J.: January 2007 Archives
G-Drive
I am so far satisfied with my 500GB drive purchase. My iTunes library, weekly backups, and assorted large files (installer disk images, primarily) are safely tucked away on the corner of my desk. This has freed a sizable chunk of my laptop hard drive, improving performance (things were too tight before, and the computer would spin its wheels as it choked to swap memory for scratch files, etc.).
New Airport Extreme
My next technology purchase will most likely be the new Apple Airport Extreme base station, due out next month:
(A) My old wireless router went FUBAR several months ago, so I've been using wired Ethernet with my laptop. Not so bad for now, but I plan on adding another laptop and a desktop computer to my home network soon, which will require a new high-performance wireless router. With the new "802.11n" standard, this base station should keep our household happy bandwidth-wise for several years.
(B) The new base station can manage any attached hard drive via USB 2.0 and use it like network attached storage (NAS). This means I will be able to plug my new G-Drive into the router and access it from any computer on the network. The new base station can even auto-mount the drives in the Finder (regular NAS can't manage this). At first I was hesitant because of the "USB" connection. Some review of the stats, however, revealed that USB 2.0 is actually faster than the FireWire 400 connection I am currently using.
OS X Update
I finally bit the bullet and purchased a copy of OS X Tiger (at a steep education discount). I know, I know--Leopard is supposed to come along any day now. The problem is, Apple hasn't been releasing any details on the new operating system lately; the pundits say this means it won't be ready for its anticipated summer 2007 release. Add to this my reluctance to ever add a "new" operating system until its been tested by the masses (and appropriate patches applied), and I figure I won't be moving to OS 10.5 for at least 18 to 24 months.
So, I am now running OS 10.4.8 and loving it thus far. Spotlight and all of the associated "smart" objects alone (folders, lists, mailboxes) make it worth the purchase price. And with the convenience of Safari RSS, perhaps I can finally put away Firefox for good--I know everyone swears it's faster, but Safari has always been snappier on my laptop. Dashboard is eye candy, but I haven't found any real need for it yet; perhaps it will grow on me.
Scrivener and SOHO Notes
Be sure to check out these promising organizational apps. Scrivener is a tool for writers, a place to organize your project, including your text and all the assorted reference materials you need. SOHO Notes is a data collection utility for keeping all of your information in a single searchable database. Now that we have Spotlight, I would imagine most say "why bother?", but I am a fan of collection apps. Perhaps it's simple nostalgia, as I am often reminded of the packrat, my own app which was apparently very much ahead of its time.
I've taken a step with respect to my limited local hard drive space and back up woes by purchasing and installing a new 500GB FireWire G-Drive. The drive is very quiet and half the size of a large Kleenex box--good news for my desk space. I've set the laptop to back up my person documents to the drive once per week, and to back up my most important files each day to my iDisk space.
The best thing, in my opinion, is that I have off-loaded my entire iTunes library to the drive, freeing up about 15GB of the laptop's 40GB drive. This means I can no longer listen to my iTunes music on the laptop when untethered from the drive, but isn't that why I have my iPod anyway? Now I have more than enough space to rip my entire CD collection and sell the discs on half.com, using the money to pay some bills.
For a while, I had been considering Network Attached Storage (NAS) in lieu of a FireWire or USB drive. However, I decided against it because (a) I am not in a mixed-use environment, and any future sharing of the drive can be accomplished via Mac OS X's built-in mechanisms; (b) I don't currently need any media streaming or other similar exoticisms, as none of my other entertainment devices are up to the task; (c) research led me to believe that the configuration of NAS seems more complex than a true plug-and-play drive; and (d) mounting an NAS server sounds hit-and-miss at best (depending on manufacturer), and I wanted something that would mount seamlessly to allow for automated backups.
