New computer for me, potential crappy prize for you

So here it is, my new MacBook Pro, 13-inch persuasion. I went into Best Buy first for a last look at netbooks, which would have saved me a fortune, but in the end, I couldn’t embrace any of them. One or two of them have reasonably usable keyboards (most don’t), and I’m sure they’d be serviceable enough for email and TRPC, but after that, plenty of nothin’. I’ve already got an underpowered PC in the house, and I can continue to use that for tournaments. While I was there, I saw that BB also sells Macs. The salesman was giving some poor schlub a pitch that was, as far as I could tell, completely bogus (especially since he was selling him a discontinued model). Not that I would think of buying much of anything from a Best Buy, but even less now. I almost picked up the new Tiger Woods Wii golf game with nifty new controller while I was there, but I didn’t want to give them any of my money. So it goes.

So I moseyed over to the Apple store in the same mall and did my best not to buy anything. It was clear to me early on that my original sense that 13 inches was right was going to prove out. I mean, I have a 17-inch screen in the office, which is great for page-setting and other day job functions, but it weighs the proverbial ton when I lug it home for whatever reason. I played with the 15-incher for a while, and compared it, and I just didn’t like it as much. Money was not an issue (once you’re buying computers and spending money like crazy, it’s like Las Vegas where it’s all chips and entirely meaningless). Feel and convenience were everything. I didn’t even worry about Apple’s notorious 1.0 issues, given that this was just a line extension and not a totally new product. Plus, I got the educational discount and a free Touch (and hence a happy daughter) and a discount on iWorks, and although I asked the salesman to talk me out of it, he was not accommodating, and I walked out with all of this in a tiny plastic bag across my shoulders. Damn, but these Apple people have their packaging down to an art. They are the masters of the bright, shiny object.

The process of setting up a computer isn’t what it used to be. Keep in mind that my first computer was an Apple II+ in, I think, 1981. Used to be you had to at the very least put in a disk or something, if not actually master the thing’s inner assembly language. Now you plug the thing in, turn the thing on, connect to the network, and you’re in business. I share everything from Little Elvis, which has now become my fileserver slash jukebox. Remote disk storage, remote printing (I tried a printer plugged directly into an Airport but just keeping it plugged into Little E was easier and allowed multiple choices), remote iTunes library, remote sitting around doing whatever it is I do. Of course, there was some startup business. I had to load iWorks (that took a good two minutes). I had to get Tweetie set up, and Firefox, although, huzzah! Safari finally works for me again. I started looking at Sun’s VirtualBox, which is an Open Source system for running other OSs (like Windows, for TRPC). I didn’t download it, because I’ve got to find my Windows software disk, which is around here somewhere. And I’m still on the fence about if I really want to sully up the new machine with such an old kludge as Windows XP. We’ll see.

The biggest and, I guess, only problem is the new computer’s lack of a name. Little Elvis came about in answer to La Coin’s similar machine, which she called Emma, which was way too literary for me, unless she was just referring to her machine as Emma because she liked the name or something, which, if it’s true, I don’t want to know about it. The name Little Elvis does not really evolve into any new name I can think of. “Less Little Elvis” or “Bigger Elvis” just doesn’t have that ring to it. So, if someone can come up with something, there will be a crappy prize in it for you. Let me know.