Importing my Safari settings into Chrome was simple and fast. In Chrome tabs are located on the top of the window versus below the bookmark bar in Safari. There are other subtle differences that will be easy to adjust to as time goes by.

EDIT: Chrome imported all bookmarks from Safari but without my folder organization. Import order was as if folders did not exist, not alphabetically. This will make it easier to re-establish some kind of organization. Using six extensions with Chrome does seem to slow initial launch down a few seconds until google reader and gmail indications load, still not a decision to use deal breaker.

More details under my About tab.

It was suggested that I could take the iMac into a different authorized service provider in order to get an upgraded hard drive replacement. I did email and call the two local non-Apple authorized service providers but got no response after multiple tries over a week.

Essentially, that is just too much for me especially with only a 320 GB drive. My flakey internal optical drive appears to my a dirty or bad lens so to replace the internal optical drive would cost $300+. $800 to repair an over 3 year old computer is too high, so I opted for complete replacement – 27” iMac i7. Once I get my new computer up and running then I will buy a 1 TB drive from OWC for the 20” iMac and replace it myself.

I briefly asked an Apple Genius a few weeks ago what the cost would be to replace the internal hard drive to a 500 GB model. After some confusion on their part not understanding what model I was describing and that I have NO warranty, I was told over $500. I made an official Genius appointment for tomorrow in order to ask about this in detail. Additionally, the internal optical drive is flakey. The drive does not always recognize disks, usually DVD movies I get from Netflix.

Next week after I receive my 27” iMac i7, I will replace the hard drive in my 20” iMac myself. There is plenty of videos and HD pictures available. OWC has 1TB drives for under $100 plus a tool kit. Since I was a tech in the military, taking apart the iMac is not too much of a hassle after watching some video procedures.

After a hard restart I checked MacFixIt for any suggestions. I downloaded the combo update directly from Apple (668 MB). Install of the Mac OS X 10.5.6 update work as expected.

SETI@home
Rosetta@home
Einstein@home

I added 3 more projects a few weeks ago. Mainly due to a lot of down time on my other projects from maintenance issues. I added:

Malariacontrol.net
ABC@home
SZTAKI Desktop Grid

These projects are running on 4 different computers that I own. Two of the computers are older and are dedicated to only running BOINC.

If you have available computing time and power download the BOINC client and support a project that could find extraterrestrials with SETI@home or cure some human disease with Rosetta@home.

I will seriously consider an new 24″ iMac in Jan 2008 after MacWorld and of course it will come with 10.5 Leopard. I am a die hard Mac user and don’t see the need to upgrade every six months. I do not consider my self an early adopter when it comes to most products mainly due to financial reasons.

I have been an Apple computer user since the late 1970′s and an owner since the mid 1990′s. The first computer I used was an Apple II plus. I still own this computer, rescued from my mother’s garage. The first computer that I purchased for myself was an Apple Power Macintosh 7100/66 AV. I still own this. I guess I am starting a Mac collection museum.