New tech for Ben, hooray!

Last week my laptop died. State-of-the-art 4 and 1/2 years ago, my Dell Inspiron 8200 is no more. I was simultaneously mortified and elated when I pressed the power button and heard a pathetic whine of a dead hard-drive instead of the reassuring clicking noises of a healthy drive. No-one believes me but I knew that the death of my laptop was imminent which is why I backed up my files the week before, thereby saving myself a crap load of lost-file grief.

The reason for my partial elation upon the demise of my Dell was because I hated its appearance (cheap looking black plastic case), and despised lugging it around (with its cumbersome chunky power pack, it was over 4 kg/8.8 lbs). Despite the unseemly aesthetics however, with all my folders, files and web-browser bookmarks arranged to my liking, plus the fact that I found the XP-professional operating system to be absolutely great, I really grew fond of my trusty Dell. It was a case of what was inside that counted and not looks.

So when my faithful Dell died, I was stranded. No computer=no internet at home. Combined with no TV, no radio, no-one to chat with at home, for about a week, it was unpleasant. The only thing that kept me sane during that time was my beloved iPod, my copy of the novel 1984 by Orwell, hanging out with Bing and Lulu for a bit, and sadly enough being crazily busy at work. Money is a bit tight at the moment so I didn't want to amuse myself by going out too much. If you think pfft, what a wuss, you try going from work to a home without internet/human interaction/radio/friend network nearby/familiar local hang-outs for a week and see how it goes.

But the technology-induced isolation at home is no more! Now I've got Triple J radio and billions of webpages to surf at home again. I'm now typing away on my shiny new Apple Macbook Pro. I've used Macs extensively at work so I had decided a while ago that my next computer would be a Mac.

I only received my new Mac today and one word sums up the notebook in terms of functionality and looks: elegant.

Of course Apple's OS operating system is quite different to Windows, but OS X is easy to learn. What also impressed me was how quickly I received my MacBook. Ordered it late on Friday and got it this morning, and having been provided a FedEx tracking number, it's pretty amazing that you can follow the whole procedure (OK from my amazement, it's clear that I don't get many FedEx deliveries, well not deliveries that I'm really hanging out for and obsessively tracking anyway):


Anyway, my MacBook Pro arrived earlier than some software that I ordered a day earlier that was being shipped locally, so I was impressed.

So farewell Dell old mate, I thought I'd commemorate the memories of lugging you across various continents, bashing out a PhD thesis on you, giving many Powerpoint presentations on you, and playing countless hours of music through your tinny speakers over the years, with a tasty local beer (or 3), as documented by the iSight camera on your hopefully worthy Apple replacement.


Cheers.


Update, Wednesday morning: As a slight kick to the nuts, I'm disappointed that the new line of MacBook Pros got released yesterday, just as I received my older version notebook: same price, extra memory/faster processor speed. I was vaguely aware of their release but had no idea it was so bloody imminent. In the words of 24's Jack Bauer, dammit!

Right, back to waiting for the gas company guy to arrive and change my meter. Apparently he's due sometime between 8am-12pm... A freakin' four hour window? Dammit!