Father's Day
I'm having a comedy of events here.
Elvi spent the bulk of Father's Day weekend out near Magog on a retreat with her lesbian choir, leaving me and the kids to fend for ourselves. I managed to get Child Two out with me for a shopping trip yesterday but spent most of the rest of the day in bed. I fell asleep around 5:30 p.m., woke at 8:00 p.m. and told the kids to eat, then went back to bed.
At 9:00 a.m. today, the kids told me they were making me food. I assumed they meant breakfast so I stayed in bed until noon when hunger drove me downstairs. I had to get my own breakfast (the last of the lasagna followed by a bowl of granola with extra coconut) because the food they were making turned out to be cheesecake (still not done) and almond meringue cookies (which are delicious even though they resemble almond meringue leather more than cookies). I should credit the kids: while the kitchen was an unholy mess this morning, they more or less cleaned up (OK, with my help).
The most worrisome aspect of my week is that my Mac has decided to start shutting down at random. It might be heat related, but that's not a good excuse. After years of service, it's time to move on from my souped up G4 and buy a replacement.
I checked eBay; used G5s are reasonably priced but it doesn't make sense right now to get anything but a machine with an Intel processor - and those are no bargain on eBay, used or not.
I currently have a 21" or 22" CRT monitor that's just fine.
I've looked at the options and here they are. I like the price of the Mini but I'm a little worried about the lower grade video, which is in everything but the Mac Pro. Flight sims and WWII Online are the most taxing thing I'll use, along with the next Combat Mission release. I don't know a whole lot about video cards, though....
Prices are in Canadian dollars after my educational discount and all orders come with a free iPod Touch (yum!):
1) MacBook Pro 15" laptop: 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm; NVIDIA GeForce 9400M; $1900
2) MacMini: 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 320GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm; NVIDIA GeForce 9400M; $1185
3) iMac 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 640GB Serial ATA Drive @ ? rpm; NVIDIA GeForce 9400M; 24" LCD monitor; $1700
4) Mac Pro 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon; 3GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA @ 3Gb/s; ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB; $2950 (or drop to a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB for $225 less)
What I really need is the Mac Mini with the video card of the Mac Pro, but that's not an option. Apple should provide a Mini Pro, but I'm guessing the company likes the profit on the Mac Pros.
Happy Father's Day, all.
Elvi spent the bulk of Father's Day weekend out near Magog on a retreat with her lesbian choir, leaving me and the kids to fend for ourselves. I managed to get Child Two out with me for a shopping trip yesterday but spent most of the rest of the day in bed. I fell asleep around 5:30 p.m., woke at 8:00 p.m. and told the kids to eat, then went back to bed.
At 9:00 a.m. today, the kids told me they were making me food. I assumed they meant breakfast so I stayed in bed until noon when hunger drove me downstairs. I had to get my own breakfast (the last of the lasagna followed by a bowl of granola with extra coconut) because the food they were making turned out to be cheesecake (still not done) and almond meringue cookies (which are delicious even though they resemble almond meringue leather more than cookies). I should credit the kids: while the kitchen was an unholy mess this morning, they more or less cleaned up (OK, with my help).
The most worrisome aspect of my week is that my Mac has decided to start shutting down at random. It might be heat related, but that's not a good excuse. After years of service, it's time to move on from my souped up G4 and buy a replacement.
I checked eBay; used G5s are reasonably priced but it doesn't make sense right now to get anything but a machine with an Intel processor - and those are no bargain on eBay, used or not.
I currently have a 21" or 22" CRT monitor that's just fine.
I've looked at the options and here they are. I like the price of the Mini but I'm a little worried about the lower grade video, which is in everything but the Mac Pro. Flight sims and WWII Online are the most taxing thing I'll use, along with the next Combat Mission release. I don't know a whole lot about video cards, though....
Prices are in Canadian dollars after my educational discount and all orders come with a free iPod Touch (yum!):
1) MacBook Pro 15" laptop: 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm; NVIDIA GeForce 9400M; $1900
2) MacMini: 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 320GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm; NVIDIA GeForce 9400M; $1185
3) iMac 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 640GB Serial ATA Drive @ ? rpm; NVIDIA GeForce 9400M; 24" LCD monitor; $1700
4) Mac Pro 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon; 3GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA @ 3Gb/s; ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB; $2950 (or drop to a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB for $225 less)
What I really need is the Mac Mini with the video card of the Mac Pro, but that's not an option. Apple should provide a Mini Pro, but I'm guessing the company likes the profit on the Mac Pros.
Happy Father's Day, all.
posted by Webs at
8:10 PM
3 Comments:
I feel your pain. I sense my Mac is dying a slow (but not too painful) death... don't know what I'll do when it's time for a new one... no educational discount for me now... :(
Hope you're feeling better than your computer!
What is with all the dying Macs lately? I'm thinking Apple's not all it's cracked up to be.
My Mac was fairly old, originally a G4 533 to which I added a couple of hard drives and then a 933 MHz CPU.
The power supply could handle the load, but its fan died. I still ran the machine for a year with the case cracked open but finally the power supplied burned out. A new power supply costs as much as the machine is worth....
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