Actually, I do own a Mac, but this one doesn't count. It's an iMac. No, not one of the new 24" C2D ones, nor the previous generation "lamplight-from-Pixar" that still seems to look pretty sleek. It's a graphite (circa ~2000) DV+ SE, which means that it has a loud 30 mb hard drive and a DVD-ROM. I found it on the street in the way home. In our neighborhood, if anything is left on the curb--be it a sofa, mattress, or computer--it's free game. I looked to my left, and then to my right, and no one was around. I even yelled, "Hey, is this anyone's computer?" Before long, I was hauling that anvil of a device into the backseat of my car.
I have upgraded the memory to 640mb, installed Tiger 10.4 and added an older version of iLife (the latest version won't install all programs). Even though I have all the functionality of the latest Apple operating system, I still don't consider this to be a full-fledged Mac. It's not merely because it's only worth $70 on craigslist. Nor is it because it still utilizes a CRT monitor. It's because I can't write to a DVD (which is the ultimate goal of most of iLife '06) and because I can't upgrade the graphics card. I can't even burn to a DVD through firewire (or at least iDVD won't work that way). I think the graphics megabytes are still in the single digit range. If you can't do any graphics intensive work, you might as well throw out iMovie, iDVD, and maybe even iPhoto (to say nothing of the Pro-apps from Apple).
Nevertheless, I like tinkering around with it. One thing in particular that I enjoy is the RSS feeds feature in Safari. In fact, if it weren't for Safari, I would have never experimented with feed aggregators. We're already on RSS 2.0. I didn't even know there was a RSS 1.0.
But until I reward myself some day with a new MacBook, or even go for broke with a MacPro, I will continue dreaming, and playing with my pseudo-mac.
3 comments:
I'm sure you've already seen this, but the following link http://youtube.com/watch?v=c4yBsCR6LL0) should lend my humble opinion to propaganda war already begun. [Seriously though, I was given a mac laptop to use at school, but not having time to really learn it well, I became quickly frustrated and asked for my old PC back].
It's interesting to note that our school received a grant to receive student laptop carts which are currently macs. I'm not sure if your students use macs at all, but mine are sufficiently unfamiliar with the OS that they have difficulty saving work and locating their items. Is their a "kid-friendly" online guide to the mac that you know of?
since your hardware savvy, may I suggest ubuntu linux It is the most straight forward OS I've seen (over win/ OSx/ etc). I am sure iLife is great, but I have a hard time endorsing Mac's poor hardware; selling computers with integrated graphics cards, 30% premiums on like PC counterparts. As a teaching tool, Linux is closest to an operating system that teaches concepts of linking to devices and programs. Linux also has a usable command line interface which is lends itself to programming, that in turn leads to better logical process.
An now, a word for Mac:
Although I originally started in the PC world (with all those typed commands to accomplish tasks), I became a die-hard Mac fan when OSX came out. I love the iLife apps and use my Mac daily and with enthusiasm. I found that the kids at my elementary school learned the basics pretty quickly. I'm so happy to see that more and more developers are writing for the Mac, and Web 2.0 is definitely leveling the field. I still probably use only about 1/4 of Mac's potential, but it's great for me: made several class videos, podcasts. Mac On!
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