[Anubis IV]

This next week when I'm heading back to campus, I won't be bringing my treasured 800MHz TiPB with me, but rather our family's six year-old Beige 266MHz G3 (family wants me to get good grades and they think the laptop is a distraction...me, being the good son that I am, don't want to offend anyone, so even though I bought the Titanium with my own money, I agreed to downgrade to the family's old PowerMac). After a protracted struggle with XPostFacto and the Panther installation, I've more or less made peace with the fact that the Beige will always kernel panic whenever I boot up into Panther, whether from the System Disks or from the HD, so I'm just going to go ahead and wipe the HD once again and downgrade it to an old copy of Jaguar that I have (that is, unless someone has a good suggestion for how to get Panther on the thing).

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had any tips for things I might need...a Jaguar survival kit of ideas, if you will. It's been a long time since I ventured into the realms of 10.2, and I'm sure some of my Panther-specific stuff will suddenly seem to stop functioning, so if anyone has any tips, or, at the very least, some condolences, then please, do share them here. I could use some suggestions for how to manage in 10.2.

Edit: Dang typos...

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Anubis IV:
This next week when I'm heading back to campus, I won't be bringing my treasured 800MHz TiPB with me, but rather our family's six year-old Beige 266MHz G3 (family wants me to get good grades and they think the laptop is a distraction...me, being the good son thta I am, don't want to offend anyone, so even though I bought the Titanium with my own money, I agreed to downgrade to the family's old PowerMac).

Your family just wanted to get your laptop, and get rid of the crap beige G3. If you bought the laptop with your own money, they shouldn't be able to do this...

[Anubis IV]

Oh, technically they can't, but I respect my parent's opinion, and frankly put, I do need the grades this next semester, so though I loathe to leave it behind, I know I can make due with the Beige. As for them just wanting to get their hands on it, I doubt it. I have passwords all over the place and as unfriendly a user interface as I could make. It looks pretty, but unless you know what all the hotkeys and special corners are, you can't do jack with it, and my family knows that and jokes about it. Besides, my brother has an iMac that he uses, my dad has his iBook, and my mom is entirely computer illiterate.

Anyway, my parents are good people, and I know them better than that. They honestly are looking out for my good, and if they think this is for my good, I don't see a point in arguing it that much since I'm not convined that they're wrong anyway. Aside from arguing to keep my laptop though (which I don't need to do since if I wanted to keep my laptop I could just overrule them) do you have any other ideas for how to cope with Jaguar?

[Maflynn]

Well I cannot knock you for your dedication to your family but if you bought the a laptop with my own money, then I should have some say as to what I bring to college.

Well I cannot provide any insights but enjoy and good luck.

Mike

[Anubis IV]

Heh, yeah, figured that might come up. I think I just mentioned it in my last post here, but I do have full say in the matter, and I could override my parents if I wanted to, but I'm taking their suggestion on this one and leaving the laptop home. Oh, and now that I think about it, the Beige is probably older than I had previously stated...might be seven years old...I think we got it around '97...

[Luca Rescigno]

I think you should keep the PowerBook with you. If you want to avoid distraction, remove any games from it and don't bring the CDs with you, or something. While I agree that powerful computers can be very distracting, you need reliable hardware. I can't imagine having to get by in college with a seven-year-old computer. Not because it's incapable of doing the things I need to do (like write and print papers, search Lexis-Nexis, etc), but because I'd be afraid of it crapping out constantly. You're relying on an ancient hard drive, an old printer (if you have one to go with the computer), and so on. Also, beige G3s can sometimes have problems with OS X, even if they're officially supported.

You could think about doing this, but I bet you'll want your PowerBook back within a week. If you keep yourself busy, remove any unnecessary distractions from the computer, and maybe try to find a study area away from your room, you should be fine. And if your campus has any 24 hour a day computer labs, you can skip a computer altogether and just use the labs when you need to use a computer.

[Sod Off Sadr]

Originally posted by Anubis IV:
Oh, technically they can't, but I respect my parent's opinion, and frankly put, I do need the grades this next semester, so though I loathe to leave it behind, I know I can make due with the Beige.

