MacBook Pro

Today I purchased a MacBook Pro. Now, I don't normally go out and buy myself crazy extravagant things. And when it comes to computers, I've always been one to build my own. You can get far better value out of a PC if you build your own. The problem with that now is that the PCs are so big. The last one I built I did so with the intention of gaming. And I did do gaming on it. But now-a-days, not so much. So here I have this giant tower of a PC that run amazingly well. (I installed Vista on this when it first came out and didn't have a single issue with it).

For the last few years, I've been doing C# programming. Nothing crazy, just learning and creating a few programs of my own. I am hoping that I can use that to really get into a career that I like...programming. However, there isn't anything I have to show for it. Save for a few little programs that I've done on my own, but big deal. Those aren't selling or anything. I need something to show for my experience. This is where the Mac is going to come into play.

I've been transitioning from C# over to Objective C. Objective C is the language that is used to develop iPhone/Ipod/Ipad apps. You can see where I am going with this. :) I really started thinking about what is really going to help my career advance. I know I want to be in development, but what can I do to really help achieve that? Since I don't have the formal job experience, I need to have something to show for.

I've found very quickly that Objective C is not that much different than .NET C#. In fact, the fundamentals and theories behind all programming is the same. It's really just learning the different syntaxes and stuff like that. So I've been reading books and getting familiar with the language. I've come to the point now where I need to do it. I've been holding out on purchasing one of these for a while, until I felt I really needed to in order to take that next step. The step has been taken.

So now, I am diving head first into Apple app development. I can't really use any Windows platform tools to do this, for obvious reasons. Is this a pricy thing to do just to start creating apps? Absolutely. But, there was more behind this decision than just creating apps. As I said, I was looking for ways to further my career. I was pretty much down to two options. 1) Go back to school or 2) just jump right in. After weighing the cost/risk for each of them, this route overall seemed better.

There will take a lot of determination and focus on my part to make this happen, but having the support of my wife makes it feel so much easier. I love her so much for supporting me with this.

Keep an eye out. I'm going to be spending the first few weeks just really getting familiar with the layout of the computer and xCode, but i'll be having some apps out soon. I'll need some people to give me feedback. :)

Oh, the specs. I got the 17" 2.2 ghz model. No upgrades yet. I'll be doing that soon. Better HD. More ram. But otherwise, the base 17".