Help me decide on how to upgrade from my 1.0 GHz PowerBook G4 Titanium

[1rottenapple]

Damn, I was gonna add that the 13in mpb is a great choice. just got mine and it's insanely fast, and the battery life is insane!

 

[MrCheeto]

No kidding! It was almost hell when I had to calibrate the battery the first time! I had to open everything I could and have the keyboard and display at full brightness, I damn near fell asleep before it finally said "reserve power" and even then it took longer to finally hibernate!

The speed is...well...I just want to slap all of the Winboys that only look at clock rates. Sorry, but this thing will outperform any other notebook with the same CPU. The OS just knows what to do with all that power, unlike Windows which I guess is afraid to shift above first gear

 

[agmetal]

Ah good goin'! I'd have an iMac if I didn't need the portability of my MacBook Pro However, did you know they make carrying bags for iMacs?! 8O

If you're having trouble understanding spaces, here's a quick informative video. As well I think you will appreciate hot corners, so long as you use a modifier key with each corner setting to avoid inadvertent activation I use it to start my screen saver, put the display to sleep, and activate spaces when I'm too lazy to hit the Fn+F1 key.

I recommend the first things you download are:
iStat Menus - to monitor memory and CPU usage, as well as drive space
Dashquit - Dashboard can be a pain and it takes up resources even when its hidden, this button will quit Dashboard so you can reclaim all of your RAM and some CPU usage

Spaces Video

Thanks for the tips. I also learned a while ago about a way to be able to quit Finder, which I've done when I needed a little more out of the PowerBook when mixing in Digital Performer or running lots of samples in Reason, and that seemed to help as well.

Is there any difference between iStat Menus and the iStat Pro widget I have currently?

 

[MrCheeto]

Yeah one's a widget the other shows the information in the MENU bar and is free. At least I think that's the difference =\

 

[BlizzardBomb]

I would choose the current iMac over a refurb 24" as it's significantly faster than the old 2.66 GHz model (see here), includes a better quality display, comes with wireless KB and mouse and includes an SD card slot. I think that's worth $100.

 

[impreza98]

I'd say if you have the peripherals you should go with a Mac Mini. It would be the most affordable option that meets your needs. Even more so if you feel comfortable opening up the case and upgrading the RAM and Hard Drive yourself (guides at ifixit). Best of all it has firewire. You can also choose your own display and even run two of them.

I wouldn't go with a MacBook Pro. I'd bet by the end of January or Early February we will see the line refreshed. If you haven't picked up a new mac by then I would get a refurbished 15" MBP with the anti-glare option.

I would avoid a new iMac right now. It sounds like there are a few issues with them. I would wait until the second revision. Plus I hate the idea of not being able to use the display if I ever upgrade to a newer computer. The 27" solves that issue but thats out of your price range.

In any case, you should keep the PowerBook. The 1Ghz TiBook is one of my favorite designs.

 

[agmetal]

I would choose the current iMac over a refurb 24" as it's significantly faster than the old 2.66 GHz model (see here), includes a better quality display, comes with wireless KB and mouse and includes an SD card slot. I think that's worth $100.

I'd say if you have the peripherals you should go with a Mac Mini. It would be the most affordable option that meets your needs. Even more so if you feel comfortable opening up the case and upgrading the RAM and Hard Drive yourself (guides at ifixit). Best of all it has firewire. You can also choose your own display and even run two of them.

I wouldn't go with a MacBook Pro. I'd bet by the end of January or Early February we will see the line refreshed. If you haven't picked up a new mac by then I would get a refurbished 15" MBP with the anti-glare option.

I would avoid a new iMac right now. It sounds like there are a few issues with them. I would wait until the second revision. Plus I hate the idea of not being able to use the display if I ever upgrade to a newer computer. The 27" solves that issue but thats out of your price range.

In any case, you should keep the PowerBook. The 1Ghz TiBook is one of my favorite designs.

Read the thread, guys!

Ordered a base model 21.5" iMac earlier today, expecting it next week...sweeeeeet!

I'm keeping the TiBook as well, for those times when I need something portable.

 

[agmetal]

I got my iMac on Tuesday, and it's awesome! Unfortunately, not all of my music software appears to be compatible with SL, but I'll figure something out.

Spaces is awesome, btw, and I love the Magic Mouse. Everything about the display is amazing...the colours just pop out and are so intense...this thing is awesome!

 

[MrCheeto]

So you ARE going to use Spaces?

Also, is it that the programs aren't compatible with SL or your CPU! Put the Mac OS X install disk that came with your iMac into the drive and click Optional installs and be sure to install a program called Rosetta. If you remember your PowerBook is PowerPC, Rosetta allows you to use PowerPC apps on an Intel machine

 

[agmetal]

So you ARE going to use Spaces?

Also, is it that the programs aren't compatible with SL or your CPU! Put the Mac OS X install disk that came with your iMac into the drive and click Optional installs and be sure to install a program called Rosetta. If you remember your PowerBook is PowerPC, Rosetta allows you to use PowerPC apps on an Intel machine

I've already installed Rosetta. Still not working. Digital Performer crashes every time I try to do pretty much anything with it, and doesn't seem to recognize the internal audio system. Logic Express 7 won't recognize any form of audio input, but otherwise seems to run ok. I haven't been able to test Reason 3 yet, because I need to find my CDs for it (when you run it for the first time, it asks you for the CDs to confirm that you have a real copy).

 

[brendu]

wow thats quite the list of bugs, sorry to hear about that. Macs should just work. But all the same you have yourself a great machine, enjoy it. Hope you get all the kinks worked out soon.

 

[agmetal]

wow thats quite the list of bugs, sorry to hear about that. Macs should just work. But all the same you have yourself a great machine, enjoy it. Hope you get all the kinks worked out soon.

Well, we are talking about some old software that i wasn't fully expecting to work, so that's not that big of a deal...although I would like to have some sort of DAW working soon.

I figured I'd try Garbageand (as limiting as it is), just to see if it'd work, and I'm having the same input issue, so I'm not really sure what's going on. I'm probably gonna contact Apple support about it.

 

[agmetal]

Well, we are talking about some old software that i wasn't fully expecting to work, so that's not that big of a deal...although I would like to have some sort of DAW working soon.

I figured I'd try Garbageand (as limiting as it is), just to see if it'd work, and I'm having the same input issue, so I'm not really sure what's going on. I'm probably gonna contact Apple support about it.

Ok, the thing with Garbageand was a combination of my not noticing that the cable wasn't plugged all the way into the input, along with not being familiar with certain elements of the software that don't work the way they do in better/more advanced DAWs.

Logic 7 and DP5 are basically just obsolete and need to be upgraded to newer versions to run with Snow Leopard, apparently. Disappointing, but not entirely unexpected.



EDIT: Reason 3.0 works pretty much perfectly!