A couple months ago I asked if people wanted to gift me money to buy a laptop, and besides a tweet or two I haven’t written an update on what happened. It went super well!
In a couple days we were around 85% of the €1350 goal, and a few days later we were at 100%.
I’m super thankful to everyone who contributed financially, and to everyone who had nice words about my work on Firefox DevTools. Special thanks to Harald Kirschner, your compliments make me blush and I’m definitely putting you up as a reference on my CV!
Another special thanks goes out to Jan Odvarko, who asked Mozilla if they had a used laptop lying around. Turns out they did! So in September I got a package from Mozilla Paris with a 15″ 2017 Macbook Pro. Thanks a bunch folks!
We also got a second cat, pictured above. Quad-paw 4.1 Megafloof cuddler, very little memory. (Not a replacement for first cat.)
So what am I doing with the money? I’m still buying a laptop, as intended. Because I’m finishing my current contract and returning the work computers we’ve been using at home since this summer, we’ll need a second computer.
The 2017 MBP is great, but its keyboard has Sticky Key Syndrome, so for now it can only be used for real work as a desktop (with an external keyboard); there’s a repair program for the butterfly keyboards, but so far it’s been impossible to get an appointment where I live due to the pandemic.
I also wanted something more portable, and hesitated a bit: cheaper Windows or Linux ultrabook, Chromebook, Surface, iPad, Macbook Air maybe? In the end, I followed the news about Apple’s upcoming ARM laptops, and decided to get a new Macbook Air with the M1 chip.
I’m not much of an Apple fan1, but I’m kinda excited about this one. I’m going to try to use it as a work computer and see how it goes, while we try to use the larger MBP for family needs2. It’s probably not the most sensible configuration, but I felt like trying that!