What would be crazier than trying to get ahold of Apple Customer Service during the morning on Black Friday? Probably a lot, but that’s what I’m doing right now.

You see on Nov 19th I ordered a refrub 40GB Apple TV. I got the shipment notification shortly after, but ever since FedEx has not updated the tracking. The thing is supposed to come tomorrow, so I called FedEx and they said they received a notice that there was a package to ship, but never got the package to ship it.

They told me to call Apple. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m pretty sure they’ll throw this all back on FedEx’s shoulders, but I have no clue what to do to get this package found.

For all I know it’ll show up tomorrow as planned.

Well, the company I work for is.  I had been working off my own Macbook Pro ever since I started, and it was about time to move to a company machine.  Thankfully I was able to convince them to buy me the Open(3).  At only $700 total ($600 – base, $50 – 4GB RAM, $50 shipping) the machine was a steal.

Some specs:

• Mac OS X Leopard v10.5
• 2.5 GHz Dual Core E5200
• 2.5 GHz Dual Core E5200
• 2.5 GHz Dual Core E5200
• GeForce 9400GT 512MB (DVI + VGA)
• 20x DVD±RW DL

After using the machine throughout the day, I can say that it’s no different than using any other Mac. The only one problem I had was installing Parallels. For some reason it thought my machine couldn’t handle the hardware virtualization. A quick install of VMWare Fusion solved that problem.

Would I recommend an Open(3)?

Yes, though I would prefer an actual Apple Mac (you can’t beat the style). For the price, though, you can’t get a better Mac cheaper. The base model is the same price as a Mac Mini, and packs WAY more punch.

Weird thing?  Worked perfectly in the store.  The guy at the Genius bar thinks it’s because they have a N networking running, and the problem may lie with how the airport connects to G networks.

Whatever, I really don’t care as long as it comes back either new or fixed.

Sucks not having it, though.  Pretty much my whole life is on the MBP.  I’ve still got a ton on my iPhone, but not enough.

What kind of Mac laptop did I end up with?

An iBook g4.

Yeah…yeah.  It’s not great, but it works.  The hard drive in it is a bit flakey, but I may upgrade that.  I’m also in the market for 1GB of RAM (it’s got 512MB now, 2x256MB)

Overall I’m just happy to have a portable Mac again.

Just as I suspected. The Macbook Air is not for me.

It really sucked. I had a nice new Macbook Pro and iPhone at my last job, and had to give them back when I got laid off. Luckily I had my own, trusty Powerbook.

My entire technological life was on there, plus a bit of my personal life. I kept music, family photos, Tremorworks files … everything on there.

Since breaking, I’ve jumped from old laptop to old laptop. Each one getting the open source treatment to try and suit my needs. While I have to say I can still do some things I need to do on them, they don’t suit ALL my needs at all. I had become hooked on Mac, and once you go Mac you can never go back.

So that puts me where I am now. Using a kick ass Linux machine at work, a crappy Linux Celeron laptop at home, and hoping that one day I can afford to own a Mac laptop again. With a house, family, and bills, it doesn’t look to likely that it will happen in the near future.

I continue to chug along, making do with what I have and being thankful that I at least have that. Someday, though, my Mac in shining aluminum will come.