I’ve been watching Tekzilla’s coverage of Windows Home Server over the past couple of weeks eagerly. Besides the fantastic WeGotServed website and forum, I haven’t seen anyone really drill down into what you can do with the WHS operating system.

It makes me want to grab one of those new HP MediaSmart servers even more :’( (despite non-availability in Australia)

Well I popped into the local Apple store near work and had a chat to a rep. he wasn’t really a part of the retail staff - he explained he did a lot of the store layout and display stock management but he did a good job of walking me through a couple of the apps.

I asked him several questions mostly along the lines of “I do A-B-C on Windows this way, how would I replicate this on a mac”? We mainly focused on the iWork suite and garageband.

Garageband is pretty amazing. I was impressed with the amount of included loops and the integration with iMovie. He drag+dropped a vid right over, and showed me how to add on extra sound effects, voice-overs, etc.

It looks like I’ll have to use Pages and Numbers close together as basic table formatting is absent from the word processor app. Drag+drop works pretty well between almost all apps, I’d have to do more investigation at the Apple store to see how well formatting carries over from Word to iWork and vice versa.

I’m now really looking forward to ordering a MacBook and taking OSX for a serious spin - I was originally thinking of just wiping it off with Win7 after a couple of weeks or reducing the partition to 30GB or so. Now I’m not too sure.

I loved my Dell Latitude. It looked pretty sexy for a business notebook with its clean square lines and fantastic keyboard, the LED screen was amazingly bright and sharp, and the included Dell Control Point software gave me full control over the hardware. It wasn’t without its faults - It ran too hot, It felt a little on the heavy side, the battery life was mediocre, it ran too hot, and I was disappointed with the performance of the Nvidia Quadro graphics. Did I mention this ran pretty hot? Even just light web browsing made the fans go crazy; let alone playing a graphics-intensive game like Call of Duty or Eve Online. Maybe it’s just the Australian summer, I dunno.

So I decided to sell my Latitude on eBay and hunt around for an alternative latop. I liked the look of some of the HP notebooks, they have a little more style than the Dells I sell, but they’re a bit on the gaudy side. Plus an Intel retail marketing rep advised me to reconsider - aparently the return rate of HP laptops from busted LCD panels is pretty high. This is just anecdotal, but I want to buy quality hardware.

There aren’t many PC laptops that I would usually consider - most to me do not look nice - they try to be ‘stylish’ but come across as gaudy and overly-embellished. Toshiba, Acer, Lenovo, even Sony to an extent are…. just ugly.

I’ve been curious of the OSX operating system for a long time now - but I always held off from purchasing a macintosh because they were overly expensive or sacrificed a major feature or two. Plus the build quality of the previous generation of Macbooks had all kinds of issues, enough to keep me away.

But with the new aluminium models, I’ve heard nothing bad about their built quality, their fit and finish is second to none. The latest models for me tick all of the boxes - Nvidia integrated graphics, LED display, backlit keyboard (which doesn’t bleed light as much as my Latitude), lightweight, P-searies Core2 Duo processors, and DDR3 memory.

I recently played around with a macbook at my local Apple Store, the rep there was fantastic and very informative. I found one negative - the heat exhaust is just above the hinge of the screen at the back of the chassis. When the display lid is closed, this vent is blocked off. So no using this with an external display while closed. Not a biggie I suppose.

I’m not all that interested in the iLife software that comes with a new mac like iPhoto or iMovie, but Garageband sounds interesting. I know someone who records their podcasts with this software and says it’s excellent.

What does interest me is the iWork suite - pages, numbers and keynote. At work I live in MS Office, so I’m interested as to how this compares.

I’ll find out more in my next visit.

Thinking of putting OSX on my Dell Mini 9 - I’ve ‘obtained’ a slipstreamed version with extra drivers so it shouldn’t be too fiddly.

For a long time I’ve wanted a computer that was decent at gaming as well as great for everyday use. I had gotten tired of my old desktop with its limited graphics card and being stuck in the same room. I loved the idea of buying a high-end laptop for all of my computing needs for the next couple of years.

Problem with laptops is if you are using it as a gaming machine, they age pretty quickly and you can’t upgrade anything other than the ram or hard drive. Plus they are very expensive - you can get a screaming kick-ass gaming tower for the price of the low-end MacBook Pro. Of course laptops are always more expensive than their desktop counterparts (and I am comparing to a premium notebook), but the point I’m trying to make is that if you want something with heaps of horsepower that will last you at least several years, a PC desktop is the way to go.

No matter what I looked at - even the new Dell Studio XPS were on the expensive side when compared to desktops with core i7 processors at a similar price point. I’ve also got a Dell Mini 9 which fits my web browsing and TV-watching quite well.

So with this realisation at the forefront of my mind, I asked some of my co-workers what I should do. Several told me to do something I have never done before - build my own computer. I liked this idea a lot, and with their advice I’m in the process of ordering the following components:

CPU: E8400
RAM: 4GB Kingston DDR2 @ 1066
HDD: 1TB WD Caviar Black
GPU: Nvidia GTX 285
MOBO: Gigabyte ga-ep45-ud3P
PSU: Corsair 650W
CASE: Lian Li PC-A10B Case Black

I was going to order a 620W Corsair power supply, as the reviews were quite favourable. I had to settle with the equally-priced 650W unit as everyone I regularly order from have it on back-order until mid-March. I was careful to select a good case and power supply as these were components that would live out the rest several times over.

This system should last me at least 4 years with minimal upgrades. Anything beyond that will be a complete overhaul to whatever type of Intel Core i7 platform is out.