Got myself a new iBook

C

chornbe

Who, me?
I went and purchased a new iBook/G4 this past January mostly to satisfy my own curiosity. You see, by trade I'm a developer and I work mostly in C#, but also with a lot of Java and Python. I have several computers at home, including a Dual Boot Win2k/Fedora-3 Dell P4, a P3 linux server and a P3 Windows server. I wanted a wireless laptop to cart around and to use in the house where-ever I felt like lounging around.

After researching and finding pathetic industry support for preloaded Linux laptops, I chose to check out the latest offerings from Mac. I've never owned a new Mac before, but I have had several over the years as second machines or for niche projects. I started getting pretty jazzed about it after speaking to a few people at work who own Macs.

I figure they're probably the most versatile computers available, seeing as how they have a great GUI, Unix underpinnings and can run Windows software when necessary using Virtual PC or QEmu.

So... here I am the proud owner of a new iBook G4. The only thing I've done to upgrade it thus far is to add a gig of RAM, but I'm thinking I might do the Bluetooth hack that people are talking about. I'm comfortable doing that type of work, so no worries there.

I am not even a little disappointed. Since getting it, I've used it in several different ways... as a big iPod, as a development workstation using Mono, netBeans, XCode and .NET in Virtual PC, as a general-use machine and as a graphics/photo work station in conjunction with my Digicam, iPhoto, my scanner and photo printer.

Now tell me... why didn't I do this sooner? :)

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chris@chornbe.com
http://chornbe.com/weblog
 
Why you didn't do this sooner is a question for someone who is a philosopher, like Cat.:D In all seriousness I'm glad you're open minded enough to actually purchase a mac. Many peeps I know in the Win. world just shut their brain off when you even mention Apple. There are actually laptops with Linux pre-installed?:confused: Where were you shopping?
 
Nice!

but what is the bluetooth hack?
if you wanna do a hack i can recommend the Track pad hack!
 
Congrats on the new iBook! I hope you'll enjoy it as much as we enjoy using our Macs here!

...and don't take no flak from Windows-only users. I'm sure at one point you'll meet someone who tries to make you feel bad about owning a Macintosh. Simply tell them that you can run circles around them using Windows, as well as Macs, Linux and Unix... make THEM feel bad for only being able to use one OS, while you sit back and enjoy the benefits of ALL of them!
 
welcome to OS X - as Mr Hardemann used to say "Better late than never." ;)

btw - read in your blog about your safari complaint. I love the way the address box works. Click at the end to change the last file name, double click to change a whole word, triple click to select the wole url.

but you don't want to take your hands off the keyboard, so for you, the tab key is your friend. Use tab and it will select the whole url.
 
What kind of Mono development do you do? I've been trying to get some decent WinForms stuff but they seem to have left it out of Mono on OS X.

Anyway, good choice in picking the iBook.
 
Decado: This is the bluetooth hack I spoke of. It's basically just wiring up the dongle inside the box. Simple stuff. http://www3.telus.net/thewitt/BT/

PDS: Since blogging that (which spawned a huge thread thankfully) I've learned about the AppleKey(Command?) + L to drop you in, and highlight at the same time, the address bar. Works in Safari and in Firefox. So that "complaint" has been put to rest.

Viro: The problem with WinForms on Mono is that they took the quick but dirty way to the world of Winforms... They wrapped up native MS controls using WINE. In order to get it to run you need to download WineLib (or compile it from source). That was the quick hack to get Winforms support in Mono. It's slowing being replaced by proper calls to the underlying OS (a la Java), but until it's 100% replaced you'll still need WINELIB (unfortunately). I mostly am doing command line stuff in C# until that's done. GUI stuff I just use java. For scripting I use Python. I despise all things Perl. It's the devil's aborted baby.
 
Ah.... ok. I've been having trouble getting Gtk# to compile under OS X. The packages in fink don't compile either. Too bad really, since I was looking forward to running Monodevelop on OS X.
 
oooh... that bluetooth hack really isnt for the faint of heart! (it looks simple enough to lure me into trying it and then i would ruin everything).
good thing i allready have internal bluetooth :D
 
Viro: Say what you will about Microsoft, their development tools are top notch. I really wish they'd do a port of VS.NET to (at least) X/11 systems since they touted the cross-platform usability of the .NET framework right out of the gate. I'd hand over cash for that. Sun did a great job with the netBeans dev IDE. If someone would do a .NET solution that well for X/11 and/or Aqua, I'd be a happy man. (sigh) Until then, it remains Java to the rescue. Did I mention I won't be using Perl any time soon? :)

Decado: I've got enough electronics and tinkering in my background to be scary. After solding some of the surface mount stuff in the Tivo systems I used to repair, this looks like a walk in the park. Of course... it's still new and under warranty, so I'm probably going to just wait until it's not so shiney and clean any more :) Of course, I may check prices on the system boards with BT already installed. We'll see.
 
chornbe said:
Decado: I've got enough electronics and tinkering in my background to be scary. After solding some of the surface mount stuff in the Tivo systems I used to repair, this looks like a walk in the park. Of course... it's still new and under warranty, so I'm probably going to just wait until it's not so shiney and clean any more :) Of course, I may check prices on the system boards with BT already installed. We'll see.
Click to expand...

yeah, i would wait 'til the warranty is voided before doing that :) wouldnt want to explain to the apple repair person what that BT dongel thingy was doing there glued on the inside:)

have you installed this?:
http://www-users.kawo2.rwth-aachen.de/~razzfazz/
 
very usefull.
i only installed the XY-version since i heard it started to get complicated if yuo both had the XY and the rotation scroller (it couldt always separate the comandos). Works really well!
 
i agree, after decado posted the info (and help) with that hack, i went right in and did it. works great. i go thru a lot of PDF's, so this helps go through them very well. my only complaint with it is the firefox thing. for some reason it goes back and forth thru the web pages, rather than scroll the one im on. weird. any fixes for this out or on the way?
 
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