Anyway, my parents are good people, and I know them better than that. They honestly are looking out for my good, and if they think this is for my good, I don't see a point in arguing it that much since I'm not convined that they're wrong anyway. Aside from arguing to keep my laptop though (which I don't need to do since if I wanted to keep my laptop I could just overrule them) do you have any other ideas for how to cope with Jaguar?

dude, if you don't have the discipline to keep your grades up just because you have a nice computer in front of you, then you will be a loser forever. And if you don't have the sack to tell your parents that you can do it, you lack confidence in yourself and they will treat you like a sackless baby forever.

suck it up, put your foot down, and be a man.

[voyageur]

Anubis, you sound like you recognize you need a fresh start to develop better study habits, and this is great. Develop those good habits this year, then next year (or next semester) you should be ready to take back the PowerBook. Luca's idea of restricting access to game CDs is a good one. To those who say he should demand the PowerBook back now because he paid for it; well, I think his parents would counter that they are shelling out a lot more for the college education.

[absmiths]

I guess the big question is, "Who is paying for the college?" If I gave my daughter an ultimatum that she had to leave her laptop at home and bring her grades up and she was unwilling to do so then we could certainly come to a new arrangment vis-a-vis the bills related thereto.

[Anubis IV]

As of right now, my parents are paying for college. My money is currently tied in with some funds that we're waiting on since they took a turn for the worst during the economic recession. So by late this next Spring or next Fall, I'll be paying for my own tuition as well, but right now they're paying for it.

Anyway, I honestly know that I don't need the PowerBook up there this next semester. My classes don't demand that much power just yet, so while I do appreciate the general sentiment that I should just bring my laptop to school with me, I already know that I can manage without it and am willing to do so for this next semester. As for now, I can't justify the need for my laptop. Come next semester when I finally get into some upper level Computer Science classes though I'll go ahead and bring it up with me.

That said, does anyone have any suggestions for how to cope with Jaguar? We've gotten a bit off topic here.

[Thinine]

Mostly, just realize you won't be able to run the latest version of some apps. But it's mostly Apples apps that are Panther only so far, so unless you need them, you should be fine. You should probably use something other than Safari, since the Jaguar version is fairly old now. And losing Expose could be big, depending on how much you use it. But you should be able to do whatever you need. Do you have any specific questions?

[aaanorton]

I think you are doing the right thing. Congratulations. It is difficult for people to take advice any more these days, particularly from their parents. I commend you on your sense of self. And I'm sure your parents are proud of you.
Ultimately, Jag ain't that bad. Connecting to servers may be tricky at 1st, but remember to add them to your favorite server list. And if you have the IPs of the necessary servers, all the better. That was the only big gotcha I remember from Jag. Otherwise you should be fine.

dude, if you don't have the discipline to keep your grades up just because you have a nice computer in front of you, then you will be a loser forever. And if you don't have the sack to tell your parents that you can do it, you lack confidence in yourself and they will treat you like a sackless baby forever.

suck it up, put your foot down, and be a man.

...And speaking of losers... Maybe you said this as a joke, cuz you think sounding like an imbecile is funny. If not, you have problems, pal.

[Fonzie]

Even though I know this is not what you want to hear; A faster Mac and such is less stressful than a old hackboard. You will experience less frustration when writing assignments and such. You have chosen poorly!

Instead of letting something as an installation get on your nerves then settle with what you know and enjoy the most, which I would think is the Titanium PowerBook !?

How about letting your parents respect your decision this time around ?

End of transmission...

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by Anubis IV:
This next week when I'm heading back to campus, I won't be bringing my treasured 800MHz TiPB with me, but rather our family's six year-old Beige 266MHz G3 (family wants me to get good grades and they think the laptop is a distraction...me, being the good son that I am, don't want to offend anyone, so even though I bought the Titanium with my own money, I agreed to downgrade to the family's old PowerMac).

How old are you? (not asked in a rude way)

surely having a fast computer is going to be less of a distraction that a crap one (G3 266 is crap).

I know they are paying for your education, but it sounds like your parents just got a great deal, an educated son plus a brand new laptop.

[homgran]

I'm afraid I have to agree with some of the other nay-sayers on this board - choosing a beige 266MHz G3 over an 800MHz TiBook is unlikely to benefit your grades. On the contrary, you may find that the beige G3 will have a negative effect on your grades.

For starters, you'll probably waste plenty of valuable time maintaining the G3. Also, no matter how well you maintain it, the G3 will be sluggish in comparison to the Titanium - even for the simplest of tasks. Running Jaguar is probably a big enough challenge in itself for the poor thing! Wasting time like this will cause you unnecessary stress and frustration, and it'll cut into the time you should spend studying/relaxing.

