Slashdot Mirror

I'd take OS X over Windows any day of the week, but by all means, it's your pain.

OptiBay, there are also clones out on eBay.

Hands down the best upgrade I ever made to my MacBook Pro. Plus I got a 100GB SSD in the main spot and then a 640GB traditional drive for the OpticalBay slot.

I don't have anything in my house that takes spinnig media. New machines boot from USB & most major installers support iso loopback (as does grub). TV & Movies are easily provided by through Netflix, iTunes, Usenet, Torrents, etc.

http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

I've been planning to put an SSD in one of these into my MBP for a while.

What you want is available for $99 from a third party.

Replaces the optical drive with a second SATA slot and provides you with a USB caddy for the optical drive you removed. That way you have a big drive for your a data, and an affordable, fast, SSD for the OS and your applications.

http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

I recently added a second hard drive to my 2007 MacBook Pro. Yes, it involved replacing the optical drive but the process was simple and cheap and went without a hitch. http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

This can be achieved with an after-sales service from MCE.

Disclaimer: I am only aware of this service from a search engine result in the past, I have not ordered it, I can't vouch for MCE as reputable dealers, I do not endorse this, and I'm not in an economic area that can avail of this service.

This can be achieved with an after-sales service from MCE.

Disclaimer: I am only aware of this service from a search engine result in the past, I have not ordered it, I can't vouch for MCE as reputable dealers, I do not endorse this, and I'm not in an economic area that can avail of this service.

What I really want can't be provided by Apple... a fast 320GB notebook drive. That would change my life.

What I really want can't be provided by Apple... a fast 320GB notebook drive. That would change my life.

There is something for that:
http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

What it does is move the optical drive to be an external drive and put another notebook hard drive inside. So if you have 2x 160GB drives, you have 320GB right there. I think kicking out the optical drive is a good compromise. The number of occasions that I use one is dwindling quite a bit. Even for movies, I can use an external at home to import it and it's on the hard drive for later use.

http://www.mcetech.com/quickstreamdv/index.html

The MCE QuickStream DV comes with its own Lithium Ion battery. The 360 minute device is about $900.

I'm glad they finally updated their 'Superdrive'. It was getting embarrassingly outdated, when competitors from the PC laptop realm had DVD±RW with DVD-RAM drive drives. I have a Powerbook 15" with the old DVD-R Superdrive and had to admit I was a bit envious that a professor who's new Toshiba laptop had DVD±RW and DVD-RAM drive capabilities. Although, I still feel my Powerbook is better form factor, thinner and enjoy running OS X better than running a Toshiba with XP. I can't figure out why Apple can't offer a DVD-RAM solution as well, like the Toshiba or MCE., being a member of the DVD consortium. I'd be willing to pay an extra $80-$50 to get DVD-RAM capabilities in my next machine. Better than paying MCE $249 for their replacement drive. MCE new drive doesn't have DVD-RAM support but offers DVD-R double layer instead, which makes it a little better than Apple's new Superdrive offering.

I'm glad they finally updated their 'Superdrive'. It was getting embarrassingly outdated, when competitors from the PC laptop realm had DVD±RW with DVD-RAM drive drives. I have a Powerbook 15" with the old DVD-R Superdrive and had to admit I was a bit envious that a professor who's new Toshiba laptop had DVD±RW and DVD-RAM drive capabilities. Although, I still feel my Powerbook is better form factor, thinner and enjoy running OS X better than running a Toshiba with XP. I can't figure out why Apple can't offer a DVD-RAM solution as well, like the Toshiba or MCE., being a member of the DVD consortium. I'd be willing to pay an extra $80-$50 to get DVD-RAM capabilities in my next machine. Better than paying MCE $249 for their replacement drive. MCE new drive doesn't have DVD-RAM support but offers DVD-R double layer instead, which makes it a little better than Apple's new Superdrive offering.

Well, not exactly what you want, but pretty close:
Quickstream DV

Get a DV camera with firewire and this to go with it.

The good folks over at MCE Technologies have something similar. It's basically a firewire hard drive with some circuitry that allows it to control a DV camera. So you can record straight to the drive instead of (or in addition to) tape. If you get a big enough drive, this means you get much more capacity (although, of course, you need to do something with all that footage; you can't just keep buying drives like you can tapes; not yet, at least) and you don't have the extra step of importing footage from the camera to your favorite editing program.

Trouble is, these things are very expensive (although they have some cool extra features, like being ruggedized and mountable on your camera and they guarantee you won't get any dropped frames). Even so, I think they should just put all the logic circuitry into an iPod accessory. It would be smaller and probably cheaper too, and I bet most gadget freaks already have a 40GB iPod that still has 30GB (about 2.5 hours of digital video) available ;-)

I don't own one, so I don't know whether you can just replace the hard drive with a new (and bigger) one.

Actually, this is not quite true. For example, MCE offers internal optical drive upgrades for PowerBooks and iBooks.

Processor upgrades are harder to come by, but Other World Computing offers many different accelerator choices for Macs. I believe the most recent PowerBook you can accelerate is the G3 Pismo which originally came in 400MHz and 500MHz varieties. For $279, you can upgrade it to a 500MHz G4 chip - not too bad. If you happen to have a PowerBook (not an iBook), then you can also upgrade to things like USB 2 via the PCMCIA card slot. So, yes, they're not as upgradeable as desktops. But I'll bet they're more upgradeable than PC laptops - never seen an accelerator for one of those!

Actually, you can upgrade to a superdrive: http://www.mcetech.com/dvdr8xdt-d.html

This isn't the only old Mac that be somewhat upgraded.

Companies like MCETech sell DVDRW drives for the G3 iMac and iBook.

That being said, they do require that you have it installed by either them or an Authorised Repair Center. A list of which can be found here

If you want a third party upgraded laptop, MCE is selling iBooks equipped with DVD-R/CD-R optical drives.

There was another company back in the day who's name skips my mind, but they also sold upgraded Macs until Apple gave them the cease and desist. So I would expect the same thing to happen here eventually.

If your bike is being converted to 12v, see MCE Tech's Auto power adapters, which run about $30.

I'd have to recommend doing a 12v conversion just for your sanity of finding parts on the road. You probably already know that it's not a question of if but when it will break, so try to make it easy on yourself to repair. Maybe even get a list of repair shops along your route before you set out.

The full power adapter requiment of 45 watts is designed to be enough to run the PowerBook and a few Firewire/USB powered accessories, while also charging the battery. If you have the machine sleeping or even powered off while doing highway speeds, you may have enough juice from your alternator to charge it and keep your cycle's battery charged, while running the headlight.

Happy trails!!