I'm thinking about buying an iMac... Or building another PC

Personally, I would build a computer, but you should just get what you prefer since you'll be using it.

"I even get my age wrong sometimes."  -CheesyBread

You crack open iMacs?

Brave.

You said hard disk.

That's really neat. I'd be so scared to open an iPhone. I've heard that MacBooks are hard to put back together because the key spring out of place or something. Any truth in that bandage boy? Lolololol bandage boy.

bandage boy? Holy crap that's from another era...Erik you were so fucking annoying when you came to the forums. Then again you were literally 13 years old or something, lol. I joined Funxbox sometime in 2002-2003, can't really remember when though...I was a freshman in high school and now I'm a senior in college. Time sure goes by fast.

I wish those old forums were archived somewhere, it would be so much fun to look through some of the old posts, and see what was going through my head all those years ago. Sometimes reading some of my old stuff on these forums (especially some of the more turbulent times of my senior year of HS) and I could only imagine what was written before. However there was an original Geekpub that went under...did Jason save that somewhere? It would be fascinating to see. But alas Jason is busy with his girlfriend. Speaking of which, this is a funny old thread (ignore talkc's original post and read the following posts up to Jason's). Pretty funny stuff in retrospect.

lol I still don't have a wife and kids, but Alex did graduate from college I think and Jason has a girlfriend. The irony is Jason was stating that the time in the future was so far away that something as improbable as him getting a girlfriend would happen. Now here we are a year after 2009 and I'm graduating from college heading head first into nowhere. (Not really but it sort of feels like that.)

I'd be remiss if I didn't throw in my vote for a Mac, but really, get what you like.

“One of the most prominent icons of modern day Christianity, the Crocoduck is capable of dispelling all arguments in favor of Atheism and Darwinism simply by not existing. Its sworn enemy is the platypus, which, in harsh contrast, is capable of proving god does not exist by existing.”

When I graduate from college I really will be going no where, because I still don't know what I want to do with my life. I just know I want to do something significant and/or something that I enjoy.

"I even get my age wrong sometimes."  -CheesyBread

I can at least talk about opening up the Macs, since I do that daily...

iMacs aren't too bad, the only thing that sucks is the glass. All the aluminum models started using a glass panel held on by magnets. The official way to remove it is with two suction cups, then keep it in an anti-static bag. I think with the newest model, since the glass reaches to the edges, you could pry it up. The hardest part is keeping it clean; the LCD creates static, which attracts dust to both the screen and the glass. The inner side of the glass and LCD panel are untreated, so you have to be careful cleaning them. We have a specialized silicon roller, but you could get away with compressed air and a lens cleaning cloth. Try to avoid getting finger prints on anything. Almost all the screws are torx 8 or 10, with some phillips #1, so make sure you have the proper screw drivers.

New MacBooks and Pros are actually really damn simple, especially models without the removable battery. If it has the removable battery, you take that out first, then 8 screws on the bottom panel, otherwise it's 10 screws on the bottom panel. There are 2 internal latches on either side, but they don't hold tight. Most screws are phillips #0, with some torx 6. The new unibody white MacBooks made it harder; they have torx 6 and 8, and phillips #0 and #00. The models without the user replaceable battery have unique screws for removing the battery; small tri-lobe for the MacBook and 13" MBP, 5-prong for the 15" MBP, and a large tri-lobe for the 17" MBP

Since you mentioned it, the Mac Mini is kind of a pain in the ass. The easiest way to open them is to use a grinder to sharpen two putty knives, then you use on on each bottom side to pry it open. The thing is set in two tiers, with the RAM on the bottom tier and the HD on the bottom side of the upper tier. It's just 4 screws to remove the top tier, and a few cables. The HD is a bit annoyingly placed, but not terrible.

I'd say, If you can give up fiddling, get the iMac, but if you can't, you won't be happy with it.

By the way, fixing a computer after the liquid cooling unit leaks is shitty.

The iMac's HD and RAM are replaceable, that's about it. You could technically add a 3rd party optical drive too, but eh... The graphics card/heatsink is a separate chip, but it's a proprietary design, so I'm not aware of any upgrades for that, and the processor is soldered to the board, so those suck to replace, even if it's the generic Intel Core architecture.

But I mean, what do you need an overclocked processor and video card for though, if you use your Xbox for gaming? Even then, I can run a decent amount of games on my older MacBook Pro under Windows if I want, but if I'm playing a computer game it's probably WoW (OMG am I addicted to this again) and that runs on OS X.

So in conclusion, I'm a nerd.

No idea how the encoding goes, I never really encode anything these days.

RAM is 8500. I had no idea they moved up to 4 slots on the new iMacs. It's always been 2, and none have broken for me to get a chance to work on one yet. I've looked up the manual from Apple, but those never really tell you much. I never go out on the sales floor to check out the demo models either, especially since it's a school bookstore and school just started up.

Wow, that's a big-ass RAM slot. Just went out and checked it out on our demo model.

I have 4GB and the only time it's not enough is when running VMs, and by that I mean multiple VMs. 8GB would prolly be great.

It used to be a hobby, and I used to game. I built this computer nearly two years ago. At the time, the two video cards I have in the computer were a little over $600 a piece.

I've decided I don't really need a new computer. I'm going to upgrade my processor to a quad core and get 4GB more of ram, and be done with it.

The computer I'm using now is still faster than 99% of the computers out there. I can use the money I was going to spend for other things.

I built the PC for gaming a couple years ago. Then I started benchmarking, then I became a benchmark whore.

There's a whole enthusiast community out there that's all about having fast PC's, for instance the hardocp.com forums. What started as an $800 build turned into something over $2,400 within a couple months. You could build a computer right now for $600 that would play any game on the market with decent frame rates.

For $3,000 you could build your own PC that would rape a $5,000 Alienware, and that's where I was headed. With the tech that was available when I finished this computer, I had top of the line everything. Then you sit back and think, wow, most of my time spent with this thundering, tornado sounding machine, is going to be browsing the web and downloading music.

And then kick yourself in the ass. It's a really expensive hobby for someone in school.

At least you're learning things while you do it.  Ever thought about a job doing that stuf?  You seem to know what you're talking about.

Beats the job opportunities in Cape Breton.  Even if I knew something about computers I'd never get a job.  There are no jobs left...and if you said "high level LAN stuff" to most employers around here they would think that you were talking about someplace high above sea level.

high level LAN-d...get it?

Bah...

I remember Xavier, actually I kind of miss him.

I just remember him having an ungodly post count, yet every post he made was like a 600 word essay.

*sniff*

Javy didn't loooove me!

I was a real ignorant dummy back then, I don't blame you.

Xavier was the shizzz.  I agreed with him on everything just to seem cool.

-E

Yeah, I remember I checked and there was a thread asking who we were since we had such high post counts and no posts. I think I was in the top 10....Xavier was number 1 obviously lol.

http://forums.kombo.com/member.php?u=3509

We're all still there. Notice my last activity. I think that was the day FunXbox's forums moved. I wish all those posts could be recovered those were my freshman and sophmore years of HS.

Oh my god the memories!  Wow, I had more posts than I thought.  For a while there I was posting just to raise my count.  I remember someone PMing me (I think it was frostedflakes) and telling me to quit double posting.