What would be the cheapest way for me to get a new Mac?

Would it be with my ADC student membership? Or would it be with the standard student discount?

The ADC Store offers this configuration:

• 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2×2GB
• 250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
• SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• None
• Backlit Keyboard (English) / User’s Guide
• iWork ‘09 preinstalled
• None
• None
• None
• None
• None
• None
• Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter
• None
• None
• None
• None
• AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook / MacBook Air / 13″ MacBook Pro - Auto-enroll

For $1,668.00. The bold items are custom selections.

I can get the same thing from the Apple Education Store for $1,721.00, but the student version comes with a free iPod touch ($219 value) and printer ($99 value) after mail-in rebate. Let’s value the hassle of turning in the mail-in rebates at a negative $99. And let’s say I wanted that iPod touch, or in other words, it’s worth $219 to me. $1,721 = $219 = $1,502, which is $166 less than the ADC offer.

For a 13″ MacBook Pro, I’d get it from the standard student store. For USC Trojans, that means www.apple.com/edu/trojans - you can get your student discount online by ordering directly from Apple’s website there.

Note that part of the difference is caused byt he AppleCare Protection Plan. It costs $249 from ADC members, but only $183 for students: a difference of $66 in favor of the standard student discount.

How about the 15″ models? I think the 15″ screen size is really the ideal balance between portability and weight, so let’s see how things stack up:

2.53GHz: $1,529.00 - $1,599.00 -> $70

2.66GHz: $1,599.00 - $1,849.00 -> $250

2.8GHz: $1,839.00 - $2,099.00 -> $260

The ADC Student Membership cost $99, so perhaps the two higher-end models could make sense.

Did humans and dinosaurs live at the same time? Why or why not?

Evolutionary biologists supposedly are debating how the Coelacanth fits into the evolutionary chain. Seems like a tight fit. They can always figure out a way to make it work, but it seems like it might be a stretch…

SVN Letter Codes

U
Working file was updated
G
Changes on the repo were automatically merged into the working copy
M
Working copy is modified
C
This file conflicts with the version in the repo (see Conflicts below)

?
This file is not under version control
!
This file is under version control but is missing or incomplete

A
This file will be added to version control (after commit)
A +
This file will be moved (after commit)
D
This file will be deleted (after commit)

Source

If you copy a Localizable.strings file from one project to another and it turns into gibberish (lots of question marks), change the File Encoding to Unicode (UTF-16).

Also, if you’re using Core Location and you get an error about CLLocationManagerDelegate not being found, add this line to your ProjectName_Prefix.pch file:

#import <CoreLocation/CoreLocation.h>

One of my favorite blogs to read is The Simple Dollar. Today I downloaded his free eBook, verbosely titled Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page. He makes many great points, but one I really like is: “Improve yourself in your spare time.”

“If you have a job that requires some speci?c skills, ?nd ways to improve those in your spare time as well. Keep up to date on your speci?c area of knowledge. Learn what you would need to know to take the next step in your career.”

I have so much to learn. What’s holding me back? I just need to focus and do more.

My sister hadn’t seen Iron Man yet, so we watched it yesterday. Yinsen is one of my favorite characters. One inspiring part of the movie comes when Yinsen is about to die. His last words are:

“Don’t waste it. Don’t waste your life, Stark.”

Every minute counts. Even (or especially) when you’re unemployed. The present moment is your best opportunity.

Make it happen.