Efficiency at Its Finest

I've been having this problem with my Macbook that has been bugging me for months now. I had very limited space left on the hard drive, and I couldn't figure out what's taking up so much space. i suspected that one of the third part apps that I was using a few months back was the culprit. I downloaded this program that was meant to password protect applications and folders. I found it useful since quite a number of people have been borrowing my laptop, and I didn't want them to read my private emails, and i didn't want them looking at my private files (i.e. porn. LOL). But ever since I've transferred all those files to an external hard drive, i didn't find any more use for the program. And let's face it. It's really quite impractical to keep 100 gigabytes of "private files" on my hard drive when the capacity is just a little over 200gb. I could use all that memory to store something else.

So I deleted all the files on the encrypted folder, and after that I uninstalled the program. i failed to check my hard drive's memory status right after. I only noticed that my hard drive was almost full when a message popped up after a month or so, saying my hard drive is almost full. I thought the number of videos I had stored was the culprit, so i deleted a lot of those videos... but i was able to free only a couple of gigs. I checked each application and folder one by one, and nothing seemed to be taking up so much space. About that time, I bought a 500gb external hard drive, so I thought of finally using Time Machine to back up my computer. After backing up my hard drive, i was surprised to see that all my data only amounted to 90 gigs. At first i thought that Time Machine was busted, but it kept displaying the same results. When I checked the back ups, everything seemed to be intact. Nothing seemed to be missing. Then a thought occurred to me. What if all those private files weren't really deleted? And even if they were, the operating system just couldn't write over all that data because it was in an encrypted folder? I didn't really know for sure, but at that time, I just wanted to do what any Windows would initially think of--- I just wanted to nuke my Mac and get it over with.

But I really hated erasing my hard drive and starting over... I did that a lot of times when i was still using Windows. With all those problems with viruses and countless hardware and software crashes, the simplest was to fix things was just to nuke your system and start with a fresh slate. But it takes a lot of time to re-install all those programs and to download all of those software updates. It usually takes a whole day. Add the fact that you can't exactly return everything to the way things were, you can't blame me for having apprehensions every time i had to start over. There was always going to be something missing. But with Time Machine, all I had to do was plug in my external hard drive and wait for 2 hours. No more re-installing all those programs. No more transferring my personal files folder by folder, one by one. Everything was there, just the way I left it. As if I didn't nuke my hard drive at all. Sure, there are minor differences... I still had to download the OSX updates--- for some weird reason, Time Machine can't back up the OS... but otherwise, every program was there, no re-installation required. Efficiency at its finest. That's something I could never do with Windows. Their system restore function is archaic when compared to this. Heck, even Windows 7 feels outdated when compared to OSX, and OSX was released years ago.

After two years, i still think that switching form PC to Mac is one of the best decisions I have made in my entire life. To those who keep saying that Macs are just status symbols, they're all flash but no substance---- well obviously, you guys have never used a Mac. :)

Mac & Me

I just

can't get enough

of my new

MacBook.

Screw you, Windows.

You suck.

I'm never switching back.

An Apple Filled Day

talk about wasting time.

I've just spent the whole day searching for album artworks manually. I only stopped what I was doing when I felt hungry and when i felt that I needed to take a bath. It started when i switched the itunes view to coverflow. I thought that switching to this view was great. It looked so cool... until I saw that i had a lot of albums with no covers. The coverflow view looked so empty. And since most of my mp3s go as far back as the year 2000--- majority of my songs are either ripped from my CDs, and a whole lot more were downloaded from peer to peer file sharing programs. lol. And so I have a lot of songs with no album artworks. I became so obsessed with having a "beautiful" coverflow view that I completely lost track of time. Who knew this could be addicting? hehe.

Speaking of Apple, I've heard that they've unveiled new ipods this week. I always thought that the shuffle was a waste of money. The new nano looked okay, i guess. It just doesn't look "cool", unlike all the previous ipods. The ipod touch was another story. I always thought that the iphone looked great. if there was a cellular phone that could make heads turn--- that was it. The ipod touch looked similar to the iphone, and I got so excited when I read that it had 80gb and 160 gb of storage--- then I realized I read it wrong. It only came with 8 gb and 16 gb of memory. WTF?! how many files can you actually store with such small memory? The upgrade to a bigger screen would seem useless if you can't play a lot of videos. The 80gb and 160gb of storage was given to the ipod classic. I dunno, it seems like a stop-gap device. I'm guessing it would be phaed out in a year or so. Wouldn't it make more sense to put more memory to the ipod with a bigger screen? That would make it a device optimized for watching videos. Maybe Apple can't let go of the click wheel that easily, hence naming the device "classic". The clickwheel seems synonymous to the ipod after all, making it iconic. To me, it just doesn't make sense. I'm guessing they just want to get more money out of consumers by not making the product that has the best of everything. Before, everything was simpler--- the cheapest ipod have the least features, while the most expensive ones have the most features. Now consumers have to choose between the better looking high end ipod with limited memory, or the one that isn't really an upgrade except for the huge memory. It sucks when consumers have to choose between products, especially if they come from the same company. I just hope their business plans don't backfire.

Even if my 30 gb 5th generation ipod is almost full, i don't think i'll be purchasing an ipod classic. It's basically the same ipod with huge memory. The ipod touch is tempting, but with only 16 gb of space, it seems like an unneccessary purchase if i can't transfer all of my files there. Maybe in a year, they'll release a product that would justify an upgrade for me.