THE JOE'S JOURNAL

 I've been situated lately with trying to repair and upgrade my mid 2007 macbook.
Everything was going fine until I got a Kernel Crisis and found out that my macbook was at a total lost. Repairs would have cost 600+ to replace its insides.

I was using my brother's HP laptop to edit on After Effects with it for awhile but i eventually just bought a new macbook pro 13".



So far, I'm happy with the switch. Quite a transition from the plastic feel of the macbook to the pro. 

I'll update more on this because right now I have class.

 I just got a copy of Snow Leopard last night. I must say I'm impressed with it. 

So Snow Leopard is basically an upgraded version of Leopard. Not too many visual differences and such. I kind of don't see why this wasn't just an update instead of it being a $30 purchase, but getting this was no skin off my nose.

Some dramatic differences from Leopard to Snow Leopard are:

-Faster booting and shut down times.
Booting up has about 10 seconds shaved off (it depends from computer to computer) and shutting down happens on a whim

-Apple removed many useless languages, applications and files freeing up 10 or more GB's of space
The difference of freed up hard drive space varies from computer to computer too. I was freed about 16 GB's. 

-Expose changed for performance.
When using expose to view all windows they are now organized to be in he same size and in a grid like manner instead of being scattered everywhere with different window sizes. 

-New Quicktime
This version seems to run way faster and has a complete cosmetic change.

-JPEGS and PDFs load faster.
You can youtube this and you can see a side by side comparison of Leopard and Snow Leopard loading 5 JPEGS side by side and the difference is VERY noticeable.

-There are more changes and upgrades but these are the ones I notice the most.



The new Quicktime and Safari (the Safari update is available without Snow Leopard)



Items in folders in your Dock have a new method of organization called "stacks" which allow you to view all your folders and to scroll through them.



The new Expose. Its all sorted by grid now and in virtually in the same size. Doesn't seem to lag as much when I use it now too.


Overall, its a good upgrade. I wish it wasn't $30 bucks but hey, Apple's gotta make a living. I have a feeling many people are going to be disappointed that there are no new cosmetic features in this upgrade, but in terms of whats happening behind the scenes, I'm sure many will agree with its pricing.

 I need to wait about a week or two before my loan comes. I still need to buy books and my MacBook is starting to crap out on itself.

I tore it down twice to see what's wrong. At first I thought it was the dust caught up in the fan but after cleaning it twice (and even cleaning the heatsink with dust sandwhiched between it) my MacBook still seems to be crap. I've summed up the problem to the fan. It seems to go on the fritz and not even do a good job of cooling my laptop. 

I'm getting $3000 dollars for my loan.

1700 - goes to my brother for my tuition
300 - to my aunt for tuition
300 - to my grandma for my tuition

This leaves me to about 700 dollars for a computer.

I hoping to buy a desktop package deal and get a PC. around the 400 - 600 dollar range.
Then I hope I can shell out for an external hard drive and a new fan for the MacBook, which can vary..

I just hope it all works out and i get the loan soon.. I still have other things to buy like 16mm film for my film production class, some books, and even a stupid access code I need for an astrology lab class.. =/

Budget cuts. That's the best way to describe the start of the semester so far. 

I decided to drop my Photography II class to rack up a G.E. instead and to focus more on my Film Production class, but little did I know that it would be near impossible to crash a class at all this semester. The budget cuts took out $300,000,000 this semester which is twice the money needed to fund 2 large campuses.

A lot of my friends have also been having bad luck with their classes. Mikey only has 2 classes, and on the first couple of days was crashing classes left and right. I recall him telling me he tried to crash 9 classes one day only to be wait listed one 1. Others have taken the alternative of taking community college and taking CSUN at the same time, or just dropping CSUN altogether. 

Speaking of the recession, money isn't so good here at the Humpay's house. I know I say this a lot but I'm going to need a job. It's tough just scrounging for money to go out and knowing that 10 bucks is suppose to last me a whole week for gas is tough. I hope we'll get out of this situation soon.


In other news, I've been trying to think of my next kinetic typography project to do. I know winter is coming up so I  might choose something slower and relaxing for those cold winter nights. We'll see. It'll be a surprise!

I just wish my loan came in already. I have to pay back my brother, aunt, and grandma. Then I hope I have enough money to buy some essential stuff for school and hopefully a new computer and some parts for my laptop. This MacBook seems to go on and off on me. Hopefully I get to sort things out because the next computer I'm buying is a PC but I'm not excited to edit with Premiere with that. I would rather use Final Cut Pro.