And then there's the reliability issue: if you're going to be storing important files on this computer (and if you can't afford to go for days/weeks without access to said computer) then you'll want something reliable. Like it or not, older hardware is more prone to malfunction, and a seven year old G3 will not be as reliable as a relatively new 800MHz Titanium Powerbook.

Speaking from experience (I graduated in Summer 2003), I can tell you that you'll appreciate having the Powerbook's extra speed at your disposal. Sure, most of the time you won't need it, but every now and then that extra juice will allow you to make those all-important last minute [changes/checks/program-runs] as the submission deadline approaches.

I was given a 1GHz TiBook as a 21st birthday present from my parents (love you, mum! ), and it had a hugely positive impact on the final six months of my degree. My dissertation in particular would have been impossible to produce on our old iMac given the time-frame, especially with the number of simulations that were required.

As far as games go, if you're conscientious enough to contemplate sacrificing your Powerbook altogether then you should have enough willpower to stop yourself from becoming addicted to the latest game releases. And remember, it's not good to work flat-out all the time - be productive when you do work, and take plenty of short breaks.

Good luck, whatever your decide to do.


-Matt

[wataru]

To actually address the issue of Jaguar vs. Panther: I have a beige G3 that I play with on occasion. The single biggest annoyance is finding out that the most recent versions of my favorite apps are Panther only (example: SubEthaEdit and MPlayer). Then you have to go to the app's website, dig around for the newest Jaguar-compatible version (if it exists), and then download and install it.

Good luck.

[Graymalkin]

While it is important to respect your parents' wishes I think you're making a poor choice using the G3. Panther's extra Windows compatibility is one its biggest improvements over Jaguar. You're going to be missing out on Windows print sharing, Samba network browsing, and good NTFS support. You're also losing out on portability which stands a good chance of causing you trouble down the line. With the Powerbook you could take all of your work to the library or a study lab or the local coffee shop and work. Now you're stuck in your dorm with a bunch of people that aren't studying. The difference speed wise is also going to bite you trying to do any heavy lifting web research. Safari 1.0 has compatibility problems that Safari 1.2 doesn't have and Camino without a lot of RAM is going to be a dog.

If you insist on using the G3 you should pick up Camino to use instead of Safari. Safari is far too limited in Jaguar in terms of compatibility and as long as you've got plenty of RAM it should do alright. Also grab the latest release of Gimp-Print to provide you with a much larger selection of compatible drivers than Jag offers out of the box. Most general purpose software is going to run fine on Jag. Browse around MacOS X Hints for some performance tweaks for Jag as well. You're going to be running some pretty low powered hardware so turn off things like text anti-aliasing. You might want to check out DealRAM and pick up as much memory as you can afford to put into the machine as the default 64MB isn't likely to be enough to run anything. A PCI Radeon 7000 wouldn't hurt either, especially if you use a QuartzExtreme hack so offload GUI compositing onto the card.

Seriously reconsider taking your Powerbook though. You'll appreciate the decision when you need to print a paper on a printed shared from Windows or need to grab some files off of a Windows network share.

[wataru]

Yes, RAM is essential. But I recommend Firefox over Camino. Either one is a better choice than Safari 1.0.3.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
While it is important to respect your parents' wishes I think you're making a poor choice using the G3. Panther's extra Windows compatibility is one its biggest improvements over Jaguar. You're going to be missing out on Windows print sharing, Samba network browsing, and good NTFS support. You're also losing out on portability which stands a good chance of causing you trouble down the line. With the Powerbook you could take all of your work to the library or a study lab or the local coffee shop and work. Now you're stuck in your dorm with a bunch of people that aren't studying.

No kidding - I hated it my freshman year when I didn't have a laptop and I had to try to work while the roommates were having very noisy Mario Kart tournaments with the entire floor invited over, with rap music playing in the background.

You're forgetting one other thing, though - the nicest thing about being able to take your laptop to the library, study lab, etc. That is, that you can usually find some place where you don't have access to the Internet. Quite frankly, at least in my experience this reduces my distractions by orders of magnitude, which is ironic considering your situation.

[Superchicken]

How on earth is your laptop that big of a distraction? I would never go to school without one. I had to use just my iMac Rev D when my iBook died, it screwed up every study habit I had. Perhaps I'm a little dependant on my PowerBook, but come on, iCal on a laptop in my opinion is one of the most useful things for college, as is the ability to quickly type notes in class.

