Klarinet Archive - Posting 000141.txt from 2006/11

From: Randy S Miller <meistersinger1@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Re: klarinet Digest 29 Nov 2006 10:01:01 -0000 Issue 6982
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 02:02:42 -0500


On Nov 29, 2006, at 5:01 AM, klarinet-digest-help@-----.org wrote:

>>
>> Specifications
>>
>> * 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
>> * 512MB 667 DDR2 SDRAM - 2x256
>> * Keyboard & Mighty Mouse + Mac OS X - U.S. English
>> * 160GB Serial ATA hard drive
>> * Intel GMA 950 graphics with 64MB of shared memory
>> * 24x Combo Drive (DVD-ROM, CD-RW)
>> * 17-inch widescreen LCD
>> * AirPort Extreme
>>
>>
>>
> I'd like to spend no more than $1000 and it seems like they are
> selling
> cars.
> Telling you ONLY $1000 but then adding in $2500 of upgrades.

As a former Apple contractor, Most of support (that is, if Apple
hasn't gone the way of the other manufacturers and sent their support
to India), are musicians (at least, 3/4 of us working frontline
support out of Baltimore, including myself, were musicians of some sort.

Before I got out of information technology (as it seems that all
support is being shipped overseas), I told clients NOT to buy stock.
My experience with Microsoft Operating systems and Mac OS X (as well
as Linux, OS/2, and various permutations of *nix) is to buy as much
memory and hard drive space as you can possibly afford. A good many
times system sluggishness can be resolved by 1) adding more memory
and 2) having more drive space. Buying it on the front end will save
you misery on adding these items after the fact. My brother found
out the hard way when I began having problems with his Dell after
purchase, as he went with the min. on everything, including Windows
ME several years ago. He always refused to let me touch the machine
to add memory or hard drive. 10 years later, he's now the wiser,
with a new Dell loaded to the hilt (which you need in order to run
Windows XP SP2). Now if I could only convince him in buying a new
clarinet for his daughter (and get him to have her study with my old
clarinet teacher from college (since he lives about 45 minutes away
from him, and I refuse to teach relatives)...

As for what was specified for your iMac, I'd ditch the airport
extreme, and the Air Port base station (being a former Pentagon wonk,
I'm paranoid about wireless networking security. You can still get
on a network with an ethernet cable and either a dsl or cable
modem). I'd also upgrade the combo drive to a superdrive (CD/DVD
burner), as well as take memory up to at LEAST 1 gigabyte. I'd also
recommend Applecare when you purchase the machine, that way, when you
call support, you don't have to listen to the sales spiel, in
addition to having on-site repair should the machine go bad. (unless
you are a resident of Florida. Jeb Bush doesn't allow extended
warranties to be sold to Florida residents). You don't necessarily
need to purchase iWork or iLife immediately if at all, nor should you
have to purchase Microsoft Office immediately, if at all. There are
several open source products that are freely available, although they
may be a little strange to operate. If you need a office suite, look
at Neo Office, which is free. As for music software, I've never been
really impressed by any of the notation programs, be it Finale,
Sibelius, or Lime (maintained and developed by the electronic music
program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.)

Randy

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