Tonya and PQBON's WebLog

MacBook Pro 17" - Ansel

I finally broke down and bought a new computer. I stopped processing photos because I didn't have a good computer to do it on. I stopped playing games because I didn't have a good computer to do it on. To fix this problem I ordered a Mac Book Pro 17" with 3GBs of memory and a 100GB 7200RPM hard drive.

I'm going to use it for everything but I bought it specifically for photo developing/editing. For photography I plan on using Adobe LightRoom and Adobe Photoshop CS3. This notebook is going to drive my Canon i9900 printer and Canon 9950F scanner. Also it will be the machine that hosts my Wacom 9x12. This should make for a great photo platform.

For those wondering why I got the 17"... Well I wanted the Mac Book or the Mac Pro. I didn't get the pro because I don't like having to sit at my desk at home to use a computer. I didn't get the Mac Book because I didn't want the integrated graphics and I wanted the back-lit keys and the matte finish. Don't get me wrong I love the glossy screen, I have it on my Dell 700m.However, the glossy screens don't reproduce color as accurately and I'm trying to get a truly great accurate setup for photography. Also the 700m has the same size screen (more or less) ant it proved too small for photography. I loved it for websurfing, email, even games were pretty good but photoshop and lightroom just didn't work. So then I was going to get the 15". I loved my old 15" Ti PowerBook - part of me died when I had to return it to NetApp when I left for Intel. Everything was great, I was going to get a fully loaded 15" Mac Book Pro... that is until I noticed two things about the 17": 1) I could get the 100GB 7200RPM drive as apposed to the 120GB or 160GB 5400RPM drive. 2) The native resolution was the same as my 20" wide screen flat panel (I hate flipping back and forth between two display with differing resolutions it screws up my window size and placement. I was then in agony. That is until my beautiful wife told me what to do... She pointed out that 90% of the time I use my notebook at home, either at my desk, on the couch, or in bed after she is asleep. She pointed out the 17" was only slightly bigger and less then a pound heaver then the 15" and I really should just get the 17" and stop being a dumbass.

I spent last night unboxing and setting up my new Mac Book Pro, the second one in two days (After I ordered my machine with a custom configuration from Apple, I took my mom to the apple store where she picked out her own 17" Mac Book Pro, I spent most of the weekend setting it up for her). Last night I installed: Emacs, Fink, Ethereal, XCode, StuffIt Expander, Flickr Uploader, Flickr iPhoto export, 1001 by kungfu.tv, Firefox, X11, driver for my Wacom tablet and Canon Printer and Scanner and Camera, Microsoft Remote Desktop, Microsoft Media Services for Quicktime, DivX, Microsoft Media Player v. 9, Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Acrobat reader... and a few other things I can't remember right now.

So what does this mean... Well for one thing, it means I have a Mac again... For the other, it means that the 20GBs worth of unprocessed raw images I have sitting on my server will be processed as I get around to getting the software. This means you can expect a metric ton of Flickr spooge as soon as CS3 ships.

Posted by pqbon at March 27, 2007 10:22 PM