MacBook incident, or how I can be a complete goof!

Karma has bitten me on the ass. In the past, I've often laughed when I heard stories involving unfortunate but avoidable notebook computer accidents! I mean, who spills coffee on a computer?

And the answer to that question would be, me! Sitting outside on the patio, I quite stupidly jostled the table, sloshing about a third of a cup of coffee over my MacBook. I managed to flip it quite quickly, getting rid of most of the mess immediately, powered down the machine and wiped it down, then used an air blower to concentrate the spill into a single corner of the casing.

Once that was picked up, I opened the case to see if any great amount of liquid had made it inside. A little bit had collected in the corner toward which I had directed the spill, so after wiping that down, I left the case open to air dry.

A couple days of drying and I decided to turn it on and cross my fingers. Everything turned on as it should and the only issue are a couple of somewhat sticky/stiff keys (the arrows and the space bar) so I'm pretty confident that no permanent harm was done! I've read a lot of posts online about the corrosive nature of coffee, but I think the greatest danger comes from the possibility of a short on the logic board, as the battery in a MacBook is not exactly easy to remove. It has been my experience, with numerous mobile phones and an assortment of other electronic devices that removing the source of power drastically reduces the chances of permanent damage.

Damn that karma!

And finally, a new Macbook Pro

The moment I had been waiting for has finally arrived. Well, to be precise, the moment happened on the very last day of 2010 (way to stick it to the tax man!). I finally purchased a new computer: a new Macbook Pro 13.

For those that know me, I don't purchase new computers very often. I continued trudging on with a rapidly dying, older generation iMac, then a radically underpowered Asus netbook, as well as using my wife's fairly new iMac. And none of those solutions were truly adequate. My iMac is far too loud (due to a defective HDD temperature sensor) to be used for anything other than basic browsing as well as being a pretty decent, if decidedly noisy, file, web and media server. The netbook is simply far too slow (and running Windows doesn't really help it gain points with me) and my wife's iMac is... my wife's iMac.

I can easily say that my Macbook Pro is by far the best computer I have ever owned, bar none. It is decently fast (faster than anything else we have at home), well equipped (every feature that I could think of and Firewire 800 too) and absolutely beautifully designed and executed. The trackpad alone has completely changed my mind about the concept of trackpads, to the point that I have yet to plug a mouse into it. Multitouch, glass trackpads are simply the way to go, in my opinion.

If you are in the market for a new computer, take a better look at the Macbook Pro line; there might be one in the series that is exactly what you are looking for as your next computer.