Recent upgrades

Since my internal hard disk in the Mac mini indicated it was failing two months ago, I switched over to running it off an external hard disk. The internal drive wasn't giving me any problems, but I also wasn't using it. Recently I noticed some strange noises coming from the internal drive so I decided to go ahead and replace it. It seems the best option for the old ATA/100 2.5 inch drives is a 160GB Seagate, so that's what I got. I figured since I was going to have to open up the machine I might as well max it out by getting an 8x dual layer SuperDrive and 1GB of memory (good preparation for upgrading to Leopard as well). I also had to pick up a putty knife to pop the top off.

The upgrade turned out to be both easier and harder than I expected. Getting the top case off was fairly easy, but dealing with the bluetooth and AirPort antennas and the plastic cage that holds the optical drive and hard drive was harder than I expected. Still it didn't take too long and now the mini is running nicely from the internal hard disk.

The other upgrade I did recently was to switch over compact flourescent bulbs from incandescent for most of the lights at home. The 60W and 40W equivalent bulbs work pretty well now (come on instantly, no noise, soft white light). And, they aren't that expensive. A 4 pack was about $7 at Home Depot. This is still more than conventional incandescent bulbs, but the 75% savings on power consumption and longer life end up making them cheaper over the life of the bulb. And less power consumption is better for the environment given that a large percentage of our power is generated from coal power plants.

The only remaining lights that are still not CFL or regular flourescent are two 75W flood lamps on a dimmer switch and a 30/70/100W 3-way bulb in the lamp by the bed. I have yet to find a 3 way CFL that is anything other than 50/100/150W equivalent, which ends up being really huge to be able to put out the top light level. That would be fine except it won't fit in the lamp I have. Dimmable flood CFLs exist as well but it looks like they may not fit exactly in the track light fixture I have.