I am running CE on an old G3/266MHz, bought 6 years ago but now, I see, for sale here and there at just $99. Time, perhaps, to move up, invest some $$$ in a new Mac. But which one: the much faster (but no doubt end-of-the-line) G4, enabling me to keep CE, which is such a joy, or the tremendously faster G5 whose 64 bits are, as the drone in the Apple store (egotistical Gen Y guy who, strangely enough, seemed quite uninterested in my situation or money) repeated to me, "the future of personal computing" but which means migrating to a new portfolio of apps. I am not a graphics person, just a writer who has to surf and mail, mostly. No iPod to feed, and I still shoot and develop my own film. So, beyond the promised land of X, the main allure of the G5 is my amateur interest in editing video. As a writer, I sometimes think I would do best with a slow, non-Net computer, one that would enable me to write but not offer to distract me so, but actually I do need the Web to do my job as a computer journalist. Anyway, I am just tossing this out, wondering if anyone else here has the same problem to solve, has heard if the G4 will ever get faster than it is today (unlikely, seems to me; my friend in the store tossed me another pre-canned answer: "I can't speculate about unannounced products" -- just the kind of talk I used to hear from IBM execs for years.) Has anyone heard rumours about faster G4s on the way? I see they used to have a 1.4GHz chip, but it has been pulled. Apple's no different than any other computer company in using pricing and features and incompatabilities to hustle its customers forward, ever forward -- which, yes, more than ever, it must, to remain even marginally profitable. Frankly, though I've only played with it a little in the store, OS X strikes me as a vast playground, full of glittery, candy-colored knobs and buttons, too shiny and sparkly for its own good. I am sure, technically speaking, that underneath the gee-whiz facade it has much to offer that is solid computing function. I am sure I could live with it, if I chose to. But it is remarkably glitzy compared to its immediate predecessor. I know I'm not the first to observe this.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%% John W. Verity So. Orange, NJ 973-763-1241 ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
