My day started in a slightly odd way. I found myself in town at an hour which I do not feel is repeatable. I was there for a reason, and a bloody good one at that considering the time. I was there to get some cash out of the bank, how much cash…this much cash! It isn’t often that you have that much cash, normally I just use plastic, hence I had to take a picture

Today was different, today caused me to take that money to an obscure motorway lay-by on the M26. There I met a shady figure, greeted and handed over the cash. In return I was given a thin orange blob. We conversed for a while then departed back from whence we came.

Today I bought a second-hand Apple Powerbook G4.

I actually bought it from one of the people I shall be working with at Merrill Lynch this year (Weiran) as he wanted to raise funds for getting a MacBookPro soon. Now anyone who knows me well will know that I had always planned on getting a Mac this year. Those who know me better will know that I was planning on getting a Mac Mini and that this is a little sooner than planned. But with all things, you have to grasp such opportunities when they arise. I had always wanted an Apple laptop, just normally they cost far too much for a “toy”. I say toy because I have bought this to play with and learn. It seems important to me that I should be experimenting with all the OS’s I can, if not to at least to give me a greater understanding in the rest of the computing world.

I’m not even considering a huge great review/comparison etc, I just have a few things to say.

Overall it isn’t bad, interface is sleek (OSX 10.4), apps for the most part work well. Safari as a browser is a bit light (even with my FireFox tainted vision, god knows what an avid IE supporter would make of it) and does have some very odd ideas when it comes to rendering table widths. Installing apps on these is very very simple, this really is the system built for any idiot to just pick up and use (evidence by me not having any trouble yet). The only thing I could say about the interface is that it does go a bit too far down the minimalist route in places, leaving me hunting for buttons and what the hell they do. Talking of buttons, Apples biggest mistake by such a long way was not to include a right-click button (despite the OS supporting the functionality). It is mildly driving me mad, mainly because it would have been so simple for them to deal with. I guess they did it to be different, but the lost usability is a high price to pay for being different, esspcially when you are trying to attract more into your fold.

I have no doubt that I will have more to say on the software side of things over time.
Oh, and here is a screen shot…Clicky

The hardware is very sleek, very neat and very solid. All good things, especially for something so light. As with all things, there is always a downside and in the case of every laptop under the sun, that’s normally heat. The back-right where the power input is gets hot. I can feel my sperm count frying away as I type. On a plus side, remove the power adapter and it returns to a pleasant temperature.

All in all, I’m having fun with it, which is normally a good sign. Even if it will cause problems in later life.