belleliu.com

May 23, 2010

New iPhone case

What is the average lifespan of your iPhone case? Mine is around 6 months. I don't replace one unless it's beaten-up or too dirty. If I were not shopping in Wanchai computer mall for something else today, I would have hold on to my old one until someone gets me an uncommon case featuring a cool artwork. The temptation in this mall is irresistible - almost every shop sells iPhone cases, and the variety is staggering. You would see walls as large as 6 by 6 ft. covered with cases of any color, texture and material you could imagine. If I were to "try on" every one of them, it'd probably take me a whole week.

Here is my new one: a Trexta Wood and Leather case. It's one of those slim cases that you can snap on and off easily but offers very little protection. Priced at HK$199 and comes with a screen protector and a cleaning cloth. I love it simply for the natural, vintage look and feel.

Filed under // gadgets iphone

Posted by Belle Liu

Comments [1]

October 29, 2009

My first PowerBook in Oct 2003

Life has been a bit crazy lately. I'm not going to blog anything about work, family or friends here - at least not for now. So let's keep everything gadget-related. After getting a 1-TB desktop hard drive a few weeks ago, I finally found the time to move my old stuffs from a portable 160GB hard drive to it. During the process, I found this old photo taken in October 2003 in my very first "office" when I just started BeansBox. This is also my first PowerBook, nicknamed "TiBook" at that time as it's made of Titanium. Look closely to the icons on my dock and desktop, it amazes me how much has changed over the last 6 years - to Mac OS X, to my work and to myself in general. For instance, I don't use Photoshop, Suitcase, Palm Desktop or Microsoft Office anymore.

My first Mac was a "snowy white" iBook G3, then after this TiBook retired, I got another two Aluminum PowerBooks (one was renamed as MacBook Pro) as my main work machine. In between I also bought a white MacBook and a Mac mini.

Filed under // gadgets mac

Posted by Belle Liu

Comments [0]

June 30, 2009

New 13-inch MacBook Pro and more gadgets

In mid-May Apple notified me that my 15" Aluminum MacBook Pro's one-year warranty was about to expire and I should get the AppleCare Protection Plan (HK$2,610). I was too busy catching up with work after my long vacation in Italy so I totally forgot about it. Then I installed the OS X 10.5.7 update and the MBP started breaking down! It crashed a few times a day, the screen wouldn't turn off after sleep, spotlight was unresponsive and it was clearly overheating the whole time. I googled extensively for a solution but to no avail. Even Jeffrey Zeldman was suffering from it. Bummer! My buddy Bill got the same model but hasn't got any issue after the update. Convinced that it was clearly a software issue, I was reluctant to do anything about it. I don't know why, maybe I just need an excuse to buy a new Mac. Could it be a conspiracy as suggested by one of these commenters?

It wasn't an impulsive purchase for my standard. I spent two days considering all options. In the end I got the cheapest 13-inch MacBook Pro. That could well mean a downgrade in a sense as I was using a 15-inch. I placed the order on Apple Online Store on Thursday night, and the new Mac arrived on Monday morning! There wasn't much time for me to change my mind. I upgraded the memory from 2GB to 4GB for HK$560 because I could not afford the max. 8GB - priced at HK$7,800 now!!! I also decided to hold off the hard drive upgrade until SSD drives become affordable per the advice I received on Facebook. But a smaller hard drive (160GB vs. 250GB) means I had to get rid of some data. I didn't use the built-in OS X Migration Assistant this time and managed to leave behind all old, unused files accumulated from 2003, by selecting manually what to migrate over. This new 13-inch MBP is much more portable than my old 15-inch although it only weighs one pound less (4.5lb vs. 5.5lb). The long (7-hour) battery life is a godsend, I no longer need to carry a power adapter while going out for consecutive meetings. I thought I wouldn't like the glossy screen but I was wrong. It doesn't tire my eyes at all (maybe I am just ecstatic), and the unibody case also feels more solid than the old aluminum one. Overall I am very happy with this new Mac and fell in love with iPhoto '09. You know how much I like tagging photos ... Other gadgets that I couldn't resist from buying while shopping for a new sleeve in Wanchai computer mall: