MBA, OS Ten BORES Me!

[AstroHouse]

After 8 weeks as a convert to the Mac (with my perfectly operating MBA) I'm sooo bored! Twenty + years since MSDOS 1.x. Windows 1.x, blah, blah blah.

Used to be every weekend - and some weeknights when you're under deadline pressure - offered a new challenge. Some intellectual dare luring me into an foolhardy adventure into the registry, finding and deleting old drivers, programs, flotsam and jetsam. Jeez, and I never tried Vista!

I haven't used uum, oh, yeah, Norton Utilities for forever. Old friend and sidekick I miss you. And Sidekick! Anyone remember Sidekick? Wordstar, something 123?

Now I spend my days lurking through Mac Forums, Apple forums, MacFixIt looking for someone with a glitch that leads to inevitable response:

YOU HAVE TO DO A REINSTALL! Na na na na na...

I'm soooo bored!

I hope someone feels my pain.

[n0de]

That's why I keep a linux machine under my desk

I have my MBA as the always working, no trouble and no drama system I can always count on.

Then I have my desktop, a fedora powered trouble maker. It seems like I go out of my way to try and force fedora to do things it doesn't want to just so I can try to figure it out.... Recompile kernel anyone?

[zap2]

Haha, yes, well I have Ubuntu install on my Mac, just in case I feel like playing around.


Normally Ubuntu works really well, but Wi-Fi drivers aren't right now, so thats something to toy with

[psychofreak]

Hackintoshes have the coolness of OSX mixed in with the fun of stuff not working...

[wordy]

I think you should be the first to experiment with changing the HDD in the MBA

Or you could always try the reapplication of thermal paste for a little thrill!

[GFLPraxis]

Yeah, I was thinking of building a Hackintosh just for the fun of it (and because I can't afford a Mac Pro). But the thought makes me feel so...dirty.

[AstroHouse]

Originally Posted by wordy

I think you should be the first to experiment with changing the HDD in the MBA

Or you could always try the reapplication of thermal paste for a little thrill!

Actually I wish SSD prices would drop precipitously so that I could. Anandtech had a nice piece on replacing the HDD with SSD.

I've tinkered with Coolbook for three weeks...because it was there.

Reapplied the paste a few days ago. Didn't have a problem with overheating or core shutdown but I couldn't resist! Sure is cute under the hood.

[Sun Baked]

Tell us where you live, and we will send you a PC wake up call.

Basically this is somebody with a Thinkpad that will come over pound you over the head so you can remember that Windows can inflict real pain every now and then.

[hexonxonx]

Originally Posted by Sun Baked

Tell us where you live, and we will send you a PC wake up call.

Basically this is somebody with a Thinkpad that will come over pound you over the head so you can remember that Windows can inflict real pain every now and then.

I'll donate a year old HP dual core that you can throw. It still works but has some damage after I threw it a few months ago. The DVD drive doesn't work and there is a piece of plastic broke off the corner of the screen casing on the outside. Sure is a tough thing that case with the piano finish. It could handle a meeting with someone's head with no problems.

[Prometheus2000]

Hi, I can soo understand and feel with you! I am a happy owner of a Macbook Pro and its just amazing. My windows system had to be cleaned constantly with tune up, I spend lots of performance on virus scans and there was this slow down of your machine from the point you installed a new Windows and then added more and more Applications which drove me nuts for 10+ year as Windows PC user...I have put tons of stuff on my MacBook, run Matlab simulations, iTunes, virtual machines on it, all at once and even thought I do get application crashes sometimes, it runs smoothly like out of the box. Well since I am a Linux user, the switch to a unix system was not that new, but still, OSX is what Linux could be when it would get proper support by big companies with drivers etc. Still its amazing how it has developed over the years and all that with people basically working on it for no profit. So I would never ever say a bad word about it

So long, let's think about what we do with the new free time...

Any suggestions

Finding all covers for my iTunes library is my t suggestion, please add more...

[n0de]

I just created an Ubuntu 8.04 VM in Fusion so I can tinker a bit on the road too.

