cat and computer update

sorry i couldn’t come up with a more creative (or interesting) title. these last couple weeks have been really intense in every single way.

first my cat got really sick. like, emergency room, humongous vet bill, life and death sick. in addition to her hyperthyroidism, she also has heart disease. i don’t think i handled it very well. and i was also thing about how there are some things that you can’t really prepare for no matter how much you try. i know she’s 13 and her body’s breaking down, and death is inevitable but it’s just never easy. trying to mentally prepare myself for losing my cat was completely futile because when i came face to face with losing her, i almost lost it in general. luckily, coco survived the crisis albeit not the same cat. i’ve had time to really digest the reality of the situation and i talked to my mom about it tonight and she really helped me feel better. like it or not, death is a part of life and for once, i feel like i know what it means to live with that understanding. i will cherish these last few days with my cat and when her time comes, i will (hopefully) be able to celebrate the beauty of her life instead of mourn the tragedy of her death.

so i’ve had a little more time to spend with my computer since my last post and i have a more thorough review.

hardware:
Pros:
1. beautiful screen. i don’t know how else to describe it but the colors just jump off the screen and i actually like how it doesn’t automatically dim like my mac did. it doesn’t feel like a 13″ computer because the screen doesn’t leave anything to be desired. i find that i can look at this screen a lot longer than my macbook pro without my eyes feelings strained.
2. i like the chiclets keyboard.
3. i can turn the trackpad on and off. there is a little light indicator to let me know if the trackpad is on or off which is actually really cool because i am one of those people who always forget.
4. there are light indicators for mute and caps lock which is seriously one of my favorite functions just because it takes the guess work out of whether you have those options on.
5. sturdy metal casing which is a really nice surprise considering the price
6. the trackpad is more usable than i thought. i’m using the trackpad almost 25% of the time now.

Cons
1. crappy speakers. i thought my macbook pro speakers were weak but these speakers are about half as good. they are tinny and are place underneath the keypad, on a slope which i feel directly hurts the sound volume and quality.
2. no optical drive – this turned out to be a much bigger pain in the ass than i anticipated. as progressive as i’d like to consider myself, a lot of information is still be transferred on cds. i tried to use my brother’s external optical drive to play civ 4 but it didn’t work. that sucked.
3. battery life – the advertised 6 hours is a complete joke. even after the first full charge i barely got 3. to date, it’s more between 2-3, closer to 3. the only good is the relatively quick charge up times.

software
pros –
1. applications – i am not hurting for my mac applications as much as i thought i would. first of all, i rediscovered pandora. dare i say it, i like it more than itunes! first of all, it’s free and more interactive. i love it and it’s kinda my favorite thing right now. also, with all of google’s progams (calendar, documents, igoogle, gmail, gchat, chrome), i am not really missing any of mac’s applications at all.
2. startup – startup and shutdown times are good and i have no complaints!

cons
1. sometimes my computer freezes when i wake it back up from hybernation/sleep (i still don’t know the difference). another time, my screen kept jumping around and the fonts got smaller and smaller every time. it was weird but it’s only happened once so far. usually, it’s pretty stable and reliable.