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Buying a new computer. - Got the Pro, new question again....


Blake

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Added a new question at the end

 

 

 

I have the 13" MacBook aluminum unibody right now that I got in February. With a student discount and the current promotion Apple is running, Buy a Mac for College and get a free Itouch, I can upgrade my computer to a macbook pro for a very low cost. Here is the math...

 

 

 

[hide=Got a new MacBook Pro, this is all obsolete now...]1. Lets just say my bank account holds $1000

 

2. Sell my current macbook for $900 (I already have a buyer)

 

3. My bank account now has $1900

 

4. Buy a new Macbook pro with an ipod touch for $1420, including tax and free shipping

 

5. Bank account is $480 and I have a macbook pro and an Itouch

 

6. Get the $230 rebate

 

7. Bank account is $710, and I have an itouch and a macbook pro

 

8. Sell the itouch for $200

 

9. I have $910 and a Macbook pro

 

 

 

So that would leave me $90 poorer, and I would have a macbook pro instead of a macbook.

 

 

 

 

 

Any thoughts on if it is a good or bad idea, or if anything could go wrong? Im pretty sure its good.

 

Also, should I buy a different computer than a Macbook pro? I will be able to spend about $1000 on one. The macbook just sounds great to me because I LOVE my current one, better than my past Toshiba or Dell. It runs windows and mac os x, has a 7 hour battery life, and is just all around great. If you suggest a different laptop to me, I will definately check on it. I has to be a laptop because I am using it for college.

 

 

 

EDIT: We have a external hard drive back up thing for my moms iMac, its called a Maxtor OneTouch 4. Can I back up my laptop on it, with her computer being backed up at the same time? If I cant, how can I move programs like Office and the game Peggle to a new laptop without rebuying them? Can I save them on a DVD or something?[/hide]

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Thanks for the replies ::' So are there any other laptops that you would suggest?

 

 

 

Im gonna ask this here and add it to the first post...

 

 

 

We have a external hard drive back up thing for my moms iMac, its called a Maxtor OneTouch 4. Can I back up my laptop on it, with her computer being backed up at the same time? If I cant, how can I move programs like Office and the game Peggle to a new laptop without rebuying them? Can I save them on a DVD or something?

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You would have to partition it to keep data separate. You could push $1,000 for it if it's the 2.0Ghz. Though, $900 isn't bad either. Are you using Time Machine to back up?

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I have a partition for Mac os and a partition for Windows xp. I dont back it up on anything, but my parents have a time machine they back up their computer on. Its not an Apple product, but its the same thing and uses the time machine program.

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Partition the external hard drive using Disk Utility. Then hook up the hard drive to your laptop. Open Time Machine under System Preferences and select "Change Disk," or something similar on the first button. It'll select the HDD as a backup storage system and automatically backup all of your files. When you get your new laptop, during setup, it will ask you if you would like to use a previous Time Machine backup as your new account. All of your files will then be on your new laptop.

Great choice on the laptop. Might want to hold out for a week or so if you want Snow Leopard to come with your Macbook Pro :)
Yup. Buy it on the 28th and you get Snow Leopard free. If you buy it now it will be $9. I actually just ordered Snow Leopard. I tried out the Gold Master build for my applications to ease the worries of adopting it too soon. Hope all goes well. :)
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Partition the external hard drive using Disk Utility. Then hook up the hard drive to your laptop. Open Time Machine under System Preferences and select "Change Disk," or something similar on the first button. It'll select the HDD as a backup storage system and automatically backup all of your files. When you get your new laptop, during setup, it will ask you if you would like to use a previous Time Machine backup as your new account. All of your files will then be on your new laptop.
Great choice on the laptop. Might want to hold out for a week or so if you want Snow Leopard to come with your Macbook Pro :)
Yup. Buy it on the 28th and you get Snow Leopard free. If you buy it now it will be $9. I actually just ordered Snow Leopard. I tried out the Gold Master build for my applications to ease the worries of adopting it too soon. Hope all goes well. :)

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you! Thats exactly what I needed ::' I was planning on buying it on the 28th. Whats this Gold Master build?

