Monday, December 06, 2004
Why I've end-of-life'd my own PowerBook
Awhile back, I learned the value of explaining what a geek phrase such as "end of life" means, before actually putting it into use in front of people who might not be able to take it in the proper context. About three years ago, the school district sent one of its people out to our school to inform us of the "good news" that they were providing us with the funds to purchase a number of Apple laptops for teacher use. The problem, of course, was that, according to my sources at the time, Apple had recently stopped producing that particular laptop model, meaning that a new and better model was imminent. In industry speak, one would say that the product had been "end-of-life'd" or killed off in favor of whatever was coming next. But it wasn't until after I complained to the district rep that they were trying to "stick us with machines that have been end-of-life'd" that I realized that not one person in the room had any idea what I might have been talking about. Perhaps they assumed that I felt that someone should be killed for the whole mess.
And while that last sentiment might not have been far from the truth, it wasn't what I was trying to get across. My point was that all we had to do was to wait a short amount of time before placing our orders, and we would be assured of getting the new model. I guess the lesson to be learned was that some phrases just don't work so well when the person the district sends out to "assist" you with ordering your computers didn't even seem to know how to turn one on. And here three years later, it would seem that I still haven't learned my lesson, seeing as how I've used the phrase "end-of-life" in the title of this article -- and even worse, I've used it in a way that perhaps no one else uses it.
So allow me to back up a bit and explain what I'm actually referring to here, before everyone starts trying to figure out whose life it is that I want to end this time around:
About nine months ago, I found myself suddenly in need of a new Mac, and seeing as how I had just enough funds to buy myself a spanking new eMac, everything seemed rather simple. That was, of course, until I was about to make the purchase and found that I couldn't go through with it, because despite the higher costs involved, I just had to return to my laptop roots. You see, I'd bought an original iBook the week it first hit stores (it's still sitting next to me right now), and throughout my years of working for the school district, I never used anything but a laptop. But after I moved on from the school-based job and began working for myself, I reverted back to using a desktop, because I could get away with doing so, and because it was available. But it never was my thing.
So when the time finally came to finally pull the trigger on a new desktop, I just couldn't do it. My budget pointed me toward a twelve inch G4 iBook, perhaps a refurbished one. But one look at ye olde iBook of mine told me that I just couldn't manage to do the kind of work I do every day, which includes web design ad juggling back and forth between half a dozen apps at a time, on a puny twelve inch screen. So I looked at the fourteen inch G4 iBook, but found myself suddenly way out of my price range, which meant that I would need to look at a used model. And seeing as how the fourteen inch iBook had only existed for a few months at the time, there weren't going to be and used ones available that were old enough to fall into my price range. That last one had to be one of the wierdest catch-22's I'd run into in awhile, but what it meant was that the iBook, in any screen size, was out of the question.
Besides, the fourteen inch iBook had another problem: despite the fact that its screen was two diagonal inches larger than its twelve inch cousin, the screen resolution was the exact same 1024x768 pixels. Suffice it to say that the screen on the fourteen inch iBook couldn't actually hold anything more than the twelve incher, it just made everything a bit larger. So unless you've reached the point where you need everything bigger in order to read it, there's no real point. I'm in my late twenties and I'm severely myopic, so using a computer is one of the few things that I can do without glasses. In other words, in my case, those two extra inches would have just been for show.
I concluded that if I were going to buy a laptop, it would simply have to be a PowerBook that could handle about 1200 by 900 pixels (not coincidentally, just about the same number of pixels on an eMac screen). I was going to have to find not just a used G4 PowerBook, but a severely used one. And that I did. I would never buy a used laptop from stranger (you think they're really going to tell you how many or how few times they've dropped it over the years), but it just so happened that someone I knew and trusted was parting with a two-year-old Titanium PowerBook for just about the same amount of money that I would have spent on a new eMac, so it was a perfect fit.
It was also a huge gamble. I simply must have nearly unfettered access to a computer and to the internet in order to make my living, and I had just invested in a machine that was two years old and had no warranty. I knew that there was no way I would know if I'd made the right decision until after I'd already made it, so I ended up going for the PowerBook. It had more potential downside, but it also had more potential upside. And as it turns out, a lot more upside.
I didn't used to leave town much. But it turns out that it wasn't because I didn't have a desire to do so; it was because I didn't have a desire to be away from my own computer. Nowadays, I just grab my laptop and go wherever I feel like. If wherever I'm going doesn't have internet access, then I can always just find the local Apple Store and sit outside of it with my laptop and tap their wireless signal. And while I'm not quite a road warrior, I feel free as a bird when it comes to traveling. Beyond that, I use my laptop all over the house. When I've been sitting in one spot for too many hours, I just take my computer and go sit somewhere else. If it's another room, fine. If it's the front porch, that works too.
