Revelations Good

A few things have popped up in my small world of sandals, babies and websites. Namely, that OWC makes a 4GB ram chip for my MBP , that solid state drives are faster than hell and almost making financial sense , and that Dell makes a pretty nice 30″ 2560×1600 display for ~a grand (when on sale) .

• 4GB DDR chip $144.
• SSDs are Really. Fucking. Fast. “Prices on SSDs continue to drop. Crucial now has the M225 256G SSD at MSRP of $599.”
• Dell UltraSharp 30″ $1025 on sale, good reviews.

Portability Good

Since deciding I was sick of the performance Achilles’ Heels of my 2.2GHz Macbook Pro and I was pissed and was going to buy or make a really fast tower out of my old Dual G5 that hey, I can’t live without the portability. It’s really fucking nice to run out to a client’s with all my work with me. I’ve done a few training sessions hooked up to a projector “on site” even. If I did get a tower I’d keep this MBP, so the portability I’d keep, but syncing headaches I’d adopt.

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New Apple Laptops

Tomorrow Apple hosts one of its 3X yearly product announcements, and for this one its all laptop, top to bottom.

Check back here at the official AppleSwitcher forums thread for minute-by-minute analysis on the announcements. Here’s the rumor summary:

MacBook

aluminum cases, no Firewire, still integrated graphics (but better), large trackpad, DriveCache: uses Flash storage to speed up boot times

MacBook Pro

still aluminum, MacBooks style chiclet keyboard, latchless lid like MacBook, easy RAM and drive access (THANK YOU), large trackpad

From MacRumors:

- The optical drive appears to be on the right side (when facing the laptop)
- All the ports are on the left side (when facing the laptop)
- Case does not appear to be tapered like the MacBook Air
- Power button is in the far top right corner
- Large trackpad like the MacBook Air
- Appears to be “latchless”
- No Firewire port on MacBook?

From Wired:

Both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro will be aluminum. The aluminum MacBook has been rumored since forever, and if we take the leaked shots as real, Apple is finally going all-metal in its Mac lineup.

We can also be pretty certain that the MacBook Pro will gain the chiclet-style keyboard of the Air and the stock MacBook, most likely in backlit black. Ditto the magnetic latch which holds the MacBook Pro closed that little button is so 2001. The other advantage the current MacBook has over the MBP is the easy-to-swap hard drive. Along with the RAM, the HDD is a simple five-minute slot-in replacement. Expect to see this in the Pro.

Internally we can expect some more changes. Mac Cultist Leander Kahney hopes for 4GB RAM as standard in the MBP, and two in the MacBook. He also lists integrated NVIDIA graphics in the MacBook, something that rumor site Apple Insider corroborates, claiming to have confirmed the inclusion of NVIDIAs MCP79. While this still shares the system memory, it is apparently faster and probably more important for Apple smaller than the Intel GMA950 which is currently used.

It was, and I did. I had so many cookies the deletion took over 20 seconds on a 2.2GHz MacBook Pro.

I was spurred to action by Firefox taking 10+ icon dock “bounces” to launch.

I’m now using Firefox Add-On CookieSafe 3.03 to limit the cookie build-up.

REALLY low price here folks. Note it’s the model before the recently-discontinued MBP 2.2 and 2.4GHz LED-backlight set.

So this isn’t the last generation, but the one before it. But for $1300? Absurdly low price.

Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
15.4-inch glossy widescreen display
1GB memory
120GB hard drive
6x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB of GDDR3 memory
Built-in iSight camera
Learn More

• Save 36% off the original price
Original price: $1,999.00
Your price: $1,299.00
Estimated Ship:
1-3 business days
Free Shipping

MacRumors notes a new id string for the next MacBook Pro has started to leak out of Cupertino. It’s been many months (June 2007) since the MBPs were updated, so this signals what many anticipated happening soon anyway.

Questions: will it have a fancy new touchpad ala MacBook Air? Will it have greater screen resolution than current models?