You can do what you want, but it sounds like a waste of money to leave a great machine at home. Is your school close to home or not? I'd take the PB just encase your HD dies. If you only use your comp as a gaming machine or something then I could understand it but... it's a Mac! Gah... do what you want, I would never leave my Macs at home while I'm away, where I go they go. Sept the bathroom... they can't go...

[Graymalkin]

I like the suggestion of removing the games off your TiBook and leaving the install CDs at home and to get away from the interweb when you need to work. My problem is being connected to the internet when I need to work. I can easily waste several hours just browsing the web and reading newsgroups. Years ago it was worse because I used IRC on top of web browsing and newsgroup reading. Ignoring your homework is one thing, ignoring your homework while playing Bolo/Nethack, talking it up on IRC, and surfing Usenet posts is something else entirely.

Removing the temptation of playing around on your TiBook is not the same as conquering the temptation. Even with your Beige G3 you'll find ways to screw around and not get work done. What you ought to do instead of leaving your TiBook at home is figure out how to get yourself to finish your homework and to study. Reward yourself with the stuff you want to do (games, web browsing, IM) when you're all done with your homework. Take your TiBook somewhere without a lot of distractions and just do your work.

I think you're being a bit absurd by opting to take your G3 instead of the TiBook you bought to school with you. You're sacrificing far too much capability in an attempt to make yourself work. You can waste time and slack off with no electronics at all, your TiBook is not the root of your problems. Make some new study habits and find some people to study with that get ridiculously good grades; they will make you study.

[Anubis IV]

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
I like the suggestion of removing the games off your TiBook and leaving the install CDs at home and to get away from the interweb when you need to work. My problem is being connected to the internet when I need to work. I can easily waste several hours just browsing the web and reading newsgroups. Years ago it was worse because I used IRC on top of web browsing and newsgroup reading. Ignoring your homework is one thing, ignoring your homework while playing Bolo/Nethack, talking it up on IRC, and surfing Usenet posts is something else entirely.

Removing the temptation of playing around on your TiBook is not the same as conquering the temptation. Even with your Beige G3 you'll find ways to screw around and not get work done. What you ought to do instead of leaving your TiBook at home is figure out how to get yourself to finish your homework and to study. Reward yourself with the stuff you want to do (games, web browsing, IM) when you're all done with your homework. Take your TiBook somewhere without a lot of distractions and just do your work.

I think you're being a bit absurd by opting to take your G3 instead of the TiBook you bought to school with you. You're sacrificing far too much capability in an attempt to make yourself work. You can waste time and slack off with no electronics at all, your TiBook is not the root of your problems. Make some new study habits and find some people to study with that get ridiculously good grades; they will make you study.

Actually, I think that just about hits the nail on the head. Truth be told, games aren't that much of an issue for me. I've put them down easily enough in the past, and I don't anticipate having a problem with them anytime soon. I mean, yeah, I do play plenty of video games, but when push comes to shove I can put them down without any difficulty. Not so with some other distractions though. Really, message boards are a much bigger distraction for me (funny, ain't it?), so unless I had absolutely no net connection at all I don't think that the problem will go away, and having a net connection from my dorm room is more or less a necessity, so as you suggested, I really just need to work on my study habits rather than removing the source of the temptation. Even without a net connection though, I just enjoy tinkering with computers, so I know I'd find other ways to distract myself. But regardless of that, I KNOW that I can manage without the PowerBook for this semester.

As for why I'm doing this, well, as I just mentioned, games aren't that big an issue for me, but rather than bother my parents, I'm willing to opt-out on the laptop for this semester. My course load is relatively easy and shouldn't call for any heavy computing, and likewise I don't anticipate the need to write long reports, essays, or dissertations. Someone asked how old I was back there...I'm 20 currently, and will be starting my Junior year. I know I should be taking some more responsibility in my life and whatnot...well...it's not gonna happen right at this moment in this area of my life. I'm just gonna have to put that on hold for another semester.