In hindsight, there's no question I made the right choice. As much of a supporter of the eMac as I've been over the years (perfect for the classroom, perfect for the home), the truth is that I'm just a laptop person.
But as with everything, there comes a time to pay the piper. And in my case, the flipside of all my glee is that here nine months later, I'm hacking away on a machine that's a little less than half as fast as that eMac would have been. It didn't matter then; it matters a little more now. It's not that computers get slower as they get older. It's that newer versions of your operating system and vital applications come out, and there's real reasons to upgrade to those new versions, but they're more demanding when it comes to processor and memory usage, so at some point the newer versions of things actually run slower on your aging computer than the older versions did. And while I'm not there yet, that point will come eventually -- and a lot sooner than if I'd opted for a brand spanking new desktop.
At some point, even if your current Mac is doing everything you want it to, you have to start formulating a plan for acquiring your next Mac. It's not that you expect your current Mac to die. It's not that you expect it to suddenly become unable to support your needs. But such things tend to creep up on you while you're not paying attention, and the next thing you know, you're ready for a newer more powerful Mac but you haven't put a thought toward what to buy next and you haven't even budgeted a cent toward it.
I'm not going to let that happen. So here's what I've come up with:
There's no reason to replace this G4 laptop with another G4 laptop. Sure, the current Aluminum PowerBooks are about three times as fast as this one, but the bottom line is that they're still of the same processor family. It may not mean anything now, but take a look at the fact that here in 2004, running all the latest software, any Mac with a G4 processor just runs circles around any G3-based Mac, regardless of the clock speeds involved. I can get real work done on this 667 Mhz G4 PowerBook, but don't even try and put anything with a G3 in it in front of me. So I figure that two or three years from now, we'll be in the exact same situation, only this time with the G5 and the G4. Any G4 laptop will be sagging; any G5 laptop will be fine. One little problem: there is no such thing as G5 laptop.
But you see, that actually works in my favor, because I'm not looking to buy a new laptop right now anyway. I'm just making future plans. So my first rule for buying a new laptop is set in place: it has to be a G5. Depending on which sources you believe, the existence of such a product is anywhere from three to twelve months away or more, so that gives me my time frame for acquiring the new beast. My current laptop will be plenty until then. For that matter, the general rule is that once a new class of Apple computers comes out, you want to wait for at least one revision before buying. The reasons? Any flaws in the new design will have been worked out, and any missing features will have been added if enough users do enough complaining about their absence. I'm not sure it holds true nearly as much as it used to, but there's no real harm in sticking to it if you're not in any hurry.
So assuming it takes six to nine months for the G5 PowerBook to come to market and another three months to see the first set of revisions, I figure it'll be right about this time next year that I walk into the local Apple Store and walk out with a new laptop under my arm. I absolutely refuse to buy a computer with borrowed money (you never want to borrow money to buy something that depreciates as quickly as a computer), so that means that I have about twelve months to set aside the kind of fundage required to grab myself a fifteen inch G5 PowerBook. If the current pricing structure holds true, then that means that I'm looking at a little under two grand.
Since I'm aware of situation and I know what I have to earmark between now and then, it shouldn't be too hard, especially considering that the reward will be owning my first brand new Mac since 1999. In the mean time, though, the trick lies in not spending any more money on my current laptop. I'd originally planned to add an external SuperDrive to this PowerBook when I bought it, but there's no point in doing so now, because my next laptop will undoubtedly come with one built-in (and when you're dealing with a laptop, you always want to go internal if you can). I'd also originally planned to upgrade the 512 megabytes of RAM to a full gigabyte, but it turns out that a "mere" 512 MB has been more than enough to keep from slowing me down thus far. Why buy more unless I reach a point where I need it?
And that's my new motto from here on in. Unless something needs repaired that keeps me from getting my work done, I'm officially calling a permanent moratorium on investing any further money into my current laptop, so that I can instead set that money aside for purchasing my next one. Or, to use a dialect that apparently only I can understand, I've "end-of-life'd" my G4 PowerBook. No hardware add-ons, no hardware upgrades, no repairing anything unless something breaks that I can't live without.
So now it's just a waiting game until the G5 PowerBook comes into existence and until I have the means to acquire it. Now that I've got my gameplan in place, I'll just keep pecking away on my current laptop until that day comes, as if nothing had happened at all.
