Posted by: WebHobbit | January 29, 2011

Another look at the Mac

The last few days for some reason I’ve been on a mini quest to learn about the Mac. Call me “bi-curious” computer wise I guess!

Anyway I watched a few videos on the Apple site that explained how to do common stuff on a PC and then showed the equivalent on a Mac. So now I am quite knowledgeable on the basic GUI and stuff. I feel like I could now sit in front of a current Mac and go straight into anything I would need. My impressions:

1) GUI -beautiful! That Dock is a work of friggin art!

2) Animations – all the eye candy effects as you open/close/minimize stuff is crazy impressive!

3) The hardware itself is friggin’ BEAUTIFUL. Aluminum. Thin. Nice. Again elegant works of ART.

Then I went to the store side and pretended to buy one. This is where my brief love affair ENDED. That stuff is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over-priced. Of course we have all known this for some time but the price difference doesn’t really hit home until you see it loaded up in the cart staring you in the face. It is in a word – INSURMOUNTABLE.

The cheapest Mac is the Mac Mini at $699.99 for 700 bucks you get:

2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
2GB RAM (LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
320GB HD (Gee I didn’t known they still made many that small)
GeForce 320 graphics

The cheapest Mac portable and also something very similar in size to my Netbook is the Mac Air 11 inch at $999.99

* 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
* 2GB memory
* NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics
* 64GB Flash Storage (No HD I guess)

And one odd thing to note – NO ETHERNET PORT. What the hell??????????? The cheapest Netbook has an Ethernet port but not this pricey Mac?? WHY??

Clearly the specs on the Macbook Air 11 inch are far superior to my Acer 10 inch Netbook. But my Acer only cost $248.00 (+32.00 for an additional 1GB of RAM). At 3x the price is the Mac 3x the machine????????

Much better CPU -YES
Same RAM -NO
Better graphics -YES
Faster but WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY less storage (I have 160GB) -NO

So I dunno maybe the 11 incher IS worth $1,000.00 but if you are a middle-lower classed joe can you afford to spend a grand on a tiny portable?

On the desktop side the Apple Tax is much more apparent as the PC walks all over any thing Apple has to offer when you factor in the cost versus performance. So switching to the Mac isn’t something many people can probably afford to do. But I do have to admit the next time I look at portables I will take a hard look at the Air series. That’s probably all I will do but I WILL look.

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Posted in Geekery | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: WebHobbit | August 9, 2010

a Tale of Two Conans

A month or so ago I started seeing those beautiful full page ads in all the comics for the Hero Initiative Limited edition Overstreet Priceguide hardcover. It features some nice cover art by John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson where the pay homage to Barry Smith’s Conan #1 cover from 1970. I’ve always been a HUGE Conan fan and a fairly serious reader/collector of Robert E. Howard comics. So I knew I had to get my hands on one of the 500 limited edition hardcovers. Even though as a Comicbase user I no longer need to purchase Overtsreet guides for me it was a win-win situation since the money goes for a GREAT cause. If you are a comics fan at all you should consider donating to the Hero Initiative as many of the legendary artists and writers we all grew up on are now elderly and in poor health with little or no insurance. So I figured this was $35.00 WELL SPENT.

I’ve owned reprints of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian #1 in various forms for years but I always wanted a copy of the real deal. Last week I finally found a good deal on a copy in Very Good+ condition. I STOLE one off of eBay for $41.01. And would you believe it’s CGC slabbed? Or I should rephrase it WAS CGC slabbed as I just LIBERATED the comic mere moments ago. I HATE The whole concept of “slabbing” a comicbook. For me the whole point of collecting is for the FUN of it and reading and enjoying the art. Also they SMELL really NICE. Seriously I want the whole deal. So I broke that silly seal and cut that inner plastic. And YES it was worth it! I use Mylar Mylite2s for my books along with acid free boards. And I don’t use TAPE. I fold and tuck the bag closed. This preserves the comic but also allows the thing to be read and enjoyed. You simply cannot enjoy a book that is SEALED in a hard plastic shell. CGC is even more of a rip off when you consider the plastic shell is NOT made of Mylar and therefore NOT ARCHIVAL.

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Posted in Angst, Comics, Geekery | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted by: WebHobbit | February 22, 2010

Shogun Warriors

Shogun Warriors Ad

Click the above image for a full-size widescreen wallpaper sized 1920×1200. This is scanned from a 1979 Marvel comics house ad for the series. The Marvel comic version of the Mattel toy line was short lived (20 issues) but was quite good with art by the legendary Herb Trimpe (also did the art here for the ad) and written by the great Doug Moench. It’s also one of the very first comics I remember collecting & reading as well as actually buying myself with my own money right off the rack. God I MISS those squeaky spinner-racks. (One of these days I’m gonna buy one off eBay or something if I can ever find a good deal on one.) I also love to point out that the Shogun Warriors were the “original” Giant Robots predating Gobots AND Transformers by at least 4.5 years.

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Posted in Comics, Geekery, wallpaper | Tags: , , , ,

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