Anyway, a lot of you guys mentioned problems with reliability in regards to the hardware, really though, I don't expect too many problems on that front. The G3 is an old favorite computer of mine and it's been kept in good shape all this time. We upgraded the video card a few years back to a 32MB Radeon and tossed in another 512MB of RAM, so it cruises along pretty well and even managed to handle games like Black and White and The Sims as of a few years ago (albeit, a little slow with those games). I have an external 200GB FW800/USB2.0 HD that I've been using with my laptop, and it already has all of my past school files on it, so I'll probably just hook that up to the Beige through the USB card that we added and use that for most of my storage. If worse comes to worst, I even have a copy of OS9 installed on the external HD and could boot from it after a quick hardware installation, but I'll be keeping my schoolwork and the like on the external HD, so even if the old 6GB internal one fails, I'd still be able to manage.

Back to the topic at hand though, I appreciate the suggestions in regards to web browsers and servers. I still keep old copies of many of the browsers, so if I had to I could even go all the way back to Chimera without a problem. As someone else pointed out, Windows compatibility could become an issue, but thankfully, the only access I need to servers is going to be to access the UNIX-based servers that the CS department keeps, so that should be a non-issue since I'll just ssh in via Terminal. Thanks for the heads-up on MPlayer since that is one of the players that I use, and I suppose I might also need to downgrade to a previous version of VLC, but I have old versions of those backed up somewhere as well. Going back to another post, yeah, Expos� is actually one thing that I will REALLY miss with downgrading, and the same thing goes for the Sidebar since I make great use of both of them.

A few questions: does anyone know if Desktop Manager will work with Jaguar? What about Proteus, Adium, or Fire? Meteorologist? MenuMeters? LaunchBar? DragThing? I use all of those on a regular basis, and while I'm pretty sure that something like DragThing will work on Jaguar (assuming I downgrade to a previous version), I'm not so sure about some of the others. Another application I'll probably be missing out on is iEatBrainz...love that little application, but I think it's Panther-only.

So, I thank those of you who had kind words or good suggestions, and I fully understand where some of you are coming from with the suggestions to take the PowerBook back to school anyway. I bet I'd be saying the same thing if this situation was reversed, so I know that you all only mean the best. Regardless though, this is kinda a make-or-break situation for me since I've been trying to get into Upper Level in my major for awhile now, and the family has more or less agreed that this semester is my last chance to do it. I don't see a good enough reason to bother my parents by bringing up the laptop this semester. I'd rather have that one less thing hanging over any conversations I'll be having with them throughout the semester, and I'm positive that I can manage without that much power.

Back to my previous question: any other suggestions or ideas?

[wataru]

These apps work on Jaguar: MenuMeters (newest), MPlayer 2.0b6, VLC (newest), Firefox (newest), SubEthaEdit 1.something, BitTorrent (newest). Those are most of the ones that I care about, anyway.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Anubis IV:
Actually, I think that just about hits the nail on the head. Truth be told, games aren't that much of an issue for me. I've put them down easily enough in the past, and I don't anticipate having a problem with them anytime soon. I mean, yeah, I do play plenty of video games, but when push comes to shove I can put them down without any difficulty. Not so with some other distractions though. Really, message boards are a much bigger distraction for me (funny, ain't it?), so unless I had absolutely no net connection at all I don't think that the problem will go away, and having a net connection from my dorm room is more or less a necessity, so as you suggested, I really just need to work on my study habits rather than removing the source of the temptation. Even without a net connection though, I just enjoy tinkering with computers, so I know I'd find other ways to distract myself. But regardless of that, I KNOW that I can manage without the PowerBook for this semester.

If this is the case, then leaving the laptop at home is a very, very bad idea. There is no way that a beige G3 will somehow make you less able to use message boards than the PowerBook, but it is very possible to take a PowerBook somewhere where there is no Net connection (library, study lab, etc.) to distract you. I do this all the time when writing papers. Trust me, it helps.

[Abit667]

I think this is a good decision. Here's why.

When I was still in high school and used PCs, I chose my senior project to be watercooling my computer. The project was supposed to be done and presented in 11th grade, it was total bs, you just had to pick whatever you want, show them that you did something and then explain it. Totally retarded, but I did something that I at least wanted to do, kill two birds with one stone type thing.

