Weekend Catchup

Wow, I stepped away for a weekend getaway in Miami and comeback to a boat load of mobile updates:

* Palm Pre sales from first weekend is doin' alright!
* Apple iPhone 3GS announced (basically just a bit faster and bigger all around, nothing crazy)
* No more MacBooks, all Uni-body design are MacBook Pro. Prices for most are dropping (including Air)
* Nokia dropping the bomb on us, making the N97 available tomorrow (6/9/09)in NY and Chi town flagship store

Final thought: for those who didn't listen to me and bought those refurbished iPhone 3G units, you should have waited, these things are going for $99 brand new now for the 8GB model.

Buy a Mac and Score a Free iPod Touch 8GB

Some of you lucky kids (or grown ups with a student ID) out there will be taking advantage of this sweet offer as yours truly have already exhausted his allowance last September on his slightly out-dated MacBook Pro 2.4GHz and have gotten a 2nd Gen iPod Nano which he has already sold on eBay to help him fund his slightly out-dated technology. So I digress...

Apple Education Store just launched its famous "Back to School" program. You can now get a rebate for a $299 iPod Touch if you buy a qualified iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air between June 3 to Sept 15, 2008. For the money, a White 2.4GHz MacBook is probably the sweetest laptop in its price range, throw in the iPod Touch 8GB just makes this deal that much sweeter. To think current MacBooks w/ 2.4GHz can run neck to neck with my MBP is just something that makes me both happy and sad at the same time.

In anycase, please ignore my jealousy and click through, my academia friends; you are fully within your rights to buy a nice computer for your "education" and a free iPod Touch to boot ain't bad either. Sweet.

Leopard OS X and Vista Clean Install

I've been sitting quietly on the sideline watching the Leopard drama unfold for a good three weeks now. I've gotten a copy of Leopard but decided to wait it out a bit before quickly updating my MBP. Just incase there are some horror stories after the upgrade. After reading some reviews online and talking to some co-workers, I've decided against the "upgrade" route and decided to go for a clean install. The process was simple, first I used Bootcamp Beta to wipe out the Vista partition I had and then used disk utilities from Leopard bootup to erase and format the HDD to a clean slate.

One little trick to install, skip the "checking the stability of DVD" as you begin to install the OS. This process takes about 20 minutes and its a waste of time. I took my chances and skipped at 15% into the checking process. Total installation took approx. 35 minutes and the end result was fabulous. I checked for software update right away and re-installed all of the applications. One little glitch that I noticed was while launching Google Earth for the first time, the graphic beneath the mouse cursor was blank. This went away after I re-launched the app.

Re-installing Windows Vista was not as easy. Bootcamp partitioned my hardrive but Windows refused to install on it because it was not done in NTFS. I had to reformat on the fly (taking any chances of wiping out the bootloader reference) and proceed. After the install, I didn't realize that Leopard OS X disc is needed to update the drivers (in my defense, while in Bootcamp beta, the assistant would ask you to prepare a driver disc, while in this case, they just partitioned and asked for installation disc). During this process, the laptop gave me a "blue screen of death" towards the end of Bootcamp driver installation. My second attempt was better.

In the end, I was able to get everything up and running the way I wanted to be and I do appreciate some of the new features of Leopard (Stacking, Spaces, Cover Flow Finder, iChat improvement, etc.). I think it sucks that Leopard doesn't come with the standard iLife 08 package as my Tiger disc did.

Mac OS X Leopard Pre-Order on Amazon.com

I noticed on Amazon.com tonight, they have the Mac OS X Leopard available as Pre-Order. The price is the as expected $129.99. I have been checking on Apple website everyday since Oct 1st to see when the new Leopard 10.5 will become available. Perhaps the release date is coming close as Amazon.com is gearing up for the sale. Here is what the website says:

"This product is expected to ship sometime in October. We will update the site with more specific information as soon as it is available, including system requirement details."

There are some rumors indicating that Mac OS X Leopard may be available by Oct 26th.

Apple MacBook in Starbucks

I was just at a local Starbucks and noticed that the number of customers using the sleek new MacBooks out-numbered PC-based laptops. Of the five laptops I noticed, two are 15" MacBook Pros, one is the regular MacBook, one IBM/Lenovo and one Dell. I can't help but wondering if its because New Yorkers are more of MacBook users or if its just because MacBook users like to carry their laptops around town, especially in Starbucks.