I did a quick design for a "Pathtag" (don't ask it is a geocaching thing) but thought I should share it here:


These basically are trackable keychain fobs about the size of a quarter. Haven't decided if I'll get this one made... I did one for the MOTD08 geocaching meet & greet. Then again take out the hole (where the red X is) and it could be a nice grill badge.

 

Writing this on...what else...a Mac Mini.
We have been a PC free household for over 20 years.
I love my Mac and I love my MINI...thank goodness I don't have to choose between them!

 

Hey, if any Mac fanatics want to comment, I'm looking for input (here) on what other software to add to my new MacBook Pro.

 

If Microsoft made a car... you'd have to press the "Start" button in order to turn it off.

 

... it would be called Vista and regularly "crash".

 

Umm, don't you have to push the "Start" (and Stop)button to turn off the car?

 

I don't know if I am a Mac fanatic, but I have used them exclusively since I bought by G4 back in 1999. I wanted to before then, but couldn't afford it.

Current setup:
iMac (current gen)
iBook G4
2 iPhone 3Gs

Oh, and then there's the fun mac widgets that I wrote:
2009 MINIs on the Dragon Countdown
MotoringFile RSS Widget
NAM RSS Widget (trying to figure out how to fix the problem with the photos. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know!)

 

I posted a message about iData 3. This is one app that I use daily, and am totally addicted to.

It is a freeform database with fields optional. It is a great catch-all for information you don’t know what to do with. Its fast search lets you find records quickly with any scrap of text or word that you can remember about it. You can also add fields to a freeform datafile at any time to help you organize the data.

It will grab the URL and title of a web page and then paste the contents of the clipoard into a new record with just the click of a button. So, copy some text from a web page that helps identify what it is and create a more comprehensive bookmark. My web link datafile has over 2,500 bookmarks in it. I’d never be able to remember what each one was by just a title, or be able to find them in a list. As well as just bookmarks, I use it to keep track of all my online purchases.

It will quickly print a single envelope or label from an address in a record, or print them in batches. It will dial phone numbers through a modem, which is a great way to make use of an otherwise obsolete modem. Or it can dial through the computer’s speakers.

It will import email from Apple Mail, or a number of other mail programs.

You can synchronize a datafile on two Macs.

There are a bunch of other features as well. You can download a copy and try it for 30 days of actual use before you decide whether you want to buy it. So, if you run it once a week, it would run for 30 weeks.

iData was published by Casady & Greene, Inc. before it closed. The programmer bought the rights to it and has taken it through two generations since then. It started out as QuickDEX, which I taked Mike Greene into writing in 1985. Programming was taken over by Mike Wright and the name was changed to InfoGenie. Later it was renamed iData Pro. Since then, Wright has rewritten it in objective C for OS X. I'm helping Mike Wright publish it because I need it to continue.

 

Yea, iphone, 3 pods and a Mac Book Pro.
2 boys going to college, so 2 more mac book pro's & 2 touches, in addition to there 4 pods between them

 

if apple made a car it would be white, plastic and not possible to modify and have no access to the actual working of the machine. It would also be twice the price for have the power of the competition cars even though it would use the same motor, wheels, suspension and gearbox of the competition. And have one pedal for both gas and brake.

see apple is a hardware company...

M$ is a Software company....MS does make a software interface for cars and it is fantastic. But if M$ made a car then you probaly would only be able to fill up at specific gas stations and the sofwear would lock you out of many things.

 

Wow, you're stuck in the 90's! Apple makes all kinds of funky colored products ... not just white. (And, they make TITANIUM laptops) You CAN modify Apple Computers and you have access to the inner workings. Twice the price=quality and superior technology. PeeCee users just don't get it!

 

Actually, they haven't made titanium laptops for quite a while now. Only the early G4 PowerBooks were titanium - all the later ones (and all of the Intel-based MacBook Pros) are aluminum.

But you're right - you can get to anything you need to to upgrade/repair Apple computers, even the laptops. My wife and I have had five Mac laptops between us (12" G3 iBook, 15" G4 Powerbook, 17" G4 PowerBook, MacBook and 15" MacBook Pro), and I've done upgrades on all of them, including replacing hard drives, adding RAM, adding wireless network cards, replacing the backlight inverter on the iBook, and upgrading the optical drive on the iBook.

Upgrading the optical drive on the 12" iBook is probably the hardest job to do on *any* Mac laptop made since 2000, and even that wasn't hard. www.ifixit.com has step-by-step walkthroughs with pictures that make any kind of repair/upgrade very simple.

Plus, the Mac laptops are put together using lots of fine-pitch machine screws that screw into *metal* threads, rather than coarse-thread screws into plastic threads like everyone else uses, so you can actually disassemble the computer more than once without hogging out screw holes.

