Free at last

Well folks, I’m back and I should be here to stay! I’m writing to you right now from my new (to me) 12″ iBook G3 900, which I’ve just finished getting set up!

Setting it up, incidentally, involved cloning my iMac’s hard drive with a utility called SuperDuper! (I know, stupid name.) It’s a pretty verbose utility, really. When I initially looked at a hard drive cloning utility, I was first directed to Carbon Copy Cloner, but within minutes of running the application, I decided that it didn’t do enough. Or at least, if it did, wasn’t user-friendly (dare I say, “Mac-like”) enough for me to figure it out. SuperDuper!, while having an incredibly stupid name, was quite a bit easier to use.

So, after cloning my hard drive over, I now have a mobile platform from which to write and work on my web sites, and manage other things. After using the iBook for a few hours now, I’ve already fallen in love with it. It is exactly what I needed in a notebook computer. I was at first a little apprehensive that a 12″ iBook would be too small, but the design is great; this is actually the perfect size for me.

I purchased the iBook off of eBay. I had been lurking on eBay for about a week before the auction, as well as on Craig’s List. I’d actually found a 14″ iBook G4 1.2GHz on Craig’s List which was being sold for $500. However, the seller never responded, even though I’m sure I was the first to email him with an offer. After waiting a couple days to hear from him, I eventually gave up on that iBook and went back to eBay. I looked at the auctions ending first, and found this iBook, whose auction was ending in just 40 minutes. It had no bids, was in great condition, and was only selling for $450. Patiently I waited until the last minute of the auction to make my bid, and amazingly nobody bought this, while other iBooks, older and slower than this one, were being constantly bid on up to prices at which these iBooks usually start. While this wasn’t as good a deal as the iBook G4, this is still an incredible deal.

I ran a utility called coconutBattery, which tells you some nifty things about your battery. According to it, my iBook is 24 months old, and has only been through 14 battery-loadcycles. The battery’s original capacity was 4200 mAh, and its current capacity is 4003 mAh. This is basically like buying that new car from the old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays.

It came with AirPort preinstalled. Physically, it’s in immaculate condition. It just needs a little polish, which I already have from my iPod.

So yeah, expect me to be writing more often now, since I won’t have to be at home and at my desk to do so. I’ve been working a lot on the content for the Zelda site, so that will probably cut into some writing time, though.