Something odd happened this past Saturday. It was like I was on a different planet.
I ordered a Dell.

My recent experience with my little Acer netbook and
Ubuntu got me to thinking that I could use a PC running Ubuntu at home for a desktop. I probably could have.
Dell had an awesome deal with one of the little Vostro's with a decent monitor. I went on the web and ordered. I thought the deal included free shipping and kept thinking it was going to be shown on one of the later pages of the ordering process. It never did. I finally figured out that I was DIW (doing it wrong) but it was too late. There's no way to modify or cancel an order on the Dell website (which is stupid). OK fine, I'll call them up. Nope... can't do that on Saturday. Monday morning I navigated the phone maze and dealt with some really helpful people that had no problem canceling my order and making a new one. I thought the price they quoted me for the new order was before tax so the numbers made sense. I ran the same deal through the web site again and it was $30 less. Two days and many emails later I finally got the explanation that they couldn't do the same deals on the phone that are on the web (which is also stupid). They offered to cancel my order and call it quits. I took them up on it.
Wow... that was close.
Really... what was I doing? Was I really wanting to find something that works almost as well as iTunes for filling my iPod with the latest episodes of the
Rowdy Racing and
Skeptoid podcasts? Was I really going to find something that would let me manage my photos as mindlessly as iPhoto? Was I going to find all the apps that do what I just normally do on the computer at home without having to think too much about how I'll do it? Did I really want to abandon my Mac heritage dating back to 1986 or so? After I got my wits back about me I went straight to the mall after work at picked up a new
White MacBook.
I'd been looking at the Mac Mini's and some of the other new laptops for about a year now. I've almost jumped on the new Mini several times. However once you bump the memory up on it you're getting back up there in $$$. I figured I'd go ahead and get the recently updated MacBook. It's a zippy little box with plenty of features (and upgrading the memory in it is probably easier than upgrading it in the Mini). I'll probably use it mostly as a desktop machine but it's nice to have the portability option. It's been a breeze to set up and I'm getting a kick out of the built-in camera and the apps that use. Apple just has a good knack of doing neat things in an easy manner. I can't complain.
I still love my little Acer netbook. It's great to have a little lightweight (and inexpensive) lappy to take with you on the go. Ubuntu does most anything I need to do with it... I just now realize that as great as Ubuntu is I'm still not ready for it as my home desktop.
It's nice to be able to finally see what I'm typing while I'm typing it. The last upgrades to Firefox and Safari were making that a bit difficult on my old G4.
... and I'm glad I'm keeping my family :)
UPDATE 6/10/09
I actually took the white MacBook back and got the new bottom of the line
MacBook Pro that was announced this past Monday. It's basically the 13" unibody MacBook with a speed bump and firewire added back. They dropped the price though and made it worth it to me. It's just plain pretty.