While I was working on this my main computer was a P166mmx laptop with 40 megs of ram and a 2 gig hd running Windows 2000 SP2. This was only a year ago, and I was running all the latest apps. At first I thought this was going to be horrible and I was never going to be able to get anything done. Quite the contrary. My grades went up massivly just from using this computer. This thing was so slow that just listening to winamp and using ms word was a fine balance. Text was massivly lagged behind the cursor typing, and forget about defocusing the window to multitask or instant message. Instead of sitting on the internet slacking off all night or playing games and just sitting there adding a couple words to my document every 15 minutes, I actually sat down and finished stuff quickly. Browsing the internet was killer on this thing, loading IE took minutes and locked the entire machine up, no matter how much I wanted too browse forums or something instead of working it just wasn't worth the time required to do so. I ended up using this thing all year and it was probably the best I ever did in school

Even though for you things might be different, its quite cool that you respected your parents decision to take the G3. Too many kids now just would have said f you and taken the powerbook anyway.

[Anubis IV]

Well, I actually stopped using BitTorrent in favor of Azureus since it had more features. It's just java though, right? So it should work in Jaguar as well I would think...

[Superchicken]

Oh well it's your life... but if it's your junior year and you don't have any papers to write... uhh... why is that? haha, even in my freshman year last year I had crazy amounts of papers due. And have you ever just thought of not bringing a wireless card with you and staying away from the net when you work on stuff? When I really need to crack down on a paper I simply disconnect the ethernet cable, one of the reasons I'll probably never buy AirPort Express while in college, it'd be harder to physically disconnect hehe.

[wuzup101]

While I definitely respect the fact that you're being nice and respecting your parents decisions, I also can't help feel that you're making a bad decision. There is a reason that most college students want laptops. They give you the ability to take you're work with you at all times... have everything set up the way you want it... not have to wonder about how to do anything because you know you're machine. I personally suffered through using a desktop my first year and I couldn't wait to get this new powerbook. It was always a pain in the butt to use the library computers whenever I was up there. Now I'll have my own stuff at my fingertips. Now I know that you're desktop will obviously be setup the way you want it. But lets be real here. You're going to be using a sub 300mhz G3... that's a joke for any modern college student especially when money isn't a factor (you already have the damn laptop).

I'm sorry to say I have to agree with the guy above who said man up and develop better study habbits. You can dick around in your dorm with either computer so that's not an issue. The only thing the laptop adds is the extra mobility... write papers in the library, take notes in class, etc... The internet is your biggest distraction... so just don't bring your wireless card and you wont have a problem.

Would you drive your 88 mustang w/ the 4 banger at the drag strip if you just bought a new Porsche GT2?

[Anubis IV]

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Oh well it's your life... but if it's your junior year and you don't have any papers to write... uhh... why is that?

Heh. Good question, I suppose. I just need to get Upper Level status, but because I've exhausted nearly all of the lower level classes I can take, I'm having to keep taking lower and lower level classes, so this next semester I'll be taking an intro FORTRAN class (should be a breeze since I already had to learn FORTRAN for when I interned at Lockheed) and an intro PASCAL class, both of which are aimed at people who have little or no computer experience...should be easy A's. Neither of those will require anything more than a simple report describing the functionality of any programs that I submit, and I hardly need a G4 to submit a couple page report that I had a week to write up. As for the portability issue, when I did have my laptop at college, I actually found that I didn't use it much for taking notes. There were just too many diagrams and strange symbols being used in my classes for me to be able to keep up at a competent pace, so even though I can type twice as fast as I can write, I still found it significantly easier for me to take my notes by hand. Now, don't get me wrong, I did find a few places on campus that didn't have wireless net access, and I did enjoy going down to those little places and studying for a few hours with course-provided materials, but that alone is not enough to change what's going to be happening this semester.

As for the concerns that I might be out of sorts or something in Jaguar, I did use it for over a year, from the time that I bought my laptop until the time that Panther came out, so it won't be a drastic paradigm shift, I just wanted to get some advice from anyone else that has had to make that change or has recent experience with Jaguar. It's just been awhile for me, and I wanted to know what still did or didn't work and what to look out for that I might not expect.

Anyway, can we please consider the PowerMac vs. PowerBook issue a closed subject? I understand that quite a few of you think it is a bad idea, but put yourselves in my shoes: if I've known this has been coming for the whole summer and made up my mind basically as soon as the last semester ended, why would I change my decision now? Please, just stick to the topic at hand. I appreciate your concern and the desire to point out what you believe to be an error on my part, but just consider that error of mine to be in the past, beyond your control, and work with me on the other issues. That's why this topic is here.

[OptimusG4]

Just remember the suffering you went through with the G3 when you're picking out your parents' nursing home