eat light:

damn. osx leopard won't be released until october. stupid i-phone...apparently they had to divert people from the osx team to work on the i-phone software so they could get that schmancy device released on time.

well, i was trying to wait until leopard came out to buy a new laptop, but i might just do it sooner. might as well upgrade before i start on the real diss writing. the new mac books are pretty reasonably priced, actually--especially considering that i get the academic discount. also, i have discovered that the uw bookstore has clearance mac books for like $800. they have the intel core 1 duo processor rather than the intel core 2 duo processor that's in the new machines. i'm still deciding whether or not i want to pay for the newer technology. the up-side is that they may have worked out some of the kinks of switching to intel processors prior to building the newer machines... the down-side is that pesky cash...

i think i'm going to buy apple's word processing software rather than using microsoft office, too. i've been talking about going microsoft-free for years now, and haven't gotten around to it. i have office now, and while i'll miss excel, i won't miss the annoying features of word. no doubt apple's software will have other annoying features... so the question now is, should i get appleworks, or should i get iwork? i would pay $39 for appleworks, $49 for iwork (love that academic pricing--they each cost $79 for those outside of the ivory tower). appleworks has spreadsheet software, which i use for grading when i'm teaching. iwork integrates with ilife programs, which in turn come with the computer. i have fooled around with the word processors in both suites, and i prefer pages to appleworks...but that spreadsheet would be nice to have... no matter which i buy, the up-side is that i already own the most recent release of office for mac (2004, student and teacher edition), so if i end up hating the apple stuff, i can always switch back and not be out that much money. (by contrast, office for mac 2004 cost me $150 when i bought it.)

shit...neither endnote nor procite (bibliography software) is compatible with either of apple's word processors. guess i'll be stuck with office for awhile yet. p.s. i'm going to have to re-buy this software. i had endnote for awhile, but it didn't work with my version of word very well, so i didn't re-install it on this machine when i upgraded to osx tiger. i was wondering if anyone out there has experience with either/both endnote or procite--specifically on a mac--and could recommend one over the other. i have been limping along without biblio software, and i just don't want to have to re-type my bibliographies again and again and again anymore, or even to transport them from document to document. ya know?

well...yes, my machine is running OS X.4.8--but OS X.4 is tiger, not panther. freakin' cats--who can keep them all straight? so i don't need to upgrade my OS after all, at least not until they come out with leopard, which is rumored to be VFS (very freakin' soon). when does jobs do his big unveiling spiel every year? isn't it in january? i'll bet they'll release leopard then, or shortly thereafter. so if i'm gonna buy a new machine, i should wait until after then so it will come installed on the machine along with all of the other requisite software goodies. i think that works pretty well with my timeline--i'm thinking a new machine might make a nice 40th birthday present to myself, along with that marathon i'm threatening to run.

we'll see. i'm on the bargaining team for my local, and we're going to be in contract negotiations pretty soon, so that might cut into my ability to train for a 'thon.