I have been considering cracking it open to change the thermal paste, but I am concerned that if I have to send it to AppleCare they will notice... Assuming I don't scratch/strip the screws and replace the paste with a similar looking one, do you think they would notice?

[PittAir]

I keep a few 3-5 year old Dells around the house just to play with to keep my skills sharp. My son loves taking them apart and we both try to put them back together, mixing and matching cards and components, trying to trick XP into accepting them first time without a hitch.

Beats the boredom of an MBA and a 24 inch iMac both running VM Fusion and XP when needed....

[PittAir]

Another thing...the Asus eee PC is kind of wild as well. Bought one in Tokyo last month, and it was quite a bit of fun converting the Japanese XP to an nlited English version...

[Santa Rosa]

I sort of feel what you are feeling as well sometimes with OSX. It never bores me but it is just so good, there is never really anything to trouble shoot. It sounds wierd that you would want problems but there is just this certain satisfaction you take out of fixing them.

Then again... had to sort a Windows box recently that had ever piece of (junk,crap,spy,bloat,ad)ware and loads of viruses and was delighted to have my Mac by my side when doing it. You tear your hair out but at the same time can get a lot of satisfaction from fixing windows boxes (also when there is substatial amounts of money involved )

[rhett7660]

I feel your pain. Having been working with windows for a very long time and switched over in January.

I was amazed at how much extra time I had to, you know work! Instead of having to worry about is my system up to speed, did I get the latests virus update, did I remember to setup my scheduled back ups, did I remember to clean my HD, did ....... you get the picture.

This is great, didn't realise how much time all of that took.

[krye]

I have been problem free since I switched to the Mac two years ago. I havn't had to tinker with a PC since. Thank God!

My sister gave me her Dell laptop yesterday to look at. It won't turn on. She thinks the DC connector has gone bad because over the past week she's had to jiggle it to get the machine to turn on. Now it doesn't do anything. So playing with that Dell POS should be fun for an hour or two.

[yorkslad]

Originally Posted by Sun Baked

Tell us where you live, and we will send you a PC wake up call.

Some of us just want our computers to do a job, make a movie, edit a photo, watch a dvd. We dont want to tweak and fiddle and battle and be techno experts just to get the thing working properly.

Dont know about sending you a PC, better still a PC running Vista.....Pants!

[AstroHouse]

Originally Posted by Santa Rosa

I sort of feel what you are feeling as well sometimes with OSX. It never bores me but it is just so good, there is never really anything to trouble shoot. It sounds wierd that you would want problems but there is just this certain satisfaction you take out of fixing them.

Then again... had to sort a Windows box recently that had ever piece of (junk,crap,spy,bloat,ad)ware and loads of viruses and was delighted to have my Mac by my side when doing it. You tear your hair out but at the same time can get a lot of satisfaction from fixing windows boxes (also when there is substatial amounts of money involved )

I am speaking with tongue-in-cheek. My "boredom" is the result of OS X working so well. I now wonder why I wasted my time being a shade tree mechanic under DOS and Windows. Granted all computers are going to be limited by the hardware. The amount of time I have wasted getting Win-whatever to do what it was supposed to do seems to be such a, well, waste.

[krye]

I looked at that Dell laptop last night that I mentioned yesterday. The power supply had a crimp in the cable and went arky-sparky when i plugged it in. So it looks like my sister killed the laptop. It doesn't run off the battery either, that assumes it had been charging correctly. Probably not. Looks like she shorted the whole thing out. Anyway, it's out of warranty so maybe I'll try and convince her to finally switch to a MacBook!

[ayeying]

Originally Posted by AstroHouse

After 8 weeks as a convert to the Mac (with my perfectly operating MBA) I'm sooo bored! Twenty + years since MSDOS 1.x. Windows 1.x, blah, blah blah.

Used to be every weekend - and some weeknights when you're under deadline pressure - offered a new challenge. Some intellectual dare luring me into an foolhardy adventure into the registry, finding and deleting old drivers, programs, flotsam and jetsam. Jeez, and I never tried Vista!

