New laptop

No, I didn’t buy a new laptop. I’m going to hold on until Apple decides to smart up and release a 12″ MacBook Pro… Besides, my little 12″ Powerbook G4 is still holding up great and I just got a new battery for it. But I can’t deny that the poor thing is now over three years old and feeling very sluggish at times. I confess that I expect a lot from my computers. I’m a bit multitasker and have always about ten different programs running and twenty windows open. It was about time to upgrade it a bit and get it ready for the new cat.

I finally bit the bullet and after some research on the internet, went out today and bought 1 gigabyte of RAM and a faster hard drive. This means my laptop will jump from 512 mb to 1.25 gb  of RAM and from 60 gb 4400 rpm to 100gb 7200 rpm. I replaced the memory myself – or rather, Alan did it for me – since it was pretty straightforward. I also backed up my HD in preparation for its replacement some time this week. I won’t do it myself since the task seems a lot more demanding; I’ll bring it to an authorized Apple dealer.

But let me tell you – just adding more memory made the computer noticeably faster. Can’t wait until I can get Leopard on it…

Saturday walking

We had a beautiful Fall day today. The air was cool and brisk, the sun was warm… On our way to Kensington, Alan remarked that it was probably as cold today (around 8-10 degrees this morning) as it ever got in the winter in Barcelona.

We spent a couple of hours at our favourite café at the market, watching the world go by and chatting with our friends Mel and Janine. After the market, we hit the computer stores where I played with the new iPod Touch (soooo cool), bought more memory and a new HD for my trusty laptop, and waited for Janine to get a new external drive.

Janine and I went off shopping while Alan went home. We were just going to go to the grocery store but made a little detour in search for the perfect hat for Janine… We both resisted bravely spending 300$ for new coats at Benetton – we tried the coats on for about half an hour; can’t believe we managed to walk out without buying them – and survived almost unscathed from the depths of H&M and Le Chateau, where Janine finally found the perfect hat. After a very so-so lunch at Spring Rolls (it escapes me why that place is so popular; the food is really not that great), we finally hit the grocery store, where I bought some nice coho salmon fillets, some pesto, and fresh pasta for dinner tonight. This is how it turned out:

It was sooooo good and the whole meal took about 10 mins to prepare (the salad was left over from yesterday)…