Sitting here with a silly grin on my face

[plinden]

It came time at work for my laptop (a three year old Dell D810) to be updated. I asked if I could have a Mac. My manager and the IT department said yes.

So I just got my hands on a brand new, shiny 15" MBP, 2.4GHz, 250GB HD, 4GB RAM. Spent the past couple hours getting my dev environment set up. All's working well - event the glossy screen isn't annoying.

I'm not going to look too closely for flaws.

 

[iBookG4user]

That's awesome that they let you get a Mac, was it hard to get them to say yes?

 

[plinden]

No, I just had to make a business case ... my case was I write web apps that are used on Linux, Windows and OS X. I've had to borrow a Mac from coworkers in the past to check that everything works the way it should.

It also helped that my manager is a Mac user, and that I've been a good little citizen who, apart from getting a broken keyboard replaced, hasn't actually contacted IT for anything else in the past three years.

 

[drichards]

No, I just had to make a business case ... my case was I write web apps that are used on Linux, Windows and OS X. I've had to borrow a Mac from coworkers in the past to check that everything works the way it should.

It also helped that my manager is a Mac user, and that I've been a good little citizen who, apart from getting a broken keyboard replaced, hasn't actually contacted IT for anything else in the past three years.

If you have Parallels, you can run Windows and Linux virtual machines to test. They have all kinds of vm's to download, and loading a Windows vm is super easy. That sort of thing might make your life ultimately easier.

 

[benlangdon]

nice, should have got the 320gb at 7,200rpm, but very nice

 

[johngordon]

Good job! I do a bit of web design where I work, so a Mac with windows browsers running would be great. Plus I couldn't upgrade DW recently, because Adobe have long since dropped Windows 2000 support.

I joked with my boss about needing a mac, but even though they were good reasons I thought, I don't think he took me at all seriously.

I do sometimes take mine in to work on stuff, as I use Fireworks, which I don't have at all there.

 

[plinden]

It helps at work that all the executive staff (except the CEO) and sys admin and IT staff have Macs. We standardize on Dells for everyone else "to keep costs down" but they do take you seriously here when you ask for some particular hardware, as long as you don't overdo it.

nice, should have got the 320gb at 7,200rpm, but very nice

I think getting the Mac was a major step - didn't want to sound ungrateful. Anyway, I have full admin rights, so I can clone the HDD onto a larger, faster drive when the prices come down.

I'm not sure how much the 5400rpm slows down my compilations - a compile takes 17 seconds on it compared to the same code in 30 seconds on my 1.83GHz CD iMac. Does anyone have any recommendations for an eSATA expresscard? I have a quad interface external drive, with eSATA, but up to now have had no way of using that interface.

If you have Parallels, you can run Windows and Linux virtual machines to test. They have all kinds of vm's to download, and loading a Windows vm is super easy. That sort of thing might make your life ultimately easier.

I have Fusion on it. We standardize on VMWare VMs at work and we have a collection of them I can use, including XP and Vista.