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Macs I've known and loved

Purchased	Model	Comments
1985	Mac 512K	My first Mac. Later upgraded to 512KE then Mac Plus.
1991	Mac IIsi	SJSU bookstore.
1992	Powerbook 100	Price Club (Costco).
1994	Powerbook 165c	MacWarehouse.
1997	Performa 6400	Ugly computer. Bought from Small Dog Electronics.
2003	Power Mac G4 MDD	Powerful computer at the time. Bought from Mac Pro in San Jose.
2005	Powerbook G4 Aluminum	Beautiful computer. Mac Pro in San Jose?
2009	MacBook Pro 15”	Tech Restore in Concord. My first Intel Mac. I needed it to run Windows.
2012	Mac Mini	A little powerhouse.
2013	MacBook Pro Retina 13”	I use it for PowerPoint and teaching my classes.
2014	iMac Retina	The retina screen is beautiful.

This cool Tableizer web site lets you create an HTML table from spreadsheet data or tab-delimited data and you can then insert the HTML into your web site. In Blogger, you must paste the resulting HTML into the HTML tab on your post, not the Compose tab.

My advice for buying a Mac

(updated late 2017)

I first compiled this information in 2012 to help some friends who wanted to buy Macs. I updated it in early 2014 to help some students who were taking a class in Mac/iOS programming. (Such requires use of a Mac; it cannot be done on a PC.) Now I'm updating it again.

This is what entitles me to give this advice: I have used many different Macs since 1985, and I buy about one every other year, so I've been doing this for a long time. I have bought both brand new and refurbished. I have opened almost every Mac I've ever owned to upgrade it (except the new ones that can't be opened.) I am stingy, so I always look for the best deal and the best strategy.  

[1] Your friend who works at Apple may be able to get you a discount. However, Apple employees are inundated with such requests from their friends, and they have a limited number of discounts to use, so employees usually reserve the discounts for their family members.

[2] Don't be afraid to buy a refurbished Mac. Apple sells them for about 15% less than list price. A refurbished computer has been returned to a tech who checks everything and fixes what may be broken. Many new computers ship with problems or even DOA. A refurbished computer has been checked a second time beyond the normal factory testing. (This is true of other computer brands besides Apple too.) Be careful: you may be buying last year's model.

SVCTE

Today I started my third week teaching a high school class at Metro Ed / Silicon Valley CTE (Career and Technical Education). I am teaching Mobile App Design and Coding to high school junior and seniors. We have a classroom full of brand new iMacs and other Apple equipment. We'll be writing iPad and iPhone apps. 

We're starting out by learning about color, fonts, and layout. We're doing some practice coding by making small web pages with a little JavaScript.

The students are sharp and most of them seem to be having fun. I met some of their parents tonight at back to school night.

The position is currently only half-time, but I also teach two other programming classes in community colleges.

Looking for a web hosting service

I'm looking for a web hosting service that has available all these facilities: PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, C++, Java, C#, Swift, Golang, and MySQL available from all those languages. I've written a tutorial that shows how to do web programming in all those languages, but there is no hosting service that has them all available out of the box, and it's hard to find a custom installation that will handle both C# (a Windows technology) and Swift (a Mac technology). My Mac can do it all, but its connection to the net is slow. Dreamhost and A Small Orange say they can handle this with a VPS, which I'd have to set up myself, but I'm skeptical that Ubuntu could run Swift or xcrun, even if C# can be executed by Mono, so it's hard to see how I could get both those languages running together on the same server unless it's a Mac. Any other suggestions?

Caprese Salad

Caprese salad for the potluck. Yum!

Windy

Six foot branch from the neighbor's 50-foot redwood tree just fell on our roof and air conditioner. Startled us! Boom! Doesn't look like any damage done, but it's dark now so we'll have to check better tomorrow. Seems strange to have so much wind without rain.

Rooster

This morning we were awaked early by a rooster crowing. On and on, about 15-20 times. We thought, which of our neighbors has a rooster, and why don't they shut him up? We looked out our window, and the crowing stopped. Hmnm. Ok, we're back in bed; it started up again. Mary went outside to find a rooster in our backyard tree. When she shook the branch with a stick, he squawked and fluttered away onto a neighbor's roof, but stopped making noise. If he comes back for a return engagement tomorrow, we'll have charcoals ready on the BBQ …

Pearl Harbor, Dole pineapple, Tommy Bahama's, sunset cruise, snorkeling, Pali Lookout, flea market bargains, massage, gluten free crepes, sunrise on the beach, Diamond Head, Kona, Waipio Valley, waterfalls, hula lesson, farmers market, Mauna Kea Observatory, volcano glowing at night, black sand beach, green sea turtles, +5 pounds, 15 years together, spending time alone with my sweetie.

Piano Rolls

Cleaning out my parents' house. My favorite piano rolls from childhood. Hand picked from 10+ boxes of rolls. See anything familiar?

My all-time favorite is Couplet Sans Paroles by Emil Sauer. Found the MP3 on Amazon and put it on my iPod.