Thanks Ric. I went ahead and did it. It was still chugging along when I left home. My main reasoning for doing so is to be able to have access to my library at my parents place without constantly bringing HDDs over to import new tunes, which will be pretty cool. Also, I am always forgetting to sync my songs on my various iDevices, so this may be useful in that regard.

It's a great fit for that use.

I thought your parents already had the entire Ricky Martin library?

Not the bootlegs.

Just a wee bit of history here.

^^ oh god, those mice bring back horrible memories

...

the 2048x1536 screen will be the centerpiece the of next-generation iPad, or so-called iPad 3

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-57329257-64/production-starts-for-ipad-3-qxga-display-analyst/

Looks like my trusty iMac has taken a dive. Looks like bad hard drive as when I use the SL install disc it does not find the main HD. May put it into back up role if I can get a new HD put in.

Been looking at replacing this one for a while so I guess I will be doing some Mac shopping this weekend.

Looks like my trusty iMac has taken a dive. Looks like bad hard drive as when I use the SL install disc it does not find the main HD. May put it into back up role if I can get a new HD put in. Been looking at replacing this one for a while so I guess I will be doing some Mac shopping this weekend.

That sucks. Just a note here - when the internal drive on an iMac goes bad and it's a bitch to open up and replace it, an external hybrid HD makes a quick enough boot drive externally via USB 2.0 until you can replace the internal one. A normal hard drive is not very good as an external USB boot disk, but the hybrid feature makes a huge difference in booting and loading apps from an external HD.

I managed to open up and replace my HD on my First Gen Intel iMac, and it was a PITA, but I was able to do it. If I can do it, any of you can.

I understand the sentiment Dinny but you haven't seen me wield tools ... be nice Steve. You see me with a tool in my hand run for your own safety.

Never made it to the Apple Store to pick up a new living room iMac so I ended up buying the cheap IPS LED Monitor from LG sold at Best Buy to plug into one of the spare Minis. Image quality is very good though the weird shot glass monitor stand causes some serious wobble. Nothing a Mini and stack of paperbacks can't fix.

This is very good news, very good news indeed.

Apple charges a lot for those preinstalled ssd's.

Apple charges a lot.

Slimmed it up for you.

a 27" i7 2.93 machine with 256 SSD came up on the refurbished for less than the i5 machine i ordered, so i swapped. i think that the faster CPU and vid card will be more useful than thunderbolt and an HD webcam, so i feel very good about it.

Sounds like a pretty good swap.

Sounds like a no brainer.

Want.

Today in

backstory: I work in an "Apple Premium Reseller". These are machines that have been uneconomical to repair due to cost of parts.

The number one killer that marks these machines as written off is logic boards (that's what happened to all of those Power Mac G5s).

Some of these iMac's only problem is a single blown capacitor. Since we can't (Apple won't let us) replace the cap, we have to sell them a new board. A new board for these is hundreds of pounds, that is if we can buy them. Apple don't make replacement parts for machines that're old.

This is just one corner of our store room. I've already gotten rid of a dozen laptops. these are some Power Mac G4s I'm currently getting rid of.

Via Redderp.

This might not be the right place for this but I didn't feel like starting a new thread.

Hubby's Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP-HC died (well, the on/off button is no longer working). Since I am disabled right now, I cannot really take it apart very easily and see if it can be fixed. So (unless someone knows a quick fix), it is time to buy a new one. I was thinking of getting a Dell Ultrasharp U2412M.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&sku=320-2676

It will be used with a Macbook Pro 13" C2D, mostly for reading pdfs and writing up math documents with latex, a little bit of gaming (mostly "adventure" games). Any suggestions?

I was hoping that it was a 4 or 5 year warranty. The email I have says "3-Year Advanced Exchange Warranty" and we bought it in Jan 2008 so I am guessing we are out of luck with that. I'll look into the LG.

Sounds really good. Most refurbished iMacs I've seen over here are just 4Gb RAM and if SSD, won't include a HDD too. Aren't you voiding the warranty by opening it and adding more RAM?

New apple store opened today in Grand Central. Its pretty strange, as its more a bunch of tables just sitting out in one end of the main area than an actual store.

Edited December 10, 201114 yr by cetoole

no, the RAM is user serviceable. the model i got didn't have a secondary HDD, but i knew that from the get go (the two drive config was build to order). i've heard of people having RAM upgrades in the refurbs, but none of the refurbs i've ever bought or seen bought have had specs higher than stated. i'm not going to complain, though.

Good to know, I thought that opening an iMac or Macbook you were voiding the warranty. I guess this is the same for Apple worldwide. I haven't seen the option to increase RAM or adding a HDD into an iMac at the Spanish store for refurbished units. Not even purchasing the Applecare plan. But the savings seem substantial.

Wow, the extra free RAM sounds pretty sweet. I hadn't heard of that happening before.

I was going to buy my wife a refurbished 2.5ghz 4Gb/500Gb iMac for $180 off, but Macrumors says they're near the end of a product cycle and recommend waiting to see whether there are any major changes in the next 60 days when it's due for an update. But even without an update it's bound to be a bit faster than our late-2006 2Ghz core 2 duo iMac that's maxed out at 3Gb RAM. My wife wants moar speed now, but she'll wait if she has to.

But what likely bogs our iMac down is that we run multiple background apps/servers under my account (iTunes home sharing, Stream to Me, Twonky Server, and more), and then my wife logs in a second user so as to not interfere with the background apps. If I move those tasks to another computer the iMac would be speedier, but by getting a newer iMac or Macbook we could also keep the old iMac for those background server tasks.