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So there’s this iPad thing… I just bought one.

I’ve been throwing around the idea since they came out. In my head it could just be another cool toy to occasionally play with but I’m hoping I can find more value in it than that. I knew I couldn’t just go buy one randomly and be like “wow, I have an iPad… now what?”

I needed to at least make an attempt to justify it to myself. The best I could come up with is to use it to replace my laptop (currently a late 2007 Macbook). I really only use the Macbook when I’m on the couch – checking email, tweeting, some occasional video editing with iMovie. And that’s about it. I do take it with me when I have personal travel (I take my work laptop any other time). But it mainly just sits there on the couch, doing not much of anything. If I have any graphics or photo work to do, I still have a Windows 7 desktop that I use. And that certainly is not going anywhere.

Well with this recent surplus of overtime and other potential bits of income, I figured it was time to look into this iPad thing. I started reading around the internet and a lot of people swore up and down it would not be a laptop replacement. There’s just no way.

Thing is, the iPad is to be used for what you need it for. If all I do with my Macbook is surf the internet, read some news, check email, tweet a bit… then those are things the iPad can handle quite well – and did I mention the games? Ya, it can do those too.

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Just when I thought I got all of my computer problems straightened out…

The “combo drive” (CDRW+DVDROM) in my Macbook decides to shit the bed. OK, so it’s not totally dead – but it makes some awful noises and decides to randomly spit out a disc it’s trying to read. Definitely a drive problem. Does the same thing in Windows. I wasn’t even able to play Starcraft that I installed on it. Just ejects my disc.

eBay to the rescue though. $60 later and I have a replacement drive on the way. This time figured I’d go with a “superdrive” … or what Apple calls a DVD burner. Damn things are expensive.

A new replacement drive is $100+ and some were as high as $200 depending on where you look (iFixit, I’m looking at you). With instructions from iFixit, it shouldn’t be too hard.
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