You've got to love being a Mac user.
Awhile back, I learned the value of explaining what a geek phrase such as "end of life" means, before actually putting it into use in front of people who might not be able to take it in the proper context. About three years ago, the school district sent one of its people out to our school to inform us of the "good news" that they were providing us with the funds to purchase a number of Apple laptops for teacher use. The problem, of course, was that, according to my sources at the time, Apple had recently stopped producing that particular laptop model, meaning that a new and better model was imminent. In industry speak, one would say that the product had been "end-of-life'd" or killed off in favor of whatever was coming next. But it wasn't until after I complained to the district rep that they were trying to "stick us with machines that have been end-of-life'd" that I realized that not one person in the room had any idea what I might have been talking about. Perhaps they assumed that I felt that someone should be killed for the whole mess.
And while that last sentiment might not have been far from the truth, it wasn't what I was trying to get across. My point was that all we had to do was to wait a short amount of time before placing our orders, and we would be assured of getting the new model. I guess the lesson to be learned was that some phrases just don't work so well when the person the district sends out to "assist" you with ordering your computers didn't even seem to know how to turn one on. And here three years later, it would seem that I still haven't learned my lesson, seeing as how I've used the phrase "end-of-life" in the title of this article -- and even worse, I've used it in a way that perhaps no one else uses it.
So allow me to back up a bit and explain what I'm actually referring to here, before everyone starts trying to figure out whose life it is that I want to end this time around:
About nine months ago, I found myself suddenly in need of a new Mac, and seeing as how I had just enough funds to buy myself a spanking new eMac, everything seemed rather simple. That was, of course, until I was about to make the purchase and found that I couldn't go through with it, because despite the higher costs involved, I just had to return to my laptop roots. You see, I'd bought an original iBook the week it first hit stores (it's still sitting next to me right now), and throughout my years of working for the school district, I never used anything but a laptop. But after I moved on from the school-based job and began working for myself, I reverted back to using a desktop, because I could get away with doing so, and because it was available. But it never was my thing.
So when the time finally came to finally pull the trigger on a new desktop, I just couldn't do it. My budget pointed me toward a twelve inch G4 iBook, perhaps a refurbished one. But one look at ye olde iBook of mine told me that I just couldn't manage to do the kind of work I do every day, which includes web design ad juggling back and forth between half a dozen apps at a time, on a puny twelve inch screen. So I looked at the fourteen inch G4 iBook, but found myself suddenly way out of my price range, which meant that I would need to look at a used model. And seeing as how the fourteen inch iBook had only existed for a few months at the time, there weren't going to be and used ones available that were old enough to fall into my price range. That last one had to be one of the wierdest catch-22's I'd run into in awhile, but what it meant was that the iBook, in any screen size, was out of the question.
Besides, the fourteen inch iBook had another problem: despite the fact that its screen was two diagonal inches larger than its twelve inch cousin, the screen resolution was the exact same 1024x768 pixels. Suffice it to say that the screen on the fourteen inch iBook couldn't actually hold anything more than the twelve incher, it just made everything a bit larger. So unless you've reached the point where you need everything bigger in order to read it, there's no real point. I'm in my late twenties and I'm severely myopic, so using a computer is one of the few things that I can do without glasses. In other words, in my case, those two extra inches would have just been for show.
I concluded that if I were going to buy a laptop, it would simply have to be a PowerBook that could handle about 1200 by 900 pixels (not coincidentally, just about the same number of pixels on an eMac screen). I was going to have to find not just a used G4 PowerBook, but a severely used one. And that I did. I would never buy a used laptop from stranger (you think they're really going to tell you how many or how few times they've dropped it over the years), but it just so happened that someone I knew and trusted was parting with a two-year-old Titanium PowerBook for just about the same amount of money that I would have spent on a new eMac, so it was a perfect fit.
It was also a huge gamble. I simply must have nearly unfettered access to a computer and to the internet in order to make my living, and I had just invested in a machine that was two years old and had no warranty. I knew that there was no way I would know if I'd made the right decision until after I'd already made it, so I ended up going for the PowerBook. It had more potential downside, but it also had more potential upside. And as it turns out, a lot more upside.
I didn't used to leave town much. But it turns out that it wasn't because I didn't have a desire to do so; it was because I didn't have a desire to be away from my own computer. Nowadays, I just grab my laptop and go wherever I feel like. If wherever I'm going doesn't have internet access, then I can always just find the local Apple Store and sit outside of it with my laptop and tap their wireless signal. And while I'm not quite a road warrior, I feel free as a bird when it comes to traveling. Beyond that, I use my laptop all over the house. When I've been sitting in one spot for too many hours, I just take my computer and go sit somewhere else. If it's another room, fine. If it's the front porch, that works too.
