...First second-hand iPod Nano sold in Japan!

About 30 mins after getting new video Nano I sold it for a 200 Yen profit to a friend from work! He liked the colour more than me and I'm going to get the iTouch instead!

First iPod Nano Sold In Japan

First iPod Nano Sold In Japan
Originally uploaded by Billius

So... there I was in the Apple Store in Ginza, Tokyo, when a large trolley appeared with lots of boxes of new iPods...

It was impossible to resist the lure of a new shiny video iPod Nano.. when I went to pay for it they all got excited as it was the first new iPod Nano sold in Japan.

I later heard it was out in Japan before lots of other countries (including I think the USA) so maybe it was the first in the whole world!

Selling SXV M8C Astro CCD

 
Unused Starlight Xpress SXV M8C CCD, Boxed, as new. £600

I gave it a go selling this in Feb - but after rushing it to buyer sale fell through due to lack of funds at his end - being somewhat disorganized and having a lot of other stuff on my plate I have done NOTHING else to sell this since. A recent tidy brought me eye-to-eye with said wrapped parcel - so - lets try this again :)

Note: sold autoguider seperately already.

M8C Was £1200 new direct from Starlight (March 2005)

Crumpler 'Royal Court'

 

... So I sold my LowPro CompuRover AW and got a new Half-Photo Crumpler bag instead.

 

New Laptop, New Laptop-bag

This is the Crumper Belly XL

Original 1000d Chicken Tex Supreme hyper performance accessory fabric. Waterproof ripstop lining.Super strong shoulder straps with two loops for pouch attachment and an adjustable sliding chest strap for fine adjustment. The Dr. Bodenschatz back hugger. 7 smaller internal pockets. Two external side loops for pouch attachments. Fits 15"- 15.4" and 17" laptops.

 
Large main compartment opening for easy access.
 
Weasel proof padded laptop pouch with removable sleeve.
 
Two side pockets; one for waterbottle storage- another with padded pocket for MP3 players or other small electronics.

Run XP at the same time as Mac OS X

 
 
I've just installed Parallels Desktop V3.0 so that I can run XP concurrently with Mac OS X (rather than reboot using BootCamp)

Parallels and BootCamp require a full version of Windows: Vista or XP. Not sure why you'd really want to run Vista as well as Mac OS X... XP is good for compatibility with Windows only programs.

Top-tip:

Don't buy an OEM version of Windows if you want to use Parallels - because XP sees a hardware change with Parallels environment it needs to be re-activated - this can be a problem with the OEM version (some reports of not working - some that they managed it..)

Anyway - all up and running now. You can either swap full-screen into XP, use XP within a window (i.e. make your desktop smaller in XP than in Mac OS X - 800x600) or use the 'Coherent' mode where XP windows become native Mac OS X windows.

A new life awaits you...

 
So there I was, in San Diego, at the Apple Store. My $2 to the £1 burning a hole in my pocket...

I've been considering getting my own 'personal' laptop for sometime. Obviously MacBooks look great - and OS X is pretty cool too - however I still like playing the odd game and there are the odd Windows program that I use (e.g. astronomy stuff) - and I want good graphics performance too - something which XP machines deal with well - Macs less-so.

However the relatively new 15.4" MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz laptop is fast (with that Core 2 Duo Intel core) and also has an Nvidia 8600M GT with 256Mb of dedicated graphics memory. Coupled with 2Gb Ram, in-built iSight camera, Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc....

And as for playing games - easy - I can use the Apple BootCamp beta which allows me to boot into XP instead of OS X.

So... I bought it.

Just loaded up 3dMark06 - and after a slightly cautious install of DirectX 9.0c - it ran pretty damn well.