Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by b3b0p 5765 days ago
First, I really (really) enjoy spending money on other people, especially those important to me (friends and family). When it's a surprise it's even more fun! I love to see their face light up when they least expect. Great feeling.

Now, if we are talking about items for myself, not necessarily of great importance, I do indulge on certain things, but I have rules.

I have no problem spending money on well designed items that look, feel, and function properly with the quality I desire. Examples include Macbook Pro with Mac OS X, Apple Cinema Display, Water Field Designs Muzetto and I'll tell you why.

First, the Macbook Pro. I used to do Linux as my platform of choice, loved the whole idea of open source, freedom, the platform, the options, and it's abilities. However, I would spend countless hours gettings thing like sleep / hibernate working on my laptop, wireless card setup correctly, tweaking my Fluxbox settings, among other things. It got the point I started to really value my time spent working (this was before I actually had a career) and doing other things I enjoyed. I didn't have much desire to use Windows for my main system, so I grudgingly invested in my first Apple, a Macbook Pro v1. It was hotter than heck, but I loved it. Things worked! Wireless! Video! And most important to me was sleep and hibernate were flawless! it was amazing.

For the Apple Cinema Display, you wouldn't think it would be that big a deal, but it made my desk nearly clear of cables now and the extra power connector made it worth every cent. This is the 24". Since I have this nice display now, I had now qualms purchasing the 13" Macbook Pro this time with it's smaller screen (and price). I love the portability of this little guy and not having to take out the power supply and just keep it in my bag, pure luxury. The screen is gorgous too!. My other display is a Dell U2711, I have delegated it video games.

Finally, the bag, as many call it, a nearly $300 man purse, the Water Field Designs Muzetto (with sleeve of course). Quite simply the most beautiful bag I have ever owned or seen. I love it to death. It looks great, feels like a tank, is easy to just pick up and go. It gets a little cramped with my iPad, power supply, and Macbook Pro, but that's good otherwise I would jam it full of excess items. It forces me to travel lite. I got the cream. It attracts all sorts of people and I get comments almost everytime I'm out and about with it.

That got a little long, so I'll leave it at that.

2 comments

Ubuntu user here. Wireless, video, sleep and hibernate work too and I never spend time tweaking anything.
Just spent a lot of time today tweaking ubuntu 10.04 to work with intel wireless :/ Also the proprietary ATI graphics drivers the OS recommended I installed caused all sorts of problems with sleep\hibernate\freezing. Not really a linux problem as the default non-proprietary drivers I switched back to actually work great, but the OS did literally give me an icon reminder telling me to do what caused the problem. Also the battery on my laptop lasts half as long as it does in win7\cygwin.... so more tweaking ahead...

edit: on the plus side I love Gnome DO.... I can't believe I found something better than win7 start autocomplete or OSX Spotlight...

Gnome Do is a little treasure that needs as much exposure as it can get. It completely changes one's interaction with the OS. No more hunting around for apps in the menus. No more using the menus. Reduced use of the mouse.

Gnome Do is an all round boost to productivity.

Well things have improved a lot in the last 4-5 years...
I've spent the last few months fighting with Ubuntu 10.04 on my Lenovo x100e. Wireless was awful and if the modules were loaded the system would crash every couple of hours. The graphics card had all sorts of issues. No sleep, no hibernate. Crappy battery life.

I've given up. Bought a Mac Book Pro 13" and it is wonderful. Has the unix I need and everything just works.

Perhaps now, but I when I was using it 4 years ago, it wasn't the easiest thing to get going. Perhaps I will check it out soon, but I'm reasonably content with my setup right now.
My reply is Offtopic, but same here. But to be fair, it only started to be this way about 2 years ago. I've also spent countless hours to configure my system to work the way i want it to.
Ditto, however I can say that 10.04 was the very first time I've installed Linux where everything worked without tweaking. It's a dream come true.
That bag looks awesome. Just ordered one. I've been looking for a new bag for quite a while.