I might be buying a Mac tomorrow. I checked out the new 13.3in MacBook
at the new Apple Store on 5th ave in NYC. I’m torn between the smaller
MacBook and the MacBook Pro. We have a pro at work and I’m not that
thrilled with the way it feels. I like the keyboard much better on the
13inch. However, I think doing development on that small of a screen
could get frustrating. Any thoughts? Also, any opinons on what specs
to get and is it better to buy lower in the store then upgrade ram and
stuff after?
Thanks,
Nathan
I got a 15" PB and it feels cramped. Thanks in part to the lower
resolution (compared to PC notebooks). But it does the job…
And, yeah, most everybody I know upgrades RAM from elsewhere - like
Crucial.
Joe
On 26-May-06, at 10:46 PM, Nathan P. Verni wrote:
I might be buying a Mac tomorrow. I checked out the new 13.3in
MacBook at the new Apple Store on 5th ave in NYC. I’m torn between
the smaller MacBook and the MacBook Pro. We have a pro at work and
I’m not that thrilled with the way it feels. I like the keyboard
much better on the 13inch. However, I think doing development on
that small of a screen could get frustrating. Any thoughts? Also,
any opinons on what specs to get and is it better to buy lower in
the store then upgrade ram and stuff after?
I’ve used a 12" G4 exclusively for a long time. I always set Expose
show all windows to the upper right corner, and show Desktop to the
lower right corner. I also use Launchbar (amazing) and hide the dock
off to the left. These three things make it more than bearable for
me, and the small size is great for the backpack.
I just bought a 20" iMac tonight because I really needed something
faster than the G4 (several seconds to load a single photo is
painful!) and I’d like to wait until I hear the notebooks are running
a little cooler. I’m pretty happy with it so far - I just wish it
wasn’t so damned ugly. (:
Good luck with your purchase - I’d get the smaller one myself.
-Mike
On 26-May-06, at 11:10 PM, Jon Gretar B. wrote:
The 12" didn’t bother me at all though since I was just switching
between iTerm and TextMate.
I realize this is off topic, but don’t you find iTerm painfully
slow? I tried it three or four times and found the delay for a
character to appear after I pressed the key was greater than ssh
delay while connected across Canada… holding down a key, I recall
characters appearing in spurts. I don’t want to start a huge debate,
but I’d love to hear if it’s smooth for you / what you did to make it
so.
iTerm was the same for me (painfully slow) - I just use terminal with
the cmd-1 cmd-2 cmd-3 etc shortcuts to switch between windows. Works
for me. This is a powerbook G4 1.5GHz with 1GB of RAM, btw.
-DF
Mike O. wrote:
I realize this is off topic, but don’t you find iTerm painfully
slow? I tried it three or four times and found the delay for a
character to appear after I pressed the key was greater than ssh
delay while connected across Canada… holding down a key, I recall
characters appearing in spurts. I don’t want to start a huge debate,
but I’d love to hear if it’s smooth for you / what you did to make it
so.
I’ll jump in-- there is nothing slow about the 12" G4 with a RAM
upgrade. Mine has 768MB and I don’t have any of the sluggishness you
refer to. However, with the stock 256MB it often was sluggish, and
things swapped out of RAM way too often.
I am seriously tempted by the new MacBook, but I don’t want to give up
the portability of the 12" PB… so, it looks like I’ll be a G4 user for
a long time.
I think iTerm is slow regardless of how much memory the machine has. I
recently switched from it back to Terminal. I liked iTerm, except the
delay between typed characters just became too intolerable. I use
“screen” on my remote Linux machines to switch between shells. The only
think I hate about Terminal is there’s no scrollback when using screen
(there’s probably some way to fix that).
Expose is a great. I also use (and like) Quicksilver - Launchbar sounds
like it does similar.
Joe
On 5/26/06, Joe [email protected] wrote:
I think iTerm is slow regardless of how much memory the machine has. I
recently switched from it back to Terminal. I liked iTerm, except the
delay between typed characters just became too intolerable. I use
“screen” on my remote Linux machines to switch between shells. The only
think I hate about Terminal is there’s no scrollback when using screen
(there’s probably some way to fix that).
Don’t forget that screen still has its own built-in scrollback buffer
with ‘ctrl-a [’, so it’s not too bad. I’m using the same combination
of Terminal + screen, but it’s not ideal in all situations. I tried
iTerm, but didn’t like it very much. The configuration screens were
pretty confusing - and I could never quite figure out how to get it to
start up with the dimensions that I wanted it to every time. Yes, it
was also quite a bit more sluggish than Terminal.
Linux has dozens of decent tabbed terminal applications. Since
switching to a mac, it’s the one thing I’m really missing. With all of
the great commercial and free applications in other areas on mac,
you’d think there would be a really good terminal app. Alas… 
-Pawel
I use a 12" PowerBook. I just had a 19" monitor to it when needed.
Worked fine. Thinking about getting the black MacBook next since I got
a Mac Mini at home and using Subversion really allows me to work
wherever and on whatever my mood takes me.
The 12" didn’t bother me at all though since I was just switching
between iTerm and TextMate.
