My TWO 12" PB setup - Perfect!!

My first post at this forum. Just to introduce myself and to thank you all for posting and advising(helping with the decisions) that eventually helped me take the plunge - I am now a new Mac convert - and its helped my work and the students I teach - Hopefully my school will go Mac (300 ibooks yeah!!). Computers should be a tool not a millstone around the neck. Thanks again, folks!

I Spent ages browsing this forum, reading, asking around. I took the plunge - ordered a 12" PB 1.33ghz 60GB combo with 512Mb of RAM from the Apple Store (Edu discount) - love at first boot.....

11 months later(last week) I upgraded the RAM to 1.256GB (Kingston) And - I bought another 12" powerbook, online from the Apple store this time with 1.5 ghz 100GB HD, superdrive, 768RAM.(Edu discount + mostly paid for by the UK tax payer ha ha ha!!!). Yes 768Mb of RAM is enough!!! - infact 512mb has been great on my first PB- only the odd photoshop project has had the "spinning beachball". Upgrading 512 to 768 makes no sense - hence the 1gig stick is the only reasonable move. On my new PB I figured 768mb is fine - especially when buying for the Apple edu store - bang for buck and all that.

I have a "cheap" 17" digital screen set-up with icurve, extra keyboard/mouse + printer at both work and home. I also have an external 160GB hard drive but most important stuff is stored online.

So that describes a really flexible system. It works - I can do anything I want and moving, job, town, country is easier. No large/expensive desktop to worry about moving. I can even interchange batteries

Presentations, webpage, video conferencing, - my whole digital life is in two 12" 4.6lbs of very portable aluminium. If one gets stolen(I live near London - thats a real possability ) then I can still work since I have a "spare" - to see me through. All possabilities are cared for.

Anyone else out there with this set up? - or similar?

The only thing I havnt solved yet is - finding a laptop bag that will allow me safely carry two 12" laptops with me, say for extended trips/conferences abroad etc - where I have to fly(ecconomy) and inflight luggage is confined to one item. Anyone do this? Have a solution?

Once again, thanks folks. Powerbooks rock!!!

congrats, but Id not post this online in ppublic, apples agreement states 1 purchase per year,
no if's, and's, or but's, with the education store. if apple finds out, which is possible as they regularly check forums and mac sites for such things, youd be in a fair amount of trouble.

Macman said:

congrats, but Id not post this online in ppublic, apples agreement states 1 purchase per year,
no if's, and's, or but's, with the education store. if apple finds out, which is possible as they regularly check forums and mac sites for such things, youd be in a fair amount of trouble.

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I am not worried. "one is a private purchase" the other is "a Job purchase" (different name on the invoice) and anyway I dont think they are as strict for teachers as they are for students. If I do manage to get my school to order 200 ibooks (40% chance) then they will kiss my ***!

Not sure if you use it or something similar, but you might check out Synergy to share a single keyboard and mouse between the two PBs.

Synergy (my choice): http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
OSX2X (another option): http://www.opendarwin.org/projects/osx2x/

And welcome to the foums.

i find it peculiar why u would need to two laptops at the same time isn't one enough lol - what if you get both stolen at hte same time..

"dont put all eggs in one basket" << something worth considering

Quite honestly no, one is not enough. Sometimes two are not enough but I have learned to live with just two when on the road.

There are a number of reasons you might run two laptops. I usually run my test environment on one and my desktop on the other. Further it gives me acess to 4 different OS's so I can test in a number of platforms and browsers or host tests on a number of servers. My X31 tri boots WIN XP, Slackware Linux, and Free BSD. As soon as Hoary comes out I am going to set up the PB to dual boot OS X and Ubuntu and have Yellow Dog on a FW hard drive. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

On a more domestic level if you are used to doing multiple things at once or just normal stuff and one extremely processor intensive thing, two computers allows you to push all the non desktop oriented things to one while you monitor and work from the other. Scientific simulations, compiling, etc...

A Desktop and a laptop can work in tandem the same way but some people live a very mobile life and/or don't like being tied to a location. It is excessive to many, maybe most, but it does not mean that 2 laptops aren't useful to some. 2 new 12" PBs would run $3000. 1 17" PB would run $2700. Not all that big a difference, especially when the purchases are staggered over a year apart.

Don't take this wrong, I am not trying to jump down your throat. I am merely explaining why, for some people, a 2 laptop arrangement is more flexible and better than one more powerful laptop.

Macman said:

apples agreement states 1 purchase per year,no if's, and's, or but's, with the education store.

Click to expand...

I see none of this in the terms and conditions on the UK Apple Store, i've just read through it all.

Perhaps this is a US only policy, though i see no sense in it myself.

Not sure if you checked the right part or not crisrose but i think they are reffering to the Apple Education Store due to the discount that they give. (hence the 1 purchase a year deal) Regular apple store is as much as you like...

i read the terms and conditions on the UK Higher Education store.

Can someone post a link to this policy please? I'd like to be aware of this if this is the case.

Is the one purchase, one purchase at any time? Of anything? Is it just computers? Can i buy an iBook, and then a G5? Is buying periferals later a second purchase? What about an iPod? Am i allowed to buy one if i already bought a £10 case or something off thier already?

It all sounds very sketchy and dumb to me, but i don't doubt it exists... lol

Here is an example from the Apple store:

Qualifying purchases per academic school year (July 1 - June 30):

* Power Mac, iMac, eMac, PowerBook, or iBook - One per year
* Printers - One per year
* Displays - Two per year
* Software - Two per year