[petercooper]

I lost interest in having the new shiny a long time ago. [..] At home that means a refurbished Mac Mini from 2006, a used Dell 2001FP 20" LCD from 2004 [..]

Is this "one of those things" that happens as you get older? To my own surprise, I've drifted into the "can't deal with the boom-boom music on the radio" zone just as my parents did in their 30s.. So will "new shinies are boring" be next? I better start stocking up on Apple gear ;-)

[keyle]

Maybe. I recently gave my 2007 MBP a new life by putting a Corsair SSD in it. This thing is as fast as a new MBP! I saved heaps of money and it rocks. Although, the battery lasts 12 mins from full charge. :)

I'd love if macs were not so designed to 'throw away and buy new'. That's just the steve way though.

[wladimir]

I'm also getting less enthusiastic about new gadgets. I'm noticing that my desire for hardware updates is getting further and further apart.

That might be because I'm getting older, or because the difference from one generation to the next is less impressive than it used to be, or both...

But SSD, yes, that's one development I wouldn't want to be without. The speed up is incredible. I'm thinking of retrofitting my "ancient" laptop with one.

[adestefan]

I just don't have the desire or time to tinker anymore. I used to spend days researching the best parts and tinkering with my setup to get it just right. Now I just want something that works and gets out of my way.

[benkant]

Yes, it happens. Though I'm probably not the best example- I can't say I ever really had much use for shiny.

For the longest time I had a crappy K5 based system with 64Mb of RAM running Slackware when all my friends had Pentium 2's and whatever OS ran Quake at the time.

Oh, and I used a pizza box for the "case".

Whatever works for what you're doing.

I will admit though, I lusted over an SGI O2.

[burgerbrain]

How did you ventilate the box, aren't pizza boxes designed to insulate?

[benkant]

The motherboard was inside with the fan sticking out a hole I cut in the top. The PSU and disks were sitting naked on top.