Reno Your Macbook

**UPDATE: As of December 2019 my macbook is still running strong amid daily abuse. It does need a new battery, but at $80 from OWC that will be small price to pay vs. a brand new machine. After 11 years and a mere $300 in upgrades I simply could not be more impressed with this laptop.

A better-than-new MacBook for under $300

I was about to blow $1,000 + on a brand new Apple laptop because my 13" 2008 MacBook (Aluminum late-2008 unibody model) was running too slow and had been out of hard drive space for years.  I bought the machine used back in 2010, and it had served me well through 3 years of college. But I was sick of waiting around for it to start up, sick of watching the color wheel spin, sick of it freezing up when I was trying to show my newest graphic designs to my coworkers, etc. You know the feeling!

Flash Hard Drive? 8 gb RAM! Heck yeah!

     Thankfully, I discovered a superior option: The Fucking Amazing Upgrade. It's actually super easy. I found a website, MacSales.com. (Oh yeah, and I have zero affiliation with this company!).  Through their manufacturing arm, Other World Computing, these folks sell high-quality, low-cost upgrades perfect for breathing new life into old Apples.
     (I've actually bought new batteries from MacSales.com for years, but I had assumed installing a new hard disk and ram myself was beyond my skill level. I was wrong. It's incredibly easy, particularly on the late-2008 MacBook.)
     I also discovered this particular MacBook processor, a 2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, is a powerful gem no longer made, and has many thousands of other happy users like me almost a decade after they rolled off the factory line, (imagine getting that kind of life out of PC!). So this CPU was further reason to upgrade, rather than buying new, or even buying used/refurbished, which I also considered. The screen is also perfect still, tight, no worn hinges, and most importantly, no dead pixels.

     They even have a video tutorial (with written guides too) specifically for the late '08 MacBook.
After reading the hundreds of positive reviews about the upgrade package I took the plunge.
     I ordered their 480 gb Solid-State Flash Drive plus two new 4gb DDR3 RAM chips. I ordered the kit which comes with an handy enclosure case so you can turn your old hard drive into a handy backup external that already has all your files on it. The kit comes with the tiny special screw drivers you need.

     (I also ordered a new battery and a new AC adapter with a longer cord, something I've always wanted. Plus it's invaluable to have a spare that you always keep in your backpack. Is there anything worse than running out of juice with no charger (right before you press send on that important work email!)
     I was nervous about the 8gb of RAM because when I called Apple they gave me the DENIAL, insisting that my machine could only handle 4gb of RAM, which was what I had in it already. But the MacSales forum maintains my machine has no problem accepting two 4gb RAM modules (I think Apple Tech Support is full of BS, and is simply trying to get me to fork over my hard earned bread for no reason!). I decided to try maxing to 8 gb RAM. Why the hell not! The worst that could happen is it would just decide to use one chip. If it worked as planned I would have a much, much zippier machine capable of running Adobe Creative Cloud no problemo.
   Closely watch the tutorial video a couple times. Then carefully, slowly proceed. 20 minutes later you will have a brand new machine. Now it was time for the software upgrade. If you live by an Apple store like I do, save yourself the hassle of installation and data transfer. I made an appointment online, and walked in that afternoon. They formatted the Solid State drive, plugged my machine in to their super fast Fiber optic network, and installed the brand new OS 10.11.4, El Capitan way faster than I could at home on my crappy cheap cable modem.
     To transfer or not to transfer?

I wanted to start over, so I only copied files I was currently working on. There's no sense bogging down a fresh new machine with every single old file, including whatever bugs were buried in my millions of files. The other benefit of this is that I started from a clean slate, a wiped hard disk with the newest OS, one that has few complaints, and by this time has most of it's initial kinks worked out.

SO! What's the total price for all this awesomeness? Read and weep:
DIY Upgrade Bundle:
• OWC Express USB 3.0/2.0 + 480GB Mercury Electra 3G Solid-State Drive + 5pc Toolkit . Upgrade, transfer & use original drive as external! Oh hell yeah!
• Limited Warranty: 1 Year OWC on Enclosure; 3 Year OWC on SSD. Whaa??? 3 year warranty? daaammn!
Quantity: 1
Price: $207.50 NOW only $187!!!!

Item:  

MAX YOUR RAM 
 (While 8gb is not ideal for doing a ton of video editing, for most graphic design/Photoshop stuff it's totally adequate).
• 8.0GB (2x 4GB) PC8500 DDR3 1066MHz SO-DIMM Memory Upgrade Kit 
     (fits all MacBook Pro 13", 15", & 17" 2008/2009/2010 'Unibody' models; all MacBook 13"        Unibody; Mac mini 2009 & Later; iMac 2009)
• New, Lifetime Advance Replacement Limited Warranty.
Quantity: 1
Price: $58.00

Sub-Total: $	265.50
Tax: $	0.00
Shipping: $	9.62
Shipping Insurance: $	1.00
Grand-Total: $	276.12

Wow! It's hard to beat this deal. Put the rest of your hard-earned cash towards your early retirement fund and enjoy a machine that runs literally better than new.
     Sold State drives are undeniably faster, more efficient, more reliable than ATA drives, plus they have no moving parts, so less risk of losing your data from accidentally dropping, or whacking the laptop. I was truly blown away by the instant increase in start up time, down from about a minute or longer on my old MacBook to less than 10 seconds on the new SSD upgrade. It is much faster running multiple apps, and coupled with maxing the RAM (which worked flawlessly, btw). Even as I type this I have open the newest version of Word, iTunes, Photo Shop CC, Messenger, Preview, Text Edit, VLC, Firefox, and Chrome.
     This upgrade is a no-brainer for those who aren't wealthy, who are environmentally conscious (less waste), or maybe, like me, you just aren't ready to part with all those cool stickers!

The Art of Quitting

Giving up is easy. I do it all the time. I’ve made profession of giving up. Jobs, relationships, colleges, you name it, I’ve thrown in the towel. I’m quite successful really. But I won’t lie. It hasn’t been easy. They funny thing about giving up is it gets easier with practice. Try it, I promise. But it gets lonely too, up here at the top.
      It started with tae kwan do. I got my yellow belt then used it try and hang myself with. This was much more satisfying than pretending to beat people up. I had no patience for such things.
Then there was baseball, then wrestling; even drawing and guitar lessons- all of these I loathed and grew weary of within a few weeks. 

     School itself was next on my list, but I feared the wrath of my teachers more than anything, more than god, more than my mom. So I suffered through it, mostly I stared out the window at the rooftop chimneys and the blue clouds, and dreamed of the day when I could graduate and find more important things to quit.

     The first thing of any significance was my sole collegiate goal: film school in Canada, at the prestigious Vancouver Film School. This dream fell quite swiftly under the pitying gaze of my girlfriend's father. 

     Though I loved her, the three hundred miles between us proved an ocean, so I gave her up. But wait, there was more to look forward to. There was a year and a half of horticultural school to bail on, high paying graphic design jobs to turn down, ground floor interior design jobs to walk out on, and valuable collectors items to pawn. 

     In this life, the options for self-improvement are limitless, and I won't give up till the curtains fall.