Sandy made some excellent points, as expected, arguing for a Mac - "So count that as \$150 for a really good environment and some nice apps, which retail all together for about \$200." No doubt cause he just bought himself a shiny iMac. OS X is definitely a very nice operating system. After 2 years with a Powerbook, its worked great. iLife is definitely a nice suite but if I want to do some comfy video editing, its either get an iMac, and render my current dual LCD system useless (Staci could use one, I'm sure) or go up to a Mac Pro (or whatever the top of the line is called). Either way we're talking about another \$700 or \$2,000 dollars to spend. Which is just too pricey for me.

On a whim, I decided to see if I could pick up comparable parts at a local retailer. How do these guys stay in business? The largest, Microcenter, has a pretty slim variety. Similarly, the smaller Advanced2000 has less parts and are more expensive than newegg. I put items in my shopping cart, but i has well over the \$725 newegg would charge, before shipping. I'd swapped out for a less expensive case. Plus, they're missing user-submitted reviews and advice for each part, which was a great research tool on newegg's site.

Update: In the comments, Jason asks if the AMD quieter than the better performing Intel chips. I just ran across Anandtech's article, measuring the power usage of Core 2 chipsets - which came in at 130 - 170 W. They mention AMD's Energy Efficient line as an alternative. The AMD X2 processor I'm looking at is from that line, and is rated at "only" 65W (for the CPU). Since quieter operation, is directly proportional to the operating temperature of the system, using lower power (and hence cooler) components is one way to make a quieter system. You'll notice, in my newegg list, that I also chose a decent, but passively cooled video card to help reduce noise.\

I stayed up way too late last night researching a potential desktop replacement. I'm torn between a DIY AMD64 PC vs an Apple. Up front, the biggest decider will be price, as I want to keep the price at or below \$1,000. That rules out iMac's and MacPros, leaving the Mac Mini as my choice from Apple. That fits nicely with my plans to keep my current LCD displays, and keyboard and mouse. The only other real requirement, is that World of Warcraft has to run nicely on it. I've picked out the parts on NewEgg and also looked at the Apple Store, here's how they stack up. Where possible, I've tried to keep the configurations as similar as possible. On the PC parts, I did steer towards parts that got good reviews for operating quietly and coolly (is that a word), that's why I chose the lower poer consuming AThlong 64X2 and a passively cooled video card. I don't want a computer that sounds like, in Staci's words, "You're running a jet engine".\

+:---------------------:+:---------------------:+:---------------------:+ | Component** | **PC** | **Apple** | +-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+ | **Processor** | 2.2 GHz Athlon 64X2\ | 1.83GHz Intel Core | | | | Duo\ | +-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+ | **Memory** | 1GB 800 DDR2\ | 1GB 667 DDR2\ | +-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+ | **Hard Drive** | 250GB Serial ATA\ | 160GB Serial ATA\ | +-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+ | **Video** | nvidia 7600GS\ | Intel GMA 950\ | +-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+ | **Other Components** | - Re-using my current | - Bluetooth & Wifi | | | DV Dreader/CD | - Superdrive DVD | | | burner\ | Writer | +-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+ | **Software** | None, I'll dual boot | - OS X 10.3 | | | ubuntu and windows on | - iLife Suite\ | | | it.\ | | +-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+ | **Price (not | \$755\ | \$1,074\ | | including | | | | shipping)\ | | | +-----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------------+

Is this a fair comparison? Clearly, if I can't reuse my existing Windows license, I should factor in the cost of Windows XP (\$90 OEM version), that bumps up the price to \$840. Still a \$200 difference. And that's not factoring in the time to put it all together and the potential driver hunt, configuration issues, etc. On the Max side of thing, not having iLife means no iMovideHD, which has been real easy to work with. It would be nice to edit my home movies on a desktop with more diskspace and display space instead of on the powerbook. But the hardware available on the PC side, especially more hard disk space and a much, much better video card, is more compelling to me. I'm leaning towards the AMD system, but would appreciate any insight to the contrary.

I've reorganized my online gallery and have also added pictures. First, there's a set from United home game honoring the 1996 championshi team. At this game, Staci turned into quite the autograph hound and among the ones she collected were Etcheverry, Raul Diaz Arce, Jaime Moreno, Jeff Agood, Ben Olsen, and a lot of other players.

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Using the macro mode of my camera, I took some really cool pictures of a toad(frog?) that somehow managed to climb up to our deck.

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Finally, after watching last night's South Park episode about World of Warcraft, Staci and I logged in to get a quick fix. I had a bunch of screenshots that I never got around to updating including the following two:

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I'm still using Menalto Gallery 2 as the back end for the albums. Its a pretty big and feature rich php application, and at times i've wondered if I'd be better off repalcing it with something lighter. But it's integration with iPhoto as well as a java-based desktop app makes adding pictures a snap. If it wasn't so easy to get pictures on the web, I'm not sure I'd ever add new albums.\