drewmckinney.net

So it seems as though OS X, 10.5 aka Leopard, is no longer using netinfo instead of etc/hosts. This makes me happy as I won’t have to dump the contents of etc/hosts using the niload command.

Still, I just got used to using niload and now it’s gone. Grr. Good riddance though.

I think it’s almost time for me to get a new laptop. This ol’ iBook G4 is starting to act like a beaten-up, scarred Gunnery Sargent that’s lost an eye, arm, leg, and ear and just received news that his daughter is marrying a communist poet named Ferdinand.

The beast is slowing down but if it were only that I wouldn’t mind. You don’t put a bullet in Grandpa’s head just because he can’t run around the block with you. There are just other problems when, added as a whole, are really fucking annoying and make it impossible for me to be productive.

For instance, my “j” key. Wow, totally fucking annoying. If a butterfly flaps its wings somewhere over the Atlantic, my fucking j key feels the vibration and automagically makes six or ten or twenty Js appear on the screen. Since the j key is part of the home row you can understand my frustration. I’m only on the third paragraph here and it’s taken me no less than six hours to get where I am because of all the fucking Js that I have to go back and delete.

Oh Boo-Hoo. So I have a wonky j key. Is that any reason to complain? No, but throw in the useless arrow keys and we’re starting to get there. The left arrow requires a true HULK SMASH to realize it has been pressed. Not too bad I guess but the right arrow makes things go down instead of right. The up arrow does nothing and pressing the down arrow does a weird shaky-thing to my screen.

As a mac user, I’ve gotten used to using the “command” key. AKA the “open-apple key” for us old-timers. The one on the left of the keyboard works fine but the one on the right is dead. Sometimes it takes a yoga pose of my hands to get the right key combination.

I’ve only dropped my laptop a dozen times but I don’t see that as any reason for the general crankiness of the machine. Sure, the battery has to be duct-taped into place and the screen will slam down on my hands because the hinge is busted. Yes, one of the USB ports works “a bit” and the left speaker can be scratchy sometimes. It’s true that the optical drive will sometimes spit discs out for no apparent reason and the touchpad is as jumpy as a meth-head going through withdrawal. Are all of these problems caused because of a little bounce into a pool of urine on the concrete floor of an airport? Maybe getting stepped on while I was playing air-guitar had something to do with it? Perhaps getting a shovelful of mulch that one time has clogged up its tubes? If you’re saying “yes” I don’t see a connection.

Any suggestions for your Uncle Drew? I’ve already got my eye on a MacBook so you don’t need to tell me how great it is. I’m curious if there are other machines out there that give the MacBook a run for the money. Most important to me is portability, I don’t go for the laptops that have a fifteen or seventeen inch screen or some shit like that. The smaller the better. I’m not really married to any of my applications so platform isn’t so important to me…I’ll rip out any installation of Losedows anyway. Battery life is a plus but again, not terribly important. Something around four or five hours might be asking for too much but it would be nice. As long as my display can do better than 800×600 I don’t give a crap about the video card because I’m not playing WoW or editing movies or anything like that. I like ports so the more ports the merrier and built-in wireless and bluetooth are an absolute necessity. And I don’t really want to spend more than $1500 bucks. Ping my personal or leave a comment…