Daily Links: Macs, Interviews, and Big-Ticket Items
Published on - February 7th, 2008 (by J.D. Roth) Despite training a new box salesman all day and maintaining Get Rich Slowly all night, I recently found time to participate in a couple of e-mail interviews. First, I took part in Alex Shalman’s Happiness Project, in which selected bloggers answered questions about the nature of happiness. Other participants include:
I’m honored that Alex chose to include my overly verbose response in his survey. I also recently answered questions from Dan at Maciverse. I’m a long-time Apple user, and so was happy to discuss the role of Macintosh computers in my life.
Here are a few other links of interest:
- Although I am a Macintosh fanboy, I admit that Apple’s prices are generally rather high. No wonder I am sorely tempted to build this $350 Macintosh. In fact, it’s beyond “sorely tempted”. When I was doing computer consulting, I built tons of PCs. I always dreamed of building a Mac. Now I can.
- At The Digerati Life, SVB recently shared twelve effective ways to afford big-ticket items. As important as it is to save on the little things in everyday life, it’s even more important to take care when making large purchases. If you make a mistake when buying a book, you’re out a couple bucks. If you make a mistake when buying a house, you could lose thousands.
- Finally, eBay is making some changes to its ratings system, and the Mighty Bargain Hunter is worried. Starting in May, buyers will only be able to receive positive feedback. MBH does a lot of selling on eBay (it’s a great way to earn extra income), and he’s concerned that these changes will make it more difficult for honest sellers.
I am very, very tired, and looking for a some early bed-times and late mornings this weekend.
This article is about Spare Change
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Hi J.D. I really appreciate all the contribution that you have made, big time! Thank you!
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Do you also encourage people to illegally download music and pirate software to save money? Because building your “$350 Macintosh” requires you to steal a copy of the Mac OS and violate its licensing agreement.
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Fair question, DZ. No, I do not encourage people to pirate software. The joy of building your own computer — especially your own Mac — can be appreciated without the piracy step required. (And you’re right that I should have pointed that out.) However, I own a Leopard family pack, and would have no qualms using one of my installs on a home-brew machine.
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JD, You just made my dreams come true with that build your own mac post. I too am a long time mac user (ok 5 years, but that’s longer than the fad has been) and I’ve wanted to build a mac for quite some time.
Thank You!
-Daniel
http://www.youngandfrugal.com
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FYI that Hackintosh will be frustratingly slow, especially if you have used a real Mac before. A 1.6 GHz Celeron processor? Ouch. $350 seems a great bargain, until you spend it on a computer you never use because it’s so slow.
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J.D. – even if you buy a copy of Leopard family pack, it’s a violation of the terms of service to install it on non-Apple hardware. It’s still basically piracy, because the cost of the OS is subsidized by Apple hardware. Mac OS X would cost far more than a $199 family pack if it was sold separately. It’s no different than encouraging people to save money on Windows XP by buying the upgrade version when they should be buying the full version.
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(not trying to make this a flame war)
Your “XP Upgrade Version” analogy isn’t correct: He didn’t purchase a “Tiger->Leopard” upgrade license, he purchased the full-blown version (That’s all Apple offers, as far as I can tell). The closest parallel I could think of would be a Volume License install disc for Windows.
He only might violate the SLA (Or, if he obtains it via the torrent, his personal license for the disc he owns won’t be invalidated, but his imaginary license to that copy will be — it’s never valid, actually), and that calls for destroying the installation (item 5 of the SLA) if he’s not complying with the terms. Item 2 B (Family pack) does not contain the “non-Apple labeled computer” restriction that Item 2 A (Single Use) does. This may be a legal loophole, though I am not a lawyer.
[I'm with Brian, in that it'll be disappointingly slow... fun experiment though, in any case.]
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There is no “full-blown version” of Leopard like there is with XP, because every version of the Mac OS is an upgrade. That’s because you’re only allowed to install it on computers that already had the Mac OS installed. There’s no way to buy a computer that’s authorized to run Mac OS, and yet didn’t come with Mac OS to begin with. So when you buy the Leopard disc, it’s implied that you’re installing it on a computer with Tiger, or Panther, or some older version of Mac OS X.
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80% of my household is comprised of Mac users, and 20% isn’t. I still need to be converted! Thanks for the mention JD!
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the Hackintosh is false economy. you end up with a franken-OS that cannot be updated without waiting for some cracker to jailbreak the next version of the OS, the savings over a Mini aren’t all that much, and for that premium you get support, a warranty, and OS updates, at least the dot releases. it’d be a fun project but I wouldn’t rely on it for my main machine.
I just ordered a refurbished 20″ iMac. quite a bit more than the Hackintosh, but compared to the old Powermac it’s replacing it’s a hell of a deal.
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Quite simply it is a violation of the Apple license agreement to run Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware. Don’t kid yourself that you’re somehow OK because you bought a family pack.
That being said it is not necessarily true that a Hackintosh can’t be updated. There are newer ways to install the OS so that not only is patching not necessary you can also update without fear. Depends on the hardware but it can be done.
As to Mac prices sorry but they are totally competitive when you do comparisons with a place like Dell of equivalent hardware. Moreso for the laptops.
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In the entrepreneurial world, especially during the business startup phase (before you have clients or a fully-“fed” bank account), it’s important to find ways to work with budget constraints. As someone that provides tips and tools for small business computer consultants trying to start their own businesses, I would agree that it’s important when building machines or using any other work-arounds to save money to keep licensing issues in check (particularly if you’re going to go beyond home use) and also make sure you know exactly how you will be using machines and technology so you can tell if what you are going to invest in, however small the investment, is going to be the best bet in the long run. Sometimes making a big investment in certain software, hardware and other business items is just necessary and actually more cost-effective long term. However, as you point out there are definitely ways to keep things inexpensive. Thanks for the tips!
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