Apple - PowerBook G4 12-inch

Well I can finally admit to it:

“More.” It’s the word that best describes the new 12-inch PowerBook G4.

It has more speed: it’s 1.33GHz PowerPC G4 processor and 167MHz system bus provide impressive performance gains. It offers twice the video memory — 64MB, to be exact — resulting in a noticeable boost in graphics performance. It provides more storage, coming standard with a 60GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive. It’s available with a 4x SuperDrive that delivers double the DVD burning speed. And, the pièce de résistance, it ships with AirPort Extreme built right in.

I didn't get the SuperDrive but it's still been a great thing, compared to my Gateway Solo 5300 (PIII 900Mhz 256MB PC133 RAM 10Gb HD). I think it needs a little bit more RAM, but the PowerBook has kept pace with my Athlon box, GeForce 4 Ti 4600 aside.

So about the things I've already installed:
* Firefox with the respective web development plug-ins
* Camino
* UT:GOTY Demo and UT2004 Demo to check out performance
* Quicksilver
* Reiner Knizia's Samurai
* The aforementioned StepMania

That's about it so far. I'm waiting for the 1.1.1 release of OpenOffice.org, which requires XDarwin, which I'm having trouble installing.

Needless to say, Quicksilver is the app of choice. Justin Blanton's review is what originally got me hooked on the concept. It works really well, aside from some problems I had with it running in the background during games or the key combination I setup and OS X's default keys for switching input methods. (Japanese support in OS X is a dream come true!)

Did I mention the battery life is excellent and the speakers are great? You'll probably be seeing more of this Apple stuff, but here's a few places I frequent in regard to Macs and development:

* DrukenBlog, don't fear the name, it's a great blog
* Justin Blanton's Blog: Life. Technology. Politics. And I think he's a local!
* Daring Fireball: Mac Nerdery, Etc.