So I Bought My First Mac Today

But first, a little history...

I started getting into Apple shortly after I got my first iPod 6 years ago. I began to think of Apple as a media company and Macintosh simply as "media machines." I even said things along the lines of, "yeah they're awesome for music and photos and such, but you could never develop with them."

They even released a Mac Mini to further prove my point. It seemed to be the perfect "media machine" at the time. I even had some big plans to throw one into my home theater system for internet browsing, sharing videos, etc. What a fun little toy.

Fast forward to now. I've developed web apps on a Mac full-time for the past year and a half. And to tell you the truth, I can't imagine going back to development on a PC. Granted I am a web developer, but still - the Mac experience has been so much better and so much more productive.

Since I started my job, I've become more and more of an Apple Fanboy. And as such, I've watched every WWDC, Macworld, and other Keynote hoping for a Mac Mini update. That stupid little home theater machine that I wanted a couple years ago was now exactly what I wanted for a development machine. All they had to do was support dual monitors and beef up some other hardware a bit... but unlike the recent macbook updates - it needed to retain firewire.

There were rumors of a Mac Mini update during every single one of those Keynotes... and I died a little after each of Steve's "one more things," haha.

This past (and last) Mac World, I was so positive that we were getting a Mac Mini update that I told everyone to get me Apple gift cards for Christmas. I racked up $450 in gift cards only to be let down by a freakin DRM free iTunes.

So Today. Finally, today - Apple released the exact update to the Mac Mini that I've been waiting for. There was no announcement or anything; it just showed up on their site. So I gathered all my gift cards, grabbed my Mac savings account (a Glenfiddich tube full of change), and unfiled one of Kari's check stubs (my education discount) and busted outta the house.

At lunch, my boss and I ran to the Apple store where we were immediately told that they didn't have the new shipment yet - I was let down AGAIN. JUST GIVE ME MY DAMN MAC MINI. For crying out loud, man. This has gotten out of hand.

So the greeter lady went back and double checked for me - they had just gotten the shipment. In fact it was so fresh that they put me on the Genius waiting list while they got one ready to sell. An hour later, I walked out of the store with the first Mac Mini that the store had sold.

Now I'm sitting here blogging from my tiny new hotness. It's no Mac Pro - but it's definitely a capable machine with a 2ghz Intel Core 2 duo, 2gb ram, and a 320gb HD. Don't forget the fancy NVIDIA chip and firewire 800...

My hand-me-down G4 is turned off... can't wait to do the same to my Dell Optiplex.

written by 27 year old Derek Brooks

Remember the arguments...

luke posted

welcome to the good team...i predict that within 3 years you will have nothing but macs in your house

nick posted

How many months until you start complaining how expensive the laptops are?

mh posted

luke, yes, i was wrong.

nick, thanks, i like that prediction.

mh, i've been talking about mac being over priced for years. so uh, negative months?

derek posted

So when are you gonna hack your PC's and load OSX on them.

Tag posted

Have you tried the OSX kalyway?

posted

and just cause i always do this when i get a new computer.



here's what i installed to get me off the ground.



firefox3 (with firebug and delicious plugins)

adium (with my fancy twitter plugin)

growl

vlc player

xcode

coda

klieme eyesight

safari 4beta

transmission

electric sheep

iscrobbler



now i just gotta transfer my itunes library and get parallels and XP running.

fun, fun

derek posted

oh, and if you have windows machines in the house, also check out these remote desktop apps.



windows remote desktop connection 2.0 for mac and CoRD. right now CoRD seems to be a bit nicer.

derek posted

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