Ariel during her unboxing.

 

About

Ariel is my day-to-day, primary computer. Acquired on October 29, 2008, Ariel essentially replaced my aging PowerBook G4 Natalie. I had a 25 day fling with Iris 1.0 and Iris 2.0, 2 MacBook Pros that were good, but I truly wanted to wait for the October 14th refresh. Being within the 14-day return policy, I did what any normal Mac user would do: returned the machine and replaced it with the newest model.

 

Ariel, Close Up

 

Ariel is the first computer, of any kind, that I bought right when the model was released. Even when I was building custom Windows and Linux boxen, I would always wait a few months to see if there were kinks. I knew, deep down, that I wanted Ariel the second I laid hands on a new MacBook Pro.

The name Ariel is related to one of my favorite Disney princesses, Ariel the Little Mermaid.

In an effort to bring myself back to being a well-rounded individual, Ariel has had Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit installed via BootCamp (also accessible through VMware Fusion) so that I may learn the operating system. Even as Windows 7 begins being talked about, many of the technologies of the coming OS are built on top of the foundation Vista has created. It needs to be learned.

Ariel is also my premier gaming platform. Between games being released directly for the Mac, such as Blizzard’s titles, she also runs a slew of games through Steam (in combination with CrossOver Mac), on Vista, and through console emulators.

Future upgrades will include a RAM upgrade to either 4GB or 6GB and a possible hard drive upgrade to 500GB+. It will be until early 2009 before either of those happen.

Hardware Configuration

Model
Apple MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2008) (MB470LL/A)

Processor
Intel P8600 Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz

Optical Drive
LG Electronics HL-DT-ST GS21N DVD±RW DL SATA

Display / Video Card
15.4″ 1400×900
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M DDR3 256MB shared
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT DDR3 256MB

RAM / Internal Hard Drive
2GB PC3-8500
Hitachi HTS543225L9SA02 250GB SATA

External Devices
Apple iPhone
Acer X203W LCD Monitor

Input Devices
Apple Wired Keyboard
Apple Remote
Logitech V470 Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks

Software

Operating Systems
Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard”
Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 32-bit

Applications
Productivity
Apple iWork ‘08
Microsoft Office 2007
Microsoft Office for Mac 2008
OpenOffice.org 3.0 (Linux)

Digital Life
Adobe Creative Suite 3
Apple Aperture 2
Apple iLife ‘08
Apple QuickTime Pro 7
Techspansion VisualHub

Technical
Apple Remote Desktop 3
Apple XCode 3
CodeWeavers CrossOver Mac
SheepShaver
VMware Fusion 2

Virtual Machines

BeOS
Haiku OS (nightly build)

Linux
Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition x86-64
Ubuntu 8.10 Server Edition x86-64

Microsoft
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit (Boot Camp volume)
Windows XP Professional SP3