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Thank you! Thats exactly what I needed ::' I was planning on buying it on the 28th. Whats this Gold Master build?

 

 

 

It was just a leaked version of the final "for-sale" edition of Snow Leopard, but still, it's better to buy the official version as it's so cheap. ::'

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Partition the external hard drive using Disk Utility. Then hook up the hard drive to your laptop. Open Time Machine under System Preferences and select "Change Disk," or something similar on the first button. It'll select the HDD as a backup storage system and automatically backup all of your files. When you get your new laptop, during setup, it will ask you if you would like to use a previous Time Machine backup as your new account. All of your files will then be on your new laptop.
Great choice on the laptop. Might want to hold out for a week or so if you want Snow Leopard to come with your Macbook Pro :)
Yup. Buy it on the 28th and you get Snow Leopard free. If you buy it now it will be $9. I actually just ordered Snow Leopard. I tried out the Gold Master build for my applications to ease the worries of adopting it too soon. Hope all goes well. :)

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you! Thats exactly what I needed ::' I was planning on buying it on the 28th. Whats this Gold Master build?

It's the equivalent of Windows RC. It's the final developers build that developers use to test out that their applications and utilities. It is not released to the public and to obtain a beta of Snow Leopard (10A432) you need to obtain a developers license. In my case I needed to make sure that my Carbon applications would still work nicely. Which, I should get around to working with Cocoa since the new SDk was released.

 

 

 

In short, you don't need to worry about it; it's a beta of the public release to Snow Leopard. :P

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Partition the external hard drive using Disk Utility. Then hook up the hard drive to your laptop. Open Time Machine under System Preferences and select "Change Disk," or something similar on the first button. It'll select the HDD as a backup storage system and automatically backup all of your files. When you get your new laptop, during setup, it will ask you if you would like to use a previous Time Machine backup as your new account. All of your files will then be on your new laptop.
Great choice on the laptop. Might want to hold out for a week or so if you want Snow Leopard to come with your Macbook Pro :)
Yup. Buy it on the 28th and you get Snow Leopard free. If you buy it now it will be $9. I actually just ordered Snow Leopard. I tried out the Gold Master build for my applications to ease the worries of adopting it too soon. Hope all goes well. :)

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you! Thats exactly what I needed ::' I was planning on buying it on the 28th. Whats this Gold Master build?

It's the equivalent of Windows RC. It's the final developers build that developers use to test out that their applications and utilities. It is not released to the public and to obtain a beta of Snow Leopard (10A432) you need to obtain a developers license. In my case I needed to make sure that my Carbon applications would still work nicely. Which' date=' I should get around to working with Cocoa since the new SDk was released.

 

 

 

In short, you don't need to worry about it; it's a beta of the public release to Snow Leopard. :P[/quote']

 

 

 

Good, cause I didn't understand one bit of it :lol:

 

 

 

But I just went to partition the backup external hard drive (on the iMac, not my macbook), and it said when I partition it, it will erase the time machine backup and everything on it. Im just wondering if I can re-back it up, or if it will erase the data on the time machine, like the data to install it, because it doesn't come with an install disk. It installs from a usb connection to the time machine. So if I partition and erase it, will I still be able to install it on a computer or will it mess the whole thing up?

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Hm. As long as you are partitioning your external hard drive, the Maxtor I believe is what brand you named, you'll be fine. But I wouldn't think that it should be deleting your data. You're going through Disk Utility and clicked on the + button under the partition tab? If so, would you mind taking a screenshot (Command, Shift, and 4) of this tab so I can see how much Time Machine has allocated. I just partitioned mine and nothing happened. I'm thinking that if the entire hard drive is full then Time Machine wants to dump everything.

 

 

 

You can always have it delete everything, but that leaves you without a previous backup for your iMac. If you do wipe the hard drive there is nothing to worry about, as you can just plug it back into your MacBook, select it as the Time Machine backup device and have it copy everything to the hard drive.

