Yes, the new all-aluminum uni body constructed models are nice, but unfortunately, Apple has left the 17″ fans out in the cold on this. Even still, I know that the current specs available to Apple do not warrant a major enough upgrade for me.

So I’ve decided to forgo these models and get one of the very last models – a 17″ 2.6hz model with the 1920×1200 LED display. I plan on this holding me over until next year, when hopefully Apple will have the Nehalem-based quad-core versions available.

In the meantime, I stumbled across a few posts on various Apple-related forums that claimed it was possible to shoehorn up to 8GB of RAM into the last model (Santa Rosa chipset). Very eager to have more RAM than I currently have (2GB) I read with quite interest about others who has successfully gotten 6GB installed and running fine.

Yesterday, I purchased 6GB of RAM and plan on putting this into my new baby this weekend. I’ll report back with my progress and hopefully success.

Ah, the trials and tribulations of being best in class. As Apple has experienced today on the launch of the 3G iPhone, being on top brings endless scrutiny and any small foible or stumble is magnified greatly.

I was one of the brave souls who was actively searching for the iPhone 2.0 firmware updates early and in fact found it like thousands did, a day early. I installed the new software yesterday and began downloading software from the new App Store in iTunes. Everything was going swell; I had purchased a few different applications and everything was neatly downloaded to my phone via itunes and the install was quite painless. I even downloaded directly from the phone itself, later “pushing” the downloads from my iPhone back to iTunes without nary a problem.

This morning I tried to connect to iTunes again to download some more applications and found what most in the world found: Server connection could not be completed. It had finally happened. The illustrious iTunes Store had been brought to its knees by all of the adulation from Apple’s fan base and new customers. This is being heralded as a “Catastrophe”, “Disaster” and other choice terms usually reserved for Apple’s competitors such as Microsoft or RIM. But this time, the normally “can-do-no-wrong” Apple was being lambasted by all of the same media who usually fall over themselves to heap praise on the fruit-named wonder.

As I sat and pondered this scenario I discovered another flaw with the App Store and the blissful new software distribution model that has come from it. I tried to access the applications that I had downloaded hours before, only to find that none of the applications would load. The free applications load just fine, but the paid-for applications such as Super Monkey Ball and Texas Hold’em would fail to open each time. Apparently these game which are protected by Apple’s DRM must need to authenticate with Apple’s servers before they will be allowed to run.

So, there I sat with new applications that I’d paid good money for and now could not use because of network issues or because Apple’s servers were on fire, etc..

I did not know that this was the case and honestly I am now a bit leary of relying on applications bought from the new store in the future.

You can bet that once applications become runnable on hacked versions of the 2.0 firmware, I will once again actively seek these versions rather than the officially sanctioned Apple versions.

It may come as a shock to many of you, but I have sold my mac and replaced it with a kick-ass new Acer laptop. I know, I know what you’re thinking. “Why would Todd ever leave his Mac, he’s the biggest Apple fanboy that I know!”

After struggling with getting my Macbook Pro set up once again from a complete re-install, I started to truly question my work processes and the amount of money that I spend each year on Apple products. Sure, some of them are nice and I always like the look of their products, Apple just doesn’t get it anymore. I’m tired of the translucent menubars, gimmicky Time Machine, and lack of user interface themes.

Well, no more… My new Acer laptop arrived yesterday and within a few hours I had Ubuntu up and running and now I am learning the Gimp(Photoshop doesn’t run on Linux – bummer)

I can’t wait to see how much money I end up saving with this change of platform and I believe my web design will get better too, because I’ll finally be on the same platform as 90% of the rest of the world. That’s hard to beat, eh?

Anyways, stay tuned as I’ll be posting quite a bit of articles on my change back to the darkside as soon as I can figure out how to get an FTP client installed. I also need too find out how to install my printer – anyone know how to get a driver for an old Epson Stylus?

However, Apple is now offering them and for only a $100 premium above their previous screened models. My credit card finger is twitching, to say the least. But I’ve got a problem; I really don’t need a new laptop yet. My existing machine has really been functioning quite well for me. About the only thing that I really run into as a problem is the maximum ram capabilities which on my model is only 2gig. I would kill to be able to stuff 2 more gigs of ram in this thing. If I could do that, I’d probably not want a new machine at all (okay, who am I kidding).

I know that Clint has been itching for a new machine as well (he is extremely overdue actually) and I am sure that he jumped on one this morning. I just need to control my urges and think about something else for awhile. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Well, this year I actually was pretty busy but Apple really failed to “wow” me with anything. Sure, I was intrigued by the Macbook Air, and of course the movie rental news was something I was happy to see. The AppleTV update was one that directly affected me since I recently got one for Christmas and this coupled with the movie rentals means that I might finally be able to remove the entire Blockbuster rental nightmare from our lives.

But overall, the only thing that has even remotely sparked that twitch I have for reaching for my credit card, was the Time Capsule product announcement. The only reason that I haven’t really jumped for that (yet) is probably due to the fact that I really want to know more about it and how I might be able to use it, before I purchase one. It sounds like a great solution for me and if it works like I would like, I might be able to incorporate it into my iLife while adding it to the AppleTV for a massive, wireless, media bomb floating in between my mac and my TV/Stereo.

I am pretty sure that I will get the Terabyte version at some point, I’d just like to find out what sorts of gotchas Apple has put in place on it. You see, Apple always seems to cripple or in some fashion, lessen the devices and software that it produces by either implementing something that gets in the way or disallowing some aspect of its usability in a real world environment. I don’t know if they intentionally go out of their way to do this or if they just seem to come down on that side of idiocy on everything they create. I sometimes think that they do it intentionally, only to see what its users will do, faced with its inevitable shortcomings. The Apple faithful are a pretty crafty sort and usually go out of their way to make up for their cult leaders’ inadequacies.

So, Macworld has come and gone, and yet I have no tracking numbers from FedEx to worry about or banking statements I need to explain to Kim. I guess it was a pretty good Macworld if you look at it from her point of view. Me, I’m just biding my time and will probably bust out the plastic before too long, we’ll see.