And just from an aesthetic standpoint, I think most of the other laptops on the market are hideously ugly, with stickers stuck all over them and molded-plastic parts. Even the power button on a MacBook Pro is a thing of beauty (a machined metal piece with laser-engraving). In fact, that's part of Apple's design philosophy that I absolutely love - no stickers at all on the outside of the computer. Everything is either laser-engraved or screen-printed. No glued-on/taped on plastic emblems, either. And all of the screw heads are flat so they sit flush with the surface they're screwed into. It's the little touches like that that make a big difference to me.

 

I have a first gen titanium power book but the battery burned out (there are scorch mark s on the back of the battery) and it the computer won't even start up with out the batter in, with a plug, or with a different battery, it really blows, because back in the day they had a recall, but mine missed the cut off date, and I was too lazy at the time to fight it

 

You've brought up a couple good points. Apple uses a lot more quality parts on their machines and it shows down to the details (like the power button). Additionally, they are very streamlined in their look. They look elegant and expensive. Personally, I would rather pay a bit more for something that not only functions quite well and has tons of features, but looks sharp too... Just like my MINI...

If I wanted a car that was just functional and cheap (and less expensive looking), I would have purchased a Civic. Good cars, but in a different class than the MINI.

"MINIship" has it's privileges!

 

right superior technology and quality....which is why they use Intel Cpus, Nvida cards and the same hard drives as PeeCee users were using log before.

My desk top has more power then a Mac Pro and it cost me 800 bucks to upgrade. How much does it cost to upgrade a G5 to a Mac Pro?

What happened to the MIPS and PowerPc instruction sets.

i am not saying they are junk, cause they are the same as a PC now except the OS but twice the price...but really that is a MS apple deal and not a PC vs. Mac deal.

 

Sorry to say this, but if Apple made a car the only wheels you could buy would be factory wheels. Lack of 3rd party vendor support for Macs is Apple's weakest point. I would switch to Apple in a second (wife has an Ipod touch, awesome little machine) but 80% of the software I need would not work.
Also, even though the OS is built on an Open Source OS (FreeBSD I believe), it is NOT fully open source itself, especially the windows/graphics subsystem. Yes, you can run X11 alongside it, but that kinda defeats the whole point of owning an Apple imo.

 

Um when was the last time you looked into this, that was an argument like 3 years ago, but every mac available now has an Intel chip and can run windows (if needed) along with OSX, not to mention it runs it faster than a PC, is it something that wont run on windows. The switch to intel also opened a lot more 3rd party development then before for OSX, so you'd be surprised what has become available, you might not even have to run crappy windows at all.

 

recently got a macbook for my grad present and I'm love it!!!

mac+mini=love

 

Hmm, interesting JudgeS. Indeed, the last time I attempted to write software for the Mac was about 3 years ago. After much frustration, I gave up.

But, if I end up running windows on the Mac, what am I buying a Mac for? As much as I like the fine crafted buttons and sleek looks, it's the OS that really grabs my attention. I really would like to see the software I'm running on the PC run natively on the Mac, but unfortunately, that's not going to happen any time soon.

 

It runs faster then a PC is a bold statment, on which mother board and which chipset???

My Intel Xenon X3350 is running at 3.6ghz, on a ASUS X38 Chipset and runs a Ati 4870. I belive the current Mac Pro runs a 2.6ghz at the same chip, and comes with a slower graphics 2900XT ATI which is a very bad card for the money and a slower FSB. Fastest card on a Mac Pro is a 8800GT which is 2 years old and can be had for 75 bucks. base price $2,799.00.

 

lets not get into the mac is faster than pc thing here. mac enthusiasts are never going to prove that to a pc enthusiast and vice versa.

 

Amen Hunsingeruk! Not too mention that it's starting to get a little heated... Perhaps we can focus on the more fun stuff thatt we all agree on, like the fact that we have a love for MINI's. Or at least remember that there is no reason to sell one another on what OS or system we should have. Everyone likes what he or she like for personal reasons, and that's good enough.

 

Not much of a fan,but i like Apple products.
My first one was a 3G 15GB iPod then a 60GB Black iPod Video and my last adquisition was a 8GB iPhone last year ago.

I wanted to get an iMac this year,as i dont have a personal desktop and use my brother's.But that will have to wait as my parents are considering buying me a new MCSa.

 

has anyone seen this yet?

 

Its not that bold of a statement, and I'm just repeating it, it was actually a PC World article (November 2007) where the MacBook pro was the fastest notebook to run Windows Vista, it was all over the news when it came out.