Steve Jobs is leaving Apple? Again? We’ve seen it before yet this time it’s for different reasons although I don’t see someone like Jobs sitting still for anything for very long.

What will happen with Apple? Well, they could end up with another John Scully–frightening thought. He made some major stock blunders although the Newton and the G4 were great ideas. We could see it under someone like Gil Amelio who seemed to have the insight of an Intel version of the MacOS before it became popular.

What has Apple turned into since the return of Jobs anyway? It seems to focus more on the quality of the music player than of the machines. I’ve had two iMacs and one MacBook Pro all die with screen problems since 2006. These machines used to last me at least 10 to 15 years and now I can’t even get these all-in-ones to last more than 3 years. It’s so annoying that I built my own PC and that would have been unheard of 4 years ago.

You can say I am a little angry with Apple about this. If they do get someone with some vision other than just putting out music players I hope it is someone who finally opens up the OS to new possibilities. I love Apple equipment. I love the operating system. I don’t love that my video cards die and are years older than any pc version when the machine finally releases and I don’t love that when a part breaks I have to box the whole damn thing up and send it in instead of easily popping open the case. Oh yeah, and I do not love paying $4,000 for a machine where I can change the parts.

So please, bring someone in that will allow me to have some fun with a machine. If I could get 3 hard drives with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS on them and run them all simultaneously without memory problems and on 3 different monitors but one machine I would be a happy, happy girl.

Ok, so it’s not a monster. I haven’t even named it yet. It’s got a cheap motherboard, only 4 gigs of RAM where only 3 can be seen, and an old 230 gb hard disk that had Windows Vista on it so I can only see 3 gigs of the RAM. I couldn’t even run the nice video card I wanted to because of either a resolution problem or something. The machine wouldn’t show the screen when I booted.

Oh, I’m also using my dying MacBook Pro as my router because I don’t have wireless yet.

What’s next? I’m going to eventually get a bigger hard disk ad install windows 7 on it then use this disk as a linux disk. The thing is, I really have no reason to run Linux, but the geek in me says DO IT ANY WAY.

A year ago I bought an HP Mini for the purpose of blogging by the pool. About 2 months or so after I purchased it my son destroyed the screen. It wasn’t until recently when I found the receipt that I realized I had bought the $99.00 two-year extended warranty. Of course, had I not been angry with him for breaking my screen I probably would have easily remembered, but I wanted him to learn a lesson.

Normally I ignore the extended warranty unless it’s going to cost me a lot of money to replace. I didn’t buy the extended warranty for the eMachines I just purchased for him when I should have, but WalMart told me I had 30 days to actually buy it. I’m sure I’ll put it off and not worry about it because I need the money for other things. That will probably be a mistake. I’m sure while it’s sitting in his room it will have some candle wax spilled on it or soda dribbled inside.

I did buy the extended AppleCare warranty with my MacBook Pro and the iMacs, but it didn’t matter because when the screens died the warranty was up. I’m done buying machines that have a built in monitor unless it’s a laptop, but I don’t believe I even need a laptop any longer since the invention of the netbook. Why carry around a huge machine when you can have as much power as you need at home and a satellite outside the home or in another room? It’s not like I’m going to play World of Warcarft or TF2 on the laptop while I’m at a coffeeshop. Or will I? Hmmm…

After deciding that the sub par video card on the emachines wasn’t going to handle my gaming I gave the machine to my high school aged son. He was using one of my netbooks that wasn’t able to run WoW and the screen is broken because he was careless. I suppose I’ll let him have this thing if it keeps him home and he keeps his room clean and chores up.

I received my keyboard and mouse over the weekend. It’s not anything exciting, just a generic ps2 logitech mouse and keyboard. I also received my red LED fan *cheeky grin*. I want pink! If anyone can find a pink LED fan and other parts I can put in a machine I will send you a $5.00 PayPal. LOL I really want one. Or two.

So, I’m still waiting to play my games. I’m sitting here on a dying MacBook Pro trying to type but my nails are way too long. I need another trip to the salon. More money.

Oh, I also heard that it is okay to run the OEM version of Windows 7 on a non-OEM machine if you no longer use the machine. I just need to call Microsoft to activate it instead of doing it online. That saves me about about 200 bucks.

So yesterday I thought my MacBook Pro died. It’s been working on dying for the past year and I just haven’t had the funds to replace it. I’ve been ordering parts to build a new gaming pc, but now I’m waiting on the case which won’t be here until next week.

Shocker when I thought my MBPro had died. Since my DVD player no longer works on it I can’t boot any DVDs so I can’t repair the machine. I have absolutely no clue what happened to the DVD drive other than the machine overheats so easily that maybe the chip overheated. No idea. I don’t feel like opening it up and wasting my time.

So I did the unthinkable. With $300 in hand that I should be using for rent I bought an emachines from WalMart. Yeah, $300 was all I had or I would have bought more parts for my new machine. I thought that if the emachines worked and I could put the video card in that maybe it would be useful for awhile.

In the meantime, my Mac finally boots while I’m buying the emachines.

I get home and put it together. Of course I need a networking card and I’m low on funds. I buy a TPLink USB 300Mbps adapter because I don’t want to open up the emachines until I know I like it plus it was only $19.00.

Another downer: the video card I have doesn’t fit in the machine. Crossing my fingers I use onboard video to test WoW. I didn’t even bother with TF2. OMG the video lag! It’s terrible! The machine chugs and crunches on video. It’s so choppy that I can’t even tell when I’m fighting. This will not do.

I’m taking the emachines piece of junk back to the store today. Even for an office workstation this machine won’t do for me. I don’t have $300.00 to mess around with a machine that won’t be upgradeable in the future. This is the problem I have with my Macs. I love my Macs dearly. The Mac OS is a beautiful thing, but I can’t upgrade the damn video cards for anything. All-in-one machines are the dumbest idea ever for someone who wants to play games and do graphics, but Apple’s other high end machine where you can supposedly change thev ideo cards costs as much as the car I need to replace my other used car with. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to upgrade the processor on it either. I’d have to buy a whole new $4,000 machine to do that. Yikes!

So here I sit waiting for my case which won’t come until next week and hoping that my OEM version of Windows 7 is going to work on the new machine. I’ve heard it will. I’m crossing my fingers. I’m also hoping that WalMart takes back that piece of crap eMachines box. I guess my son was lucky with his when he bought it as it wasn’t half height and it was a little upgradeable. Oh, and that’s the one he gave to me. I bought it from him about 2 years ago and it died about 6 months later. Didn’t even get a chance to use it. Why do I think it died? For some reason the board didn’t have a place to attach the heat sync so when he did he just used the heat sync cream to stick it on. Dirty trick! I took away his Internet access for a day for that one. I’ll be able to part it out, sell some parts and trash the rest of the emachines piece of crap and be done with it.

Moral of the story: I’m never buying emachines ever again.

This post is only for historical purposes. I’ve been geekmom since 1990. People called me this at my tech support job after I had my first son and then I would tell people this was my company name when I fixed things for free while attempting to start a company while being a wife, mom, and worker bee. While laid off I’d do side jobs under “geekmom”