 

 

 

picture2aqs.png

 

I think that you just have to have the second partition below the blue bar, as that seems to be the space Time Machine has begun using.

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Ok here it is. I open disk utility, select the Maxtor, and click the partition tab. Notice how it says erase and partition the selected disk.

 

[hide=]34t7c3r.png[/hide]

 

 

 

Then I click the +, put it the size I want. Heres that... On this, I have the backup selected. On the right, at the top of the first paragraph it still says erase and partition, but under that it says this volume will not be erased.

 

[hide=]des7t3.png[/hide]

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Partition the external hard drive using Disk Utility. Then hook up the hard drive to your laptop. Open Time Machine under System Preferences and select "Change Disk," or something similar on the first button. It'll select the HDD as a backup storage system and automatically backup all of your files. When you get your new laptop, during setup, it will ask you if you would like to use a previous Time Machine backup as your new account. All of your files will then be on your new laptop.
Great choice on the laptop. Might want to hold out for a week or so if you want Snow Leopard to come with your Macbook Pro :)
Yup. Buy it on the 28th and you get Snow Leopard free. If you buy it now it will be $9. I actually just ordered Snow Leopard. I tried out the Gold Master build for my applications to ease the worries of adopting it too soon. Hope all goes well. :)

 

 

 

Quick question. When I go buy my Snow Leopard upgrade am I only limited to upgrading one computer? When Leopard came out I bought a burnt copy from a friend and was able to upgrade several of my friends' computers too with the same disc. Will I be able to do that with the $30 upgrade? Or would I have to buy the family pack?

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Partition the external hard drive using Disk Utility. Then hook up the hard drive to your laptop. Open Time Machine under System Preferences and select "Change Disk," or something similar on the first button. It'll select the HDD as a backup storage system and automatically backup all of your files. When you get your new laptop, during setup, it will ask you if you would like to use a previous Time Machine backup as your new account. All of your files will then be on your new laptop.
Great choice on the laptop. Might want to hold out for a week or so if you want Snow Leopard to come with your Macbook Pro :)
Yup. Buy it on the 28th and you get Snow Leopard free. If you buy it now it will be $9. I actually just ordered Snow Leopard. I tried out the Gold Master build for my applications to ease the worries of adopting it too soon. Hope all goes well. :)

 

 

 

Quick question. When I go buy my Snow Leopard upgrade am I only limited to upgrading one computer? When Leopard came out I bought a burnt copy from a friend and was able to upgrade several of my friends' computers too with the same disc. Will I be able to do that with the $30 upgrade? Or would I have to buy the family pack?

 

 

 

 

 

The $30 one is for one computer. If you want more than that, there is the family pack for $49 that lets you upgrade up to 5.

 

And thanks for all your help Laura, Ill do it when I get home ::'

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Why a mac? For that price you could get a damn good PC that could be upgraded every year instead of having to buy a brand new mac.
I hope this link will suffice.

 

EDIT: Oh, and this one.

 

 

 

Personal experience is what led me to buy one. Several Tech and Computer users will testify to the troubles I have experienced with PC manufacturers, namely Dell. At first I thought along a similar line - that is was paying more for the same thing I could get from HP, Acer, Dell, etc. But it simply isn't. I'm the kind of person that doesn't mind paying more to more expensive local businesses. I don't mind paying a little extra to go to the hardware shop down the road despite its markup of like 20% compared to Sear's or Lowe's. They have friendly and knowledgeable staff and aid me whenever I need help (lately, they attached a 40 year old hammer to a new handle which saved me like $10) . If it works for me, it's worth paying a little extra.

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Why a mac? For that price you could get a damn good PC that could be upgraded every year instead of having to buy a brand new mac.
I hope this link will suffice.

 

 

 

A link to a thread about a not functioning computer? That stuff can happen with any sort of electronic, Mac stuff included.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes it isn't always about the price.

 

 

 

So, instead of choosing a PC she went with a PC? I think its a bit silly to assume that Macs don't have viruses or any other problems that plague computers, since, well, Mac is a computer.

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