On 5/27/06, Nathan P. Verni [email protected] wrote:
Thanks,
Nathan
Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
–
Pawel S. wrote:
On 5/26/06, Joe [email protected] wrote:
I think iTerm is slow regardless of how much memory the machine has. I
recently switched from it back to Terminal. I liked iTerm, except the
delay between typed characters just became too intolerable. I use
“screen” on my remote Linux machines to switch between shells. The only
think I hate about Terminal is there’s no scrollback when using screen
(there’s probably some way to fix that).
Don’t forget that screen still has its own built-in scrollback buffer
with ‘ctrl-a [’, so it’s not too bad. I’m using the same combination
of Terminal + screen, but it’s not ideal in all situations. I tried
iTerm, but didn’t like it very much. The configuration screens were
pretty confusing - and I could never quite figure out how to get it to
start up with the dimensions that I wanted it to every time. Yes, it
was also quite a bit more sluggish than Terminal.
Linux has dozens of decent tabbed terminal applications. Since
switching to a mac, it’s the one thing I’m really missing. With all of
the great commercial and free applications in other areas on mac,
you’d think there would be a really good terminal app. Alas…
-Pawel
I read xterm - available via DarwinPorts - is really good, but I
cancelled the installation after it was taking too long (many minutes
and it was downloading its fourth rather largish source file).
Joe
On 5/26/06, Michael M. [email protected] wrote:
Mike O. wrote:
I am seriously tempted by the new MacBook, but I don’t want to give up
the portability of the 12" PB… so, it looks like I’ll be a G4 user for
a long time.
The new MacBook is only 13" and cheap.
Peter
Yep but its size is closer to the PB 15" than to the 12". It’s due to
the builtin isight 16/10 screen.
HTH
Jef
Hi,
I’m right behind you - I’ll probably make an Apple purchase in June. I
am considering the Mac Mini and was hoping to use a 17inch flat screen
monitor that I have along with a wireless mouse and keyboard.
Please let me know what you purchased and how pleased you are with it. I
presume you will be using it for RoR development.
Good luck,
Pat
Don’t get the wireless keyboard and mouse. They really aren’t any good
and remember that the wireless mouse from apple has only one button.
But I like the standard keyboard. Plus I have found that having
wireless laser mouse can be a little bit of an issue because it
consumes a lot of electricity. Especially bluetooth mice.
I really didn’t like the Mighty Mouse either. Some people like it but
both the scroll and all other functions of it feel just a little bit
light. Just feels a bit wrong.
Look for the Philippe Starck mouse or something other that has ultra
light cables.
On 5/28/06, Pat L. [email protected] wrote:
To: [email protected]
buy lower in the store then upgrade ram and stuff after?
–
Hi,
Thanks for the advice in regard to the wireless mouse and kb. I will
follow it.
Cheers
On 27 May 2006, at 06:44, Joe wrote:
I think iTerm is slow regardless of how much memory the machine has. I
recently switched from it back to Terminal. I liked iTerm, except the
delay between typed characters just became too intolerable.
You might try the latest source from their CVS - it’s a little
unstable, but it’s far, far faster.
Joe wrote:
I think iTerm is slow regardless of how much memory the machine has. I
recently switched from it back to Terminal. I liked iTerm, except the
delay between typed characters just became too intolerable.
this is pretty funny. i remmeber sitting in the Hallway in 4th grade,
and there was some woman doing some sort of data entry on a IIe, and the
teacher came out and asked her how it was going and she said the delay
between typed characters was intolerable. and sometimes 2 or 3
characters wouldnt even show up. how fast is your mac again? 
id suggest secureCRT on windows, or gnome-terminal. both are quite
nice…
cdr wrote:
Joe wrote:
I think iTerm is slow regardless of how much memory the machine has. I
recently switched from it back to Terminal. I liked iTerm, except the
delay between typed characters just became too intolerable.
this is pretty funny. i remmeber sitting in the Hallway in 4th grade,
and there was some woman doing some sort of data entry on a IIe, and the
teacher came out and asked her how it was going and she said the delay
between typed characters was intolerable. and sometimes 2 or 3
characters wouldnt even show up. how fast is your mac again?
id suggest secureCRT on windows, or gnome-terminal. both are quite
nice…
Dude, hit up Google and you’ll see it’s a common complaint. My Mac is
plenty fast enough. And you’re recommending Windows? WTF?
J
Nathan P. Verni wrote:
I might be buying a Mac tomorrow. I checked out the new 13.3in MacBook
at the new Apple Store on 5th ave in NYC. I’m torn between the smaller
MacBook and the MacBook Pro. We have a pro at work and I’m not that
thrilled with the way it feels. I like the keyboard much better on the
13inch. However, I think doing development on that small of a screen
could get frustrating. Any thoughts?
on OSX or windows yes…ive got fluxbox set to draw windows without
borders, firefox’s userchrome.css to display buttons/tabs on the left
edge, and toolbar and menubar disabled in emacs. this 12" easily has
more room than the stock config of a typical 14 or 15" which is losing a
half in each for dock/taskbar, menubar, window border, statusbar,
location bar, 1 or 2 rows of button bar…
but yeah. i definitely plug in a huge LCD when at a table…when 19"s
are about 1/10th the price of a macbook, how could you not?
On 5/30/06, Joe [email protected] wrote:
Dude, hit up Google and you’ll see it’s a common complaint. My Mac is
plenty fast enough. And you’re recommending Windows? WTF?
Don’t feed the trolls.
-DF