In hindsight, there's no question I made the right choice. As much of a supporter of the eMac as I've been over the years (perfect for the classroom, perfect for the home), the truth is that I'm just a laptop person.
But as with everything, there comes a time to pay the piper. And in my case, the flipside of all my glee is that here nine months later, I'm hacking away on a machine that's a little less than half as fast as that eMac would have been. It didn't matter then; it matters a little more now. It's not that computers get slower as they get older. It's that newer versions of your operating system and vital applications come out, and there's real reasons to upgrade to those new versions, but they're more demanding when it comes to processor and memory usage, so at some point the newer versions of things actually run slower on your aging computer than the older versions did. And while I'm not there yet, that point will come eventually -- and a lot sooner than if I'd opted for a brand spanking new desktop.
At some point, even if your current Mac is doing everything you want it to, you have to start formulating a plan for acquiring your next Mac. It's not that you expect your current Mac to die. It's not that you expect it to suddenly become unable to support your needs. But such things tend to creep up on you while you're not paying attention, and the next thing you know, you're ready for a newer more powerful Mac but you haven't put a thought toward what to buy next and you haven't even budgeted a cent toward it.
I'm not going to let that happen. So here's what I've come up with:
There's no reason to replace this G4 laptop with another G4 laptop. Sure, the current Aluminum PowerBooks are about three times as fast as this one, but the bottom line is that they're still of the same processor family. It may not mean anything now, but take a look at the fact that here in 2004, running all the latest software, any Mac with a G4 processor just runs circles around any G3-based Mac, regardless of the clock speeds involved. I can get real work done on this 667 Mhz G4 PowerBook, but don't even try and put anything with a G3 in it in front of me. So I figure that two or three years from now, we'll be in the exact same situation, only this time with the G5 and the G4. Any G4 laptop will be sagging; any G5 laptop will be fine. One little problem: there is no such thing as G5 laptop.
But you see, that actually works in my favor, because I'm not looking to buy a new laptop right now anyway. I'm just making future plans. So my first rule for buying a new laptop is set in place: it has to be a G5. Depending on which sources you believe, the existence of such a product is anywhere from three to twelve months away or more, so that gives me my time frame for acquiring the new beast. My current laptop will be plenty until then. For that matter, the general rule is that once a new class of Apple computers comes out, you want to wait for at least one revision before buying. The reasons? Any flaws in the new design will have been worked out, and any missing features will have been added if enough users do enough complaining about their absence. I'm not sure it holds true nearly as much as it used to, but there's no real harm in sticking to it if you're not in any hurry.
So assuming it takes six to nine months for the G5 PowerBook to come to market and another three months to see the first set of revisions, I figure it'll be right about this time next year that I walk into the local Apple Store and walk out with a new laptop under my arm. I absolutely refuse to buy a computer with borrowed money (you never want to borrow money to buy something that depreciates as quickly as a computer), so that means that I have about twelve months to set aside the kind of fundage required to grab myself a fifteen inch G5 PowerBook. If the current pricing structure holds true, then that means that I'm looking at a little under two grand.
Since I'm aware of situation and I know what I have to earmark between now and then, it shouldn't be too hard, especially considering that the reward will be owning my first brand new Mac since 1999. In the mean time, though, the trick lies in not spending any more money on my current laptop. I'd originally planned to add an external SuperDrive to this PowerBook when I bought it, but there's no point in doing so now, because my next laptop will undoubtedly come with one built-in (and when you're dealing with a laptop, you always want to go internal if you can). I'd also originally planned to upgrade the 512 megabytes of RAM to a full gigabyte, but it turns out that a "mere" 512 MB has been more than enough to keep from slowing me down thus far. Why buy more unless I reach a point where I need it?
And that's my new motto from here on in. Unless something needs repaired that keeps me from getting my work done, I'm officially calling a permanent moratorium on investing any further money into my current laptop, so that I can instead set that money aside for purchasing my next one. Or, to use a dialect that apparently only I can understand, I've "end-of-life'd" my G4 PowerBook. No hardware add-ons, no hardware upgrades, no repairing anything unless something breaks that I can't live without.
So now it's just a waiting game until the G5 PowerBook comes into existence and until I have the means to acquire it. Now that I've got my gameplan in place, I'll just keep pecking away on my current laptop until that day comes, as if nothing had happened at all.
You've got to love being a Mac user.
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