fencing database and tournament scheduler), the RCF website, an XKCD bookmark, which is an amazing math/computer/nerd webcomic found here.  Also there is a link to my blog so I can update it, a link to my website, so I can check it out, then my six or so blog RSS feeds so I can check those out.  PSD and NET tuts are also RSS’d so I can check out the latest and best web programming or creative tutorials.  Over on the far right is a Last FM bookmark, internet radio, essentially, then a shortcut for Photoshop Express, online imaging.  Then, the macnn forums and the unofficial apple weblog RSS, both of which are new additions to my rounds of websites to check.  I have numerous resources bookmarked but not up there, like What the Font? that Kerby found, for analyzing and discovering what font a certain image contains (would have been great for yearbook advertising, as people sent me business cards, and I had a helluva time creating them in the computer without the font.  By the way, Illustrator’s LiveTrace and Expand features are great for recreating business cards.  I’m sure I’m a master at that now.)

What else do I do on here?  I’ve already started to learn basic animation with Photoshop Extended in CS3, which is fun.  You can catch the link to my latest test here.  I of course use iTunes, I was super-psyched to find out that my Windows-formatted 5G iPod works with the Mac: I can do everything but update the firmware, and I’ve had no problems with that in the last year and a half, so I’m really not worried about it, and I don’t think I’ll reformat it.  (I guess I can’t sync photos without losing stuff there too, but I’m not worried.  The Touch is much more suited to photo viewing and the 5G to music listening).

iPhoto keeps track of my photos when I bother to import them, but I actually am starting to prefer Image Capture for that.

Well, so much for an update of my computer world, a far cry from one little 2GB flash drive that held 3 portable apps and all my data for so long!  Welcome to a world of easy backups, bootable external HD’s, excellent software, plenty of memory, and all that other jazz.  This has all been an effort to distract myself while my BSU copy of XP downloads.  It’s at 530MB roughly right now, which is probably less than half.  The sad part about having a faster computer is that it does NOT speed up my internet connection.  And if that’s the biggest worry I have, it’s a good thing.

Firmware 2.0

The new iPhone (and iPod Touch) firmware is slated to be released on the 11th of July (it looks like the iPhone 3G will be released at AT&T Stores at 8am, but we don’t know when at Apple stores yet).  This is a problem, because Ed wants to pick up a new iPhone, but hopes to do it at the Apple store at Keystone, in Indy.  Kerby and I may or may not go with him, probably hoping for shirts or other novelties, but also to check out this slick new piece of Apple equipment.  So, we’re waiting on that release.

Apple announced the iPhone 3G to [barely] surprised developers at WWDC in California a little under a month ago, with the unfortunate tag of it not being available until the 11th of July.

Included in the Firmware 2.0 is the new App Store, which will include games for purchase, medical imaging applications, and hopefully a whole slew of other projects that devs have been working on for a while.  From what I’ve heard and read, this will be available as of the 11th as well.

Other features of the 2.0 are a scientific calculator, more languages, “better” email support, and Push support as well.

My family subscribes to Verizon cell & internet service, so the iPhone was never really an option for me.  I did, however, manage to pick up a 16GB iPod touch with my new Mac, so that’s quite nice.  It can’t take photos, make phone calls, send text messages, or access EDGE/3G, but!  It still has a gorgeous touch interface, is a fully functioning iPod, and has wireless WIFI access, which is super nice  for travelling, and for sitting in restaraunts.  If for some reason I needed to be more in touch with the internet, this is even easier to carry around than a 1.0in thick laptop.

It costs $10 for iPod Touch users to upgrade, and the general assumption is that this is because we don’t pay a monthly service fee for anything.  We pay the one time fee for the purchase of the device, and then apparently again for the firmware, which, I’d say, for $10 is probably worth it.  I’ll end up doing it, anyway.

So that’s the iPhone and iPod Touch.  Fun shtuff.

Oh, and obviously none of this is really new news, but I hadn’t talked about it on this blog before.  Check out apple.com for more info, or visit http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars for great Apple blog coverage.