Unfortunately, due to recent
events (namely, the
birthdays of three children,
two trips to Wisconsin, and
the moving of the antique
store), I'm out of flex-money.
So -- I'm computerless until
I can scrounge up $60 for a
new motherboard.

How am I posting this, you
ask?

I've got computers lying
around like you wouldn't
believe. I had to run down
the list of which ones were
running, what they'd handle,
and what software I need to
keep things moving.

Surprisingly, I picked a
computer that's not running
Windows at all. "Linux!" you
all gasp in awe...

...but it's not. It's OS9, from
Macintosh. I bought a
Powerbook G3 a year ago,
and it's mostly been a toy.
Need internet from the living
room? Grab the laptop.
Need someplace to save
pics off my digital camera?
Use the Powerbook. Want
to look cool wandering
around with a laptop in
hand? Grab the laptop.

The laptop, thanks to the
dot-com bubble burst that
caused the liquidation of
the design firm's assets,
has Photoshop, Flash,
Fireworks, MS Office, and
all the other trappings of a
useful computer.

I removed my PC keyboard
and mouse, replaced them
with a full-sized Mac
keyboard and mouse,
hooked up everything
(including my 19" monitor)
to the back of the laptop and
-- viola! -- I'm back in
business. It's slightly
disturbing...I don't notice a
whole lot of difference. The
mouse is slower, the
keyboard has less tactile
'click' to it, but I can still do
all my image editing, eBay
listing, web browsing, and
other shenanigans on it.

Watch you, PC fanatics....I
might convert! Shiny new
G5, here I c--

No, wait, I'm poor....Macs
are definitely not in my
future. This will do for now,
until I can get my PC back
up and in working order.

Blame the funky layout on the Mac ;) Oh -- and Linux has a Appletalk daemon, so I can still access my fileserver like I always have. Slick as snot, eh?

--Derek , 6/16/2004 21:30:12

Neat! i've considered adding a mac to my repetoire. My Pentium 200 just barely makes it along running Linux. I dumped Windows about 2 months ago. Just today i got MySQL running on the new platform, with old db's still intact. I put a lot of trust into my firewall -- there's lots to Linux I still need to hone my skills on. (Said another way: "Hackers, I'm all yours!") Chocolate and Latte are busy running their yellow wheel away on in the glass tank on my desk. They're quite busy little bundles of fur! I've never had rodent-like pets before... and the cats are already bored with watching them run. Mom and I have started consulting together on eBay purchases that she continues to hunt away at during the day. Dad's up in Canada on his annual fishing trip. 37cents.com -- To renew or not to renew?

--David Vaiyne , 6/16/2004 23:58:55

I have had quite a few Macs over the years, mostly as toys (things I bought for under $50 to play with), and I bought the laptop as a toy/christmas present/something cool to carry around. I don't really have anything against them; I just didn't have any real reason to use one...unlike now ;) And, I've had trouble setting up hardware, I've had several software crashes, I've had software incompatibilities, so really it's no worse than Windows, anyways ;) Speaking of which, I have a Classic Mac somewhere around here that needs a format and reinstall....*goes digging* I think I even have a 10baseT card for it...*digs more* 37Cents.com? Always renew! You never know when you might need it, or some garage-band called 37 Cents will pay you three hundred dollars so they can put up their tour schedule online! As for firewalls....IPChains/IPTables can be very effective if set up right. My in-house router doesn't register _at all_ to outside inquiries (according to the testers hackers love to use).

--Derek , 6/17/2004 13:35:06