It is starting to feel like the "Pro" is actually more of a consumer toy for gaming and messing with Facebook rather than a real professional machine.

I need to buy a new laptop today. For development, not to play games. The unix underpinning of MacOS always made their machines attractive, expensive, but attractive nonetheless.

I'll go visit the Apple store and see but it is starting to look like it'll be a waste of time. It looks like I'll make a detour over to Best Buy and get one of the high end HP laptops with 17 inch screen, full keyboard, lots of ports, etc.

I can then install VMWare Workstation with Ubuntu Desktop. Add another couple of VM with Ubuntu Server, run them all at once in a virtual network to simulate application and DB servers and develop on Linux.

Done deal. Probably half the money. With what's left over I can go buy that TIG welder I've been eyeballing.