I'm one step closer to getting the Linux install off my PowerBook.
We ordered a hard drive enclosure that does firewire and USB a couple of weeks ago when Mark ordered new RAM for his flailing desktop. Last night I made my first bootable clone on the external drive and then tested it for bootability before installing the batch of updates that contained the recent security update 2005-007 (since it seemed to be giving people fits). So far, so good.
Cloning my OS X partition was the next step in my quest to remove the yaboot prompts that seem to slow startup considerably. Since just about everything I wanted to do with Linux works better under OS X, there is really no point in wasting half the hard drive with an operating system that I'm not gonna use. It was primarily installed in a fit of frustration with the broken SMB stuff in 10.4, which may have been partly my fault in mistaking the IP address of the our home media server (Oops).
I'm really liking all the cool applications that come with the OS on the mac. Like iPhoto. And iTunes (now that I know how to use it to encode mp3s). I'm filling up the Dashboard with nifty things like a Google Maps widget and countdowns for movies like HP4 and Serenity. I'm still using Firefox but now that I know Safari does tabbed browsing, I may give it another shot. Adium is my absolute favorite IM client to date. I wish I could use it on Windows (for work), as its UI customization settings have blown away Gaim.
Congratulations, Jonathan. While I may never be a mac zealot, I'm definitely leaning toward it as my platform of choice and am grateful for the opportunity to add another OS to my geek fu.
