A few weeks ago I decided to upgrade my mobile phone to a Blackberry. My sister has been a Blackberry fanatic for many years and couldn’t recommend it enough. And she was right, I really don’t know how I managed without it. Having instant and ready access to my email, twitter, facebook, flickr, ravelry and everything else is brilliant. The first bill was a little frightening because Mr Phone Store Guy forgot to add a data deal to my plan but it was straightened out yesterday and back-dated to remove the excess charges. :)

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

My laptop has been running so painfully slow for so long that I really think it’s time to buy a new one.  And as much as I’ve enjoyed using my iBook for the last 5+ years, I don’t think I’d buy another one.  For starters, the performance has been really pretty dreadful.  It was never a fast computer but these days it takes FOREVER to load a webpage and I find the whole experience more annoying than it should be.  I’ve removed all the software that I can get by without which really only leaves the usual OSX utilities it came with, Firefox and MS Office.  Actually, the more I think about it, the less I remember enjoying using the iBook.  Scary.

As usual, these decisions usually boil down to cost and given that I can get a super thin, light weight Windows notebook with a wide screen for around $700 or less compared to around $1500 for another iBook, it’s really hard to choose the Mac.

I originally bought the iBook so I would have a nifty and reliable laptop for working on my website design and uni assignments.  I remember the big “So You’re a PC User That Wants to Switch to Mac” demonstration in the Apple Store and thinking that the iBook was going to do all these neat things that my pc couldn’t do.  The sales guy definitely implied that the iBook was more capable than it was, and when I did get it home, I was really annoyed that most of the features he had demonstrated came out of additional software that wasn’t included with the iBook.  I limped along with it and was generally satisfied with my purchase, though definitely disappointed for having been misled.  Everything was probably ok for about a year when the poor performance really started to cripple me and I sprung for extra RAM.  This made a modest difference but overall it still wasn’t “good”.  I gave up trying to do any website design with it almost immediately after the initial purchase, and occasionally felt masochistic enough to attempt to bang out the odd essay for uni on the thing.  It was very quickly downgraded to the task of websurfing only, and even then it was for lightweight sessions such as fact-checking a movie or celebrity on imdb when trying to place a familiar but un-nameable actor!  Don’t even bother trying to watch a video on youtube with it, it seldom wants to do sound AND image at the same time.  Actually, that last one was a lie.  It will play every damn nursery rhyme on youtube for my not-quite two year old niece but it wouldn’t let me watch the trailers for Sherlock Holmes or Zombieland.  Where’s the justice??

The only really nice thing I can say about the iBook is that the battery life has been excellent, however there was a recall on my original battery and it was swapped at no cost for a new battery when it was around 2 years old.  I still get around 2 hours of battery life now, not that I ever use it for 2 hour stretches.  Watching that stupid colour-wheel spin while the iBook decides if it’s going to perform the basic requested task is not my idea of fun.

Since my niece is the only person who seems to be able to get any use out of it, I’ve promised it to her just as soon as I replace it with a shiny new notebook.  But… given that we have a stack of bills as well as a funeral to pay for soon, she might have to wait a while longer.

I have no idea.  Earlier today I thought of something that would’ve made a good blog post but after a hellish couple of hours I’ve forgotten what it was.  My old website, the one I shut down in February 2007, was powered by Movable Type.  I really like Movable Type, and I still use an early version for another project, so it was my first choice in blogging platforms when I decided to make my not-so-grand come back.  I downloaded the latest version and set about configuring, uploading, chmodding and installing it.  After two hours of bullshit internal server errors and two do-overs, I gave up.  I only chose WordPress because I’d noticed an old bloggy friend had switched to it from Movable Type.  WordPress’ five minute install is brilliant, however it should be noted that it took closer to three minutes.  Maybe four minutes.  Either way, super fast, easy and without a repeat of the swearing and prolonged episode of teeth-gnashing that was witnessed by the cats earlier today.  I haven’t investigated the template system yet and I don’t expect it to be any worse than Movable Type’s templates.  I’ve designed the layout, something simple but effective and will attempt to have it finished in the few days.  I’m looking forward to working with php again.  It’s been too long!