Andrew Channels Dexter Pinion

Wherein I write some stuff that you may like to read. Or not, its up to you really.

December 12, 2005

Machine Envy

Having said that I was destitute, the discovery of a couple of coins down the back of the sofa and the delights of the Tax Office's salary sacrifice arrangements have changed the landscape somewhat.

On sober reflection I decided not to wait until January and on Saturday I picked up a brand spanking new 15-inch Powebook. Then I took it back to the shop. Twice. It transpires that the two units they had in stock both had duff batteries. So I'm stuck with a portable computer that must be permanently connected to the mains.

Having said that, blimey it's a nice machine. I haven't had a lot of time to tinker with it yet because the weekend was taken up with household chores (and trips back to the shop). After the obligatory software update (including an upgrade of the OS from 10.4.2 to 10.4.3) I installed some software essentials and started exploring it's features.

As it was all the rage at one point to mention the tools you use on your Mac here's mine. I list the programs in the order that I installed them, which may or may not be an indicator of their importance to me;

Next I shall be looking for a way to drag all of my music off my iPod into my iTunes music library. It's suprisingly tricky to do, but I'm hopeful that this guide will be of some help.

As an aside, and a snarky one at that, I'd like to say that the customer service at the local Mac centre has been great, despite the slightly faulty hardware. Unlike the shocking experience I had at a certain Sydney CBD Apple centre that I won't name but certainly isn't getting any more of my money.

Posted by Andy Todd at December 12, 2005 10:13 AM

Comments

Congratulations!

What's involved in installing IPython on Darwin?

What does iTerm give you? I've inspalled it and run it, but didn't see anything that it had over Terminal.

Posted by: Simon Brunning on December 12, 2005 07:34 PM

Simon,

Download the tarball. Sign in as an administrator (your ordinary account doesn't have admin rights does it? [1]), type;

$ python setup.py install

Bob will be your Auntie's live in lover

iTerm gives you tabs. Tabs are good. Therefore iTerm is good;

[1] http://the.taoofmac.com/space/HOWTO/Switch%20To%20The%20Mac

Posted by: Andy Todd on December 13, 2005 06:29 AM

*sigh* One day :)

Posted by: Alan Green on December 13, 2005 08:28 AM

I always build my own Python and install it into /usr/local with the 'configure;sudo make install' dance. Add modules to the systems (or /usr/local) python with sudo too: $ sudo python setup.py install

Posted by: Mark Mayo on December 22, 2005 05:25 PM