(Gadget boy speech ahead)

Ahh, I have finally succumbed.

After years of mocking those ‘pretend’ computers known as Macs, whilst secretly always wanting one, I have decided it’s time to make the switch.

Thing is, my current laptop, now in it’s third year of daily use, really is on it’s way out. Broken hinges, missing key, hard drive completely full and – most serious of all – CD/DVD drive broken, it is becoming more and more stressful to use. The main problem is this: without a working internal CD ROM drive it is impossible to format and reinstall. Thus, 3 years of gunk have piled within the confines of the C drive, gunk that will not shift no matter how many times one deletes files manually, runs clean-up programs or defrags. The only thing that will clean this baby (other than a working internal CD ROM drive that will cost over 300 pounds to have installed) is Mr. Muscle Oven Cleaner. But I don’t like the smell.

It’s got to the stage whereby if I want to read emails in my email application, I have to click on the icon, then go away for up to ten minutes whilst it launches. That is no exaggeration! Image the temptation to hit it with a hammer!

So, the decision was made some time ago that I needed a replacement at some point within the next six months. Money was set aside for it …and I thought I’d probably get another Windows system. However, I’ve become increasingly disenchanted with what Microsoft have to offer – and all these Genuine Advantage spyware programs bug me. Only this morning my laptop restarted whilst I was out of the room because Microsoft told it to. Severed my download of the 007 podcast! Vista, the new MS operating system due out next year is sounding increasingly blahhhh; all in all, time for a change. I love my iPod, it has made a huge difference to my summer, and has provided me with education and entertainment through Podcasts and so forth. AND it’s so sexy I sleep with it. Speaking of Podcasts, I think it was looking into the requirements for making Advanced Podcasts that really got me thinking about buying a Mac. Thing is, you just can’t make an Advanced podcast (i.e. one that includes chapters/different photos/clickable links – see the Q Magazine music review podcast for an example) on a Windows system – you need Apple’s Garage Band software and a special plugin.

The software issue (i.e. Windows software not working on a mac) is proving to not be such a big deal. Turns out that both Mac and Windows use the same version of Dreamweaver. There’s some good cheap image-editing software that can replace Photoshop (I rarely used its advanced features anyway), and I can live without Office. And of course, I could partition the 100GB hard drive and install Windows on the other bit if push came to shove. Speaking of specs, I’ve opted for a 1GB memory, and 2GHz Intel Core Duo. That should be plenty to cope with the huge images from the Sony Alpha 100 I’ll be getting when I land (the pound is so expensive at the moment, great for us going on our year abroad).

As you can tell, I’m excited. I am Gadget Boy. I know that this does not fit comfortably with my anti-consumerist beliefs, but I am prepared to be a hypocrite when it comes to computers. My apologies, Earth and People.

The only thing is – will it arrive in time? It takes them 3 days to make it, 7 days to ship. That’s ten days from Monday when I order it, which takes us up to the 24th, only ten days before I leave. Hmm, it should be enough time I spose.

Will my kanji study dissapear out of the window? I hope not.

Anyway, I’d best be off. Have to try to figure out how to transfer over 6,000 emails from Outlook to Apple Mail. There appears to be no direct route, so I may have to type them all again, one by one…

xxx