You'd think after a winter in Schenectady, NY that I'd never want to see another flurry of snow. Unfortunately, last winter it was just unbearably cold and we had very little snow. This winter... hasn't really been much of a winter to me. I've mentioned it in passing before but I think it means more than just "it's not cold here." Every winter previously has been cold enough to make me excited for the spring after it. There is a certain feeling that comes with the spring in Philadelphia and I'm not too sure if it exists here. Thus, I will be visiting and March so I can steal the spring feeling without enduring the winter. I wasn't ready to come home for the holidays but I can feel it in the distance. I miss the snow and I miss my friends and I need to come home so I can explain what an awesome time I've been having (and rub the nice weather in as well).

Today's been pretty strange. I got up early to go to the Apple Store for my Mac mini and about two blocks from the store I checked my wallet for some reason and my check card was gone. After walking back to the apartment and checking around and cursing for a few minutes, I went off to the bank to deposit a check and get a new card. After letting the teller know that I had lost it sometime between last night when I used it at the ATM outside the back and this morning, he had someone check the inward-facing part of the ATM and amazingly, it was there. Not only is it *so* strange that I left it there but the ATM must be smart enough to suck the card in if it's not taken out after a period of time. Thank you, whoever came up with that feature. VERY relieved, I finally got to the Apple Store 40 minutes after I was originally intending to and quickly got my mac. More RAM is a necessity (both in my general opinion and after experiencing a mini with 256mb today) and I wanted an airport card but the guy said that it would have to stay at the store until 6PM for them to install it and I wasn't really willing to do that. I recall reading a rumor that the PC2700 RAM that's supposed to come with the machine was in short supply and they were using faster RAM that was simply used at the PC2700 rate (machine limitation, not software based) and it's true. My mac has a stick of 256mb PC3200. I was thinking of swapping the 512 that I have in my PC until I get more (from anywhere cheaper than Apple) but then I attempted to open the mac as per this video. However, I don't have a putty knife or anything of similarly thin-but-strong material and I was not ready to take the screwdriver to it for fear or destroying the perdyness of my macs underside. I'm still building up the courage and trying to find something putty-knife-like.

Update: I managed to swap that RAM out and the mini is running flawlessly. The PC starts up with 256mb RAM but I think I like it better when it's off. How did I pop open the case for the mini, you ask? Never underestimate the power of the pizza cutter. Just one warning though, when you're putting the case back on the mini, make sure to try to snap the back (the one with the ports) in to the top first. Otherwise, you might bend some tiny metal bits (nothing electronic).

Previously, I had a couple of apps open and my free memory hovered around 4 to 6mb. You can imagine the kind of swapping that was going on. With the upgrade to 512mb, I've got 7 apps open, none too intense and not including the finder, and 160mb free. Firefox doesn't even have any pages loaded and it's at 40mb. Jamison has been preaching Safari-over-Firefox ever since I met him and now I understand why. Firefox is clearly the better browser on Windows but this is not true on the Mac. Safari is more responsive and less hoggish. I can't wait to see the updates for it in 10.4