[thelist] iBooks, OS X, Macs, Web Development, Laptops, Etc, Etc

Chris Kaminski chris at setmajer.com
Tue Jun 11 15:06:04 CDT 2002


Thus spake Jonathan_A_McPherson at rl.gov:

> I'm a soon-to-be CptS graduate student and don't yet own my own computer.
> I'm planning on purchasing a laptop for school, and, though I have never
> used a Mac, I have been eyeing some laptops in particular from Apple --
> specifically, their new 14.1-inch 700mhz G3 iBook. Apple seems to have a
> tremendous reputation for building notebooks that are tough, light, quiet,
> and cool.

'Cool' in the 'woah, man, that's eff'n *cool*' sense, yes. Cool in the
temperature sense...no. The PowerBook'll get hot enough to be uncomfortable
on your lap (one of the few things about my VAIO I like better than the PB),
and the old 5300s would catch fire--literally.

Regardless, I'd wait 'till after MacWorld in July. They're liable to give
'em a speed bump then.

> How do you folks feel about doing Web work on Apples? This would be
> hobby-stuff, not really serious contract or academic work, but I would
> expect to be able to run a reasonable CMS development environment on it:
> PHP, Apache, some sort of DBMS (MySQL, Postgres?), etc. I know all this
> stuff runs on OS X (since it's based on BSD) but the question is -- does it
> work *well*? Do any of you prefer Macs over PC's for Web development?

Yes. PCs are fine and dandy if that's what you like. Ain't nothin' you can
do on a Mac you can't figger out how ta do on a PC, an' vicey-versey.

Me, I love my OS X box---most times; Aqua is ugly and the thing can be
slooow with VirtualPC & Classic running--or iTunes and anything running--but
OS 10.2 should fix the latter and there are theme switchers for the former.

Apache and PHP are installed by default. You just have to turn Web Sharing
on and Apache is live. PHP isn't much harder. O'Reilly Network has articles
detailing the whole shebang.

I've got Apache running and have set up virtual hosts so I have local dev
versions of all the sites I'm working on: local.somesite.com goes to the dev
version, www.somesite.com goes to the live site. Slick.

Add VirtualPC (you have to use the box's IP and the path from the Web root
unless you set up a hosts file on the VirtualPC; haven't tried it myself)
and you can test in just about any browser there is. I've got one VirtualPC
image each for IE 4, 5, 5.5 and 6. The only fly in the ointment is that
browser running in Classic (i.e., NN4.x/Mac) can't see the local server, so
you'll have to test those browsers from another box.

> Any words of wisdom on laptops in general? I plan to run Linux on whatever I
> end up purchasing, so that rules out some of the cheaper offerings that use
> no-name video chipsets/shared video memory/soft modems and soundcards.

Sony requires you to send in the laptop if you need service. If you're in
the U.S., it goes to Fremont, CA. No loaner, minimum 4-week wait, no help if
you need to order parts.

Otherwise, I've bought two VAIOs and both have been solid as rocks (I won't
buy another for service reasons, which I only discovered b/c I dropped
mine).

> Aside from the Apple, I'm looking at a Dell Inspiron 4100. It's got more
> features (4x better graphics card, IR port, 1.13ghz processor, etc) at about
> the same price, but doesn't appear to be as built for mobility as the Apple
> (though it's close).

I've heard nothing but good about Dell laptops. One of the companies I
worked for used dozens of them with nary a problem.


chris.kaminski == ( design | code | analysis )

------------------------------------------------------------
    Politics is the art of looking for trouble,
    finding it, misdiagnosing it and then
    misapplying the wrong remedies.
    --------------------------------------<< Groucho Marx >>




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