I haven't used uum, oh, yeah, Norton Utilities for forever. Old friend and sidekick I miss you. And Sidekick! Anyone remember Sidekick? Wordstar, something 123?

Now I spend my days lurking through Mac Forums, Apple forums, MacFixIt looking for someone with a glitch that leads to inevitable response:

YOU HAVE TO DO A REINSTALL! Na na na na na...

I'm soooo bored!

I hope someone feels my pain.

I feel your pain. I feel bored on OSX too. It gives me the free time to watch all the 200+ GB tv shows that I have that I'd never watch.

Before, I would constantly fix or clean the registry and defrag and everything else. Now it just "works"... literally. Plug in my printer, it works. Plug in the scanner, it works. Plug in my camera, it works. Plug in my porno collection hdd... it works. =D

[Siron]

I am a recent PC convert (big time as you can see from my sig). I sometimes wax nostalgic for the good old days of the PC when I would spend hours downloading and installing all the latest upgrades and good old LIVE UPDATE error messages from Symantec.
Now all I do is use my computer - it's so BORING - NOT
Now - I still have the home built PC upstairs that I can finally bid adieu and I could really use those two WD Raptors to slot into my DROBO. But then what happens when my MBA or MP craps out and I need those files that are still on the PC - NAH that's not going to happen and if it does I have Time Machine .
Alan

[deputy_doofy]

Originally Posted by AstroHouse

After 8 weeks as a convert to the Mac (with my perfectly operating MBA) I'm sooo bored! Twenty + years since MSDOS 1.x. Windows 1.x, blah, blah blah.

Used to be every weekend - and some weeknights when you're under deadline pressure - offered a new challenge. Some intellectual dare luring me into an foolhardy adventure into the registry, finding and deleting old drivers, programs, flotsam and jetsam. Jeez, and I never tried Vista!

I haven't used uum, oh, yeah, Norton Utilities for forever. Old friend and sidekick I miss you. And Sidekick! Anyone remember Sidekick? Wordstar, something 123?

Now I spend my days lurking through Mac Forums, Apple forums, MacFixIt looking for someone with a glitch that leads to inevitable response:

YOU HAVE TO DO A REINSTALL! Na na na na na...

I'm soooo bored!

I hope someone feels my pain.

Why not relive your fun by using VMWare/Parallels and an install of Win98.

[AstroHouse]

Okay, okay, I give up. Uncle! Stop the pain! Bored - NOT.

I'm just happy for what OS X is. Stable, bullet-proof (let's hope that doesn't change) and user-friendly.

OMG, after 20+ years as the shade tree mechanic I am just so pleased that an OS does what it is SUPPOSED to do.

I know there are those with their quibbles with the 10.5.2 update bit I never experienced anything prior to this so I have no basis for comparison.

[Satori]

Originally Posted by AstroHouse

Okay, okay, I give up. Uncle! Stop the pain! Bored - NOT.

I'm just happy for what OS X is. Stable, bullet-proof (let's hope that doesn't change) and user-friendly.

OMG, after 20+ years as the shade tree mechanic I am just so pleased that an OS does what it is SUPPOSED to do.

I know there are those with their quibbles with the 10.5.2 update bit I never experienced anything prior to this so I have no basis for comparison.

... only problem is... no more excuses for low productivity or missed deadlines now!

[jlbrown23]

Originally Posted by psychofreak

Hackintoshes have the coolness of OSX mixed in with the fun of stuff not working...

LOL

I put a Hackintosh together a couple of years ago, which led me to getting a MacBook. After I got the real Mac I more or less used it all the time, but there was something - missing. So I upgraded the memory & HD for the MacBook. Which took all of about 5 minutes, and worked right off the bat - what was the fun in that? I realized that I - LIKED - tinkering with my machines, but I hate HAVING to tinker with my machines. However - I could still tinker trying to keep my Hackintosh running the latest version of OSX, while I could use my MacBook as my actual computer. Think of the fun - a simple update could wipe out the whole OS! Then Apple ruined the fun AGAIN - now I have a Time Machine drive on my Hackintosh(yes, it works perfectly), so when I wipe out the OS, all I have to do is restore it from the TM disk.