As some of you know I am heading back to school in the Spring, so in preparation, and also because my poor Mac Powerbook 12″ is over 6 years old, I made plans to buy a new system. Of course it was going to be a Mac, the question was, should I go Mac Pro, Macbook Pro, or iMac. There are advantages to each, lots of power with the Mac Pro, good power and a nice size screen with the iMac, power and portability with a Macbook Pro.

I am going back to school for web & internet design, so I wanted a good size screen, and good power, but as the course is all online, and I was planning on doing some work while sitting at my daughters cheer practice, I wanted portability. I considered getting an iMac or Mac Pro then getting an iBook to work away from home, but then I saw the new 24″ Cinema display made to work with the Macbook Pros.

This was the perfect answer to my needs, portability, power and a nice large screen, the ability to run dual screens as a matter of fact. So I did some reading up, went by the local Apple store and played with one they had setup, it was perfect for my needs. So today I went and picked it up, a 17″ Macbook Pro, 24″ Cinema Display, and an Apple keyboard. Here are some pics…..

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I really did not want to install VS 2005 & VS 2008 on this, the main reason I need VS2005 is because I use MSSQL Reporting Services and use VS2005 to design reports for it, as VS2008 seems to have a problem with that. tHen I remembered that the SQL install had an option for a install of the Reporting Services Dev as a stand alone. So I installed it, and then downloaded the service packs, and updates, then installed VS 2008 and updated it. So far looks good, but will find out for sure when I get to work tomorrow.

All I have to do now is get Dreamweaver, Flash and Photoshop installed, then Flex, and the MotoDev IDE for Android, Mapforce, Oxygen XML editor, and MS Office and I will be back up and running on my Dev laptop . I will have the Adobe products installed tonightand will take care of the rest tomorrow.

Well I am going to take the plunge and hope this brings some power back to
my dev laptop. From what I have seen using a test laptop it should. I will
give updates as I go.

Doing an install of Windows 7 and noticed the EULAID code……
Really makes one wonder

I did some checking and I should be able to get most of the cost covered by grants. I am planning on applying for the Spring semester. There is a lot I have to do, apply for financial aid, apply to ASU, get my transcripts set to ASU. My goal is to graduate by the time kiddo does in 2012.

Of course things will not be easy. I tried to get my FAFSA application in today, but ran into trouble because I need a federal PIN # for an electronic signature, and when I tried to get one, the system said I had one already, so I checked, and yea, I did, but it was made inactive because it was from back in 2002 when I had applied last. So I am dealing with trying to get that fixed so I can get my application in, but I figure it is going to be like this the whole way.