I use an aging MacBook Pro that’s on its last legs and I have several times considered building my own Hackintosh. Today, after another sickly cough from my computer, I decided to go for it. Then after spending >3 hours researching and shopping for all the components, I compared what I’d put together against what Apple offers and decided to wait for the next iMac.

The Hackintosh does have some things going for it…

Pros

• Faster for cheaper (Quad system for ~$900 vs. $2000 from Apple)
• Get PCI slots for cheap (slots from Apple require Mac Pro starting at $2500 )
• Huge HD (though that’s easy to upgrade at OEM prices on any Mac, and external works fine)

But once I put the system together, I thought about some of the drawbacks.

Cons

• Requires a bunch of work to build, install and iron out
• May stop working when Apple chooses
• Will always have all sorts of annoying quirks
• No warranty if something breaks
• Home built noisier than Apple hardware

Then I thought more about the economics. An iMac equivalent to the system I spec-ed would be $1900 (with my $100 student discount), and it would include a 2560×1440 monitor which is $1100 and up anywhere else. That’s effectively $800 for the hardware, meaning I’m not even saving money with the Hackintosh and all the cons above. Plus the iMac comes with the Magic Mouse ($70) and Wireless keyboard ($70), which while I wouldn’t pay that much for, further tip the scales.

If you don’t care about the 27″ monitor, the comparison is less clear. If you compare the Hackintosh to a Mac Mini at $800, it might be worth it to you to bump from the Intel Core 2 Duo up to a Core 2 Quad, get a bigger hard drive and better video. But you’d be trading that against your time, system stability, hardware warranty and clean design. So I plan to buy an iMac 27″, though I’ll probably wait until the next product release.

If you decide to go that route, here’s the system I spec-ed for $840 (plus tax, includes shipping).

And from Newegg:

I do delete stuff that I know I’ll never read again, like “bagels in the copy room” or automated reminders from RTM.

I think of the Inbox as another label and for me “in:inbox” means that it requires action. When the action is complete, I archive it. A reply in the conversation brings it back into the inbox to act on. I also have status labels “Waiting On” and “Some Day” to qualify the inbox messages.

I use the Quick Links feature in the Lab experiments settings tab to make new views on the inbox, like, “Research to process”. That’s “in:inbox label:Research”.

The Better Gmail extension for Firefox has a really great macro, f-Focus, which takes whatever your current view is and narrows it down to messages that are (in:inbox OR is:unread) AND !is:muted. i.e. ({in:inbox is:unread} !is:muted). I used to love that, but I use Mailplane now for Gmail on my Mac and it’s not extensible.

Since writing that e-mail this morning, Google released a beta of their new Chrome browser for Windows. I gotta say, it’s nice. The best part is it has a simple “Create application shortcuts…” function for any website that basically turns it into a desktop app. Mozilla has something similar with Prism but compared to Chrome it’s bloated and slow. I’ll probably stick with Fluid on my Mac, and I look forward Safari 4.0, which is supposed to have something similar. Hopefully Google will have ported Gears to work in Safari by then. Shouldn’t be hard since Chrome also uses WebKit.

Poor man’s Skitch, originally uploaded by TfUnQ.

You can approximate Skitch with the Quicksilver “Screen Capture” and “Upload to Flickr…” actions. Just capture part of the screen and choose the Run action. (More details in this Lifehacker article.) Then QS will capture the image and open it up to operate on. Then hit tab and type begin typing “Flickr” or “Upload” to get the upload action. If you want to tag it too, hit tab again and type them in. Then just hit return to send the picture up to Flickr.

I haven’t used Skitch yet, but this is what I understand it does. At least, that’s what I wanted it for. It’s in closed beta right now.

There’s a problem in Gmail in parsing messages sent with Apple’s Mail.app.  It seems it’s mostly Apple’s fault.  But since Gmail still hasn’t solved it, you can work around it with this web utility.

I’m trying to do my research today in JMP by SAS. I used to use R (FLOSS software yay) but I have to use JMP in a research methods course I’m taking. It does look easier and should save me time.

…when it works. Right now I’m trying to get the program to open with the serial number I paid for. Here is my e-mail to their tech support (since their phone support is closed for the day).

Technical Support Form
Problem Description:

Subject: My activation is no longer working

Problem Description:

I purchased and activated JMP 7 on my laptop. I have used it several times over the last couple weeks. Today I opened it again, and it asks me to activate. In the field to enter the serial number is the serial number I entered before. I click to activate and it says that that number has already been used and tells me to call technical support.

I did, but it’s outside your business hours. I am very frustrated that I can’t get my work done because a) your company does not trust its users to pay and b) your activation system is buggy.