paulmignard » mac http://paulmignard.com Sun, 18 Sep 2011 17:20:41 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Taking pride in old machines… http://paulmignard.com/2010/11/taking-pride-in-old-machines/ http://paulmignard.com/2010/11/taking-pride-in-old-machines/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:40:08 +0000 paul http://paulmignard.com/?p=581

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]]> I’m a developer right? Wait, don’t answer that. Ok – so, people pay me to be a developer and to do developer-like things. As a developer I’ve always had this idea that developers should have total butt-kicking machines to work on. But lately I’m seeing more and more that there is a growing desire to use what ya got just because, well, it still works. It started when I came across this post about the setup Dave Caolo uses in his daily writing/editing duties over at TUAW. Humble no? Well, apparently that machine went out of commission and he had to fallback to an old G4 iMac. Granted, he’s not developing on the thing but still – I was taken aback that his default response wasn’t to head down to the Apple store and drop a few grand on some shiny new macbook awesomeness. The old machine still works, so why not use it? Ever since I came across that article I just keep seeing instances where people are choosing to keep their old machines even though they may have the money to do so. Check this out, Gary V still uses one of small-ish old white iMacs. Here’s a guy who very likely has a couple of bucks to spend on a new machine and considering the amount of time he spends on it would very well be justified in having a kick-butt setup. But no, it works – it stays. It makes me think differently about my aging 2008 macbook pro. Whereas for a time I was feeling like it was starting to drag, to become outdated and no longer fit for developing duty I now feel a sense of pride. Like my machine has been through some stuff that these younger machines can only dream of. Instead of looking to ship it out I’m looking more and more to keep it around for a while. Some screen wipes here, a little spray of compressed air there and she’s good as new.

Well, except for the scars, but that’s what makes it “mine” right? :)

Update: Just ran across this interesting post from Smoking Apples. A great quote:

To do great work you need great determination, not tools. You don’t need a high end Mac Pro to develop applications.

]]> http://paulmignard.com/2010/11/taking-pride-in-old-machines/feed/ 0 I’ll be reformatting my mac…again http://paulmignard.com/2009/08/ill-be-reformatting-my-macagain/ http://paulmignard.com/2009/08/ill-be-reformatting-my-macagain/#comments Thu, 27 Aug 2009 02:18:01 +0000 paul http://paulmignard.com/?p=260

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]]> snow_leopard

I’m still kind of a hold over pc type person that when I do an upgrade, I wipe the entire drive. I don’t like to mess with upgrades and for some reason, I have this peaceful cathartic feeling whenever I start using a machine that has been freshly repaved. Anyway, I (and a whole other slew of kool-aid drinking apple zombies) will be upgrading to snow leopard this weekend. I’ve been running Windows 7 in a vm for a while (and have been pretty impressed so far 0 it’s really good…well, since I upgraded to 4GB of ram but still) so it’ll be interesting to see which operating system I start to prefer. Although it’s hard to compete with OSX, it’s just so darn pretty!

Prep your mac for snow leopard!

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