So as some of you may know, I work as a systems programmer/IT manager for an engineering lab at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I came into work today and lamented to one of the other programmers that I had to do all my development work on my aging iBook, and how I was thinking about getting a new MacBook. So she asked the director of the lab if he'd buy me a laptop, and he said sure, I just had to pick what I wanted and have the purchasing agent sign off on it.

I asked how much money I had to spend, and the other programmer told me I had to spend at least $3000. "Wait, at least? Don't you mean, up to $3000?" I asked. She said no; because of the way purchasing works, I had to spend at least $3000 on my order in order to have it qualify as an "equipment purchase", which avoids some sort of fee imposed by RPI on its labs' purchases.

So I bought a new 13-inch MacBook Pro. It's a pretty decent machine:

• 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 8GB of RAM (Yes, EIGHT f*ckING GIGABYTES. Anything less would've made my order drop below $3000, so I sprang for the $900 RAM upgrade.)
• 256MB nVidia 9400M gfx card
• 500GB hard drive
• dual-layer DVD burner
• iWork '09
• Final Cut Express (since I do some video work in the lab)
• VGA adapter
• DVI adapter
• Accessories:
  • Apple Remote
  • 1TB external hard drive (for Time Machine backups)
  • VMWare Fusion (since I write some software targeting Windows, unfortunately)

Needless to say, I'm pleased as punch.

yay for you! You didnt want a 15 inch though?

man i prolly could load a shit load of programs up with that 8gb ram

Nah, I wanted something light and easily portable.

Works for me. Your so lucky.

Nice! That's awesome. : ) I have a white MacBook. 8GB of RAM.. I can't even imagine what I would do with that.

darn you. i want.

jesus tittie f*cking christ. lucky ass mofo.

Woah, lucky! I pan on getting the new macbook pro 13 inch when I graduate so I can use my student discount at my uni bookstore. ;P Cool. Damn, 8gb of ram....

I'm happy for you. It sounds like a complete waste of money, but I have a feeling that was the point. LOL

Well, it is true that I need it for work, and my aging iBook isn't quite cutting the cake anymore. Most of the stuff can be justified. Final Cut Express is a bit of a stretch, but I do edit videos for the lab (they take videos of all the experiments they run). The 500GB hard drive (and 1TB backup drive) isn't necessary, either, but storage space (and a good backup solution) is never an "unnecessary" thing.

The only item that's really gratuitous is the 8GB of RAM. I definitely could've gotten by just fine with 4GB.

Well yeah, the 8GB is the only thing I can see as well. was there an upgrade for a GeForce 9600?

My god, you got this for free!!! Awesome! :D

The higher-end 15-inch MacBook Pros, and the 17-inch models, feature a 9600M for high-end graphics (and the 9400M for lower-powered graphics), but it's not an option on the 13-inch models.


Haha, yeah. I wouln't've dropped nearly that much of my own cash on a laptop.

Cool you got a free laptop. Bummer you couldn't get a 9600, but weh... the free cancels the bumber out!!! :D

so what kind of games are you gonna play on it?

Left 4 Dead 2, that's what. jk

Is there a limit on how many of these free laptops you can get? Not that I'm saying CBers will be your best friend for one, but I'm just asking 'cause you could make money.

Can I have your old one?

You wouldn't want it, it's a Mac.

In other news, the laptop came today -- and f*ck it's awesome, I can do shit while I'm compiling software for once!

I'm fine with that.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=1909

Was this the model you bought?

I have had 0 VM page outs in the week that I've been using my laptop. Hee hee.

I wouldn't expect any less with eight gigs of RAM.

Compiles GHC in less than an hour, too, and the CPU isn't even pegged (old laptop took 12 hours to compile GHC, CPU pegged at 100% most of the time).

Damn, what CPU was in your old laptop?

PowerPC G4 @ 1.42GHz

pro mode. i remember a few years back i upgraded from a .9 ghz processor and 256 mb ram

lol, the best was when I updated from 166mhz/32MB ram to 2.8ghz/512MB ram

I typically upgrade every year unless my computer has some sort of horrible failure between upgrades. I never have these massive jumps in power.

They're nice, but long overdue. I've been meaning to upgrade my PC for a few years now. It's got a piece of shit X1350, 3.5 gb ram (I thought they were 4x 1gb sticks, guess not), and a 2.4 core 2 duo. Fortunately, the MOBO supports HD4850's so I'll probably just throw one of those in soon and be in decent shape til' next summer.