About my computers

On this page you can find some information and specifications of my computers and peripheral devices.

Desktop: iMac

I got myself an Apple iMac (early 2008 model) in October 2008 to replace my PC that fried its main board a year and a half earlier. It took some time, but I was in no particular hurry since the MacBook below — tethered to external monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers — did a fair job in the mean time. I opted for the 24"/2.8GHz configuration with a 500 GB hard disk drive. The other features are default, except for the memory which I doubled right upon arrival.

CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E8235 (2.8 GHz, 6 MiB L2 cache)
Memory 2 × 2048 MiB DDR2 800 MHz (Dual Channel)
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro (256 MiB DDR3)
Monitor 24" wide screen TFT panel (1920×1200)
Sound Stereo speakers and mono microphone
Combined analog/digital in, combined analog/digital out
Web cam Apple iSight (640×480, 30 fps)
Wi-Fi Apple AirPort Extreme (802.11a/b/g/n)
Hard disk drive Western Digital Caviar 500 GB (7200 rpm, 16 MB cache)
Optical drive Apple SuperDrive (Dual Layer DVD+/-R(W), slot loading)
Operating system Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.2)

Laptop: MacBook

In February 2007, I purchased an Apple MacBook (late 2006 model) to replace my Packard Bell laptop. It has also served as my desktop computer until I bought the iMac above, since not long after the MacBook arrived, my PC committed suicide. I bought the white 2.0 GHz version, with 1 GiB of memory and a 80 GB hard disk drive. Later, I expanded the memory to 2 GiB and replaced the hard disk drive with a 250 GB model.

CPU Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.0 GHz, 4 MiB L2 cache)
Memory 2 × 1024 MiB DDR2 667 MHz (Dual Channel)
Graphics Intel GMA950 (on-board, 64 MiB shared)
Monitor 13.3" wide screen TFT panel (1280×800)
Sound Stereo speakers and mono microphone
Combined analog/digital in, combined analog/digital out
Web cam Apple iSight (640×480, 30 fps)
Wi-Fi Apple AirPort Extreme (802.11a/b/g/n)
Hard disk drive Western Digital Scorpio 250 GB (5400 rpm, 8 MB cache)
Optical drive Apple SuperDrive (Dual Layer DVD+/-R(W), slot loading)
Operating system Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.2)

Virtual Private Server

Since October 2008, this web site runs on a virtual private server (VPS). Virtual means that it is a complete machine, but virtualized, somewhat like VMware or VirtualPC (KVM for the technically savvy). So I can use pretty much any OS I like, I have root access to that OS, in other words, I can make it do anything I want, just like a physical machine, but at a fraction of the cost.

CPU Shared, 2.3 GHz (effectively ½ dedicated core)
Memory 1 GiB guaranteed
Hard disk space 25 GiB
Data transfer 50 GB/month
Operating system Debian Linux Etch (4.0)
Extra Own IPv4 address and a 64 bit IPv6 range

Peripherals

These are the devices that I use often or that are connected to my iMac most of the time:

Router/WiFi AP Apple Airport Extreme base station (802.11a/b/g/n)
Backup drive Western Digital My Book Studio 1 TB (7200 rpm, USB 2.0, Firewire 400/800, eSATA)
Speakers Creative GigaWorks T20 (2.0)
Keyboards Aluminum Apple Keyboard
Aluminum Apple Wireless Keyboard
Mouse Logitech MX Revolution Wireless Laser Mouse
Graphics tablet Wacom Bamboo USB
Phone/Media player Apple iPhone 3G (16 GB, white, OS 3.1.2)
Digital camera Panasonic Lumix FX01 (6 MP, 3.6× optical zoom, optical image stabilizer)