Monday, February 23, 2009

Went MAC and I am not looking back!

I have been in the Microsoft camp since the DOS days. In 1986 the 1st owner of Tele-Acoustics purchased a IBM PC with a whopping 64MB RAM and a 10MB hard drive. From there I have tried all the Window iterations. I finally grew tired of the overhead of my time. If you are a Windows user think about all the supporting applications it takes to get anything done! I have been watching the costs of supporting Windows servers in an Enterprise environment grow at an exponential pace. All of this cost and there has not been vast improvements with stability in Windows for years.

My shopping for a new computer brought me to some basic needs:
*Portability
*Fully functional web browsing
*Rugged
*Photo viewing, editing and publishing
*Easy to use so my family can enjoy it as well.
The new Netbooks caught my eye and a colleague bought a ASUS eee which was small, ran a flavor of Linux but the screen could not do Internet videos or pictures justice. When I saw the video of the making of the macbook unibody case I was sold on the MAC hardware.


Talks in my office found that 50% of the geeks I surround myself were closet MAC users. Comparison of PC to Macbook specs saw a $400+ premium on the Mac side. The marketing people can easily justify a net zeros difference. With EBAY i was able to shave dollars off and save from paying sales tax. So without further research or trying one I placed a bid on a 2.4GHz 13" unibody Macbook with a upgraded 500Gig HD.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Protecting your portable devices

After Christmas we had a few items that needed cases such as Sally's IPhone and Chance's Android. I stumbled on a YouTube video about ZAGGs skins. Right before I was to place an order I found a site called Best Skins Ever. Seems BestSkins has access to the same military grade material as Zagg and offer it as a cheaper alternative. The skins offer protection from scratches as well as provide a better grip.

After putting the skins on the phones I have some advice. It is imperative that you make sure the skin is equal around all edges. Use a bowl of water/soap to dip your fingers into as you are working the skins on. Chance's phone started to peel just slightly. I think during the squeegee process it moved toward one corner which is the corner that is now peeling. I asked the company about options to fix it and I received a replacement piece along with a hint to use baby shampoo as the wetting agent. I used Dawn which had some additives that might have been a poor choice. Tonight I installed skins on my 13" MacBook. Use rubbing alcohol first to get all oils off. make sure to watch for dust and hair that like to stick to the adhesive. Take your time and they look great.

Rants, Tips, Tricks and Traps

This Blog will be a place where I put my random thoughts on items or places that intrigue me and might be of interest to my friends and family.