The Mac Hardware Rant

Let me first say that I use both Macs and Microsoft.  I tend to prefer Macs because of the ease of use and obvious paucity of the Blue Screen of Death.  My rant today is not about the software.  Oh, no.  I shall be criticizing Apple's incredibly stupid policy of making every piece of hardware incompatible with standard components.  Well, I'm sure its not stupid for Apple - it allows every compatible piece of equipment to be marked up tremendously.

This week's example is based on my desire to connect my laptop, a January 2010 MacBook Pro, to a HDTV.  My boyfriend, SophistiGamer, had received an new 42" monstrosity/beauty of a TV for Christmas and determined that my small apartment should be the place to house it until we get married.  To those women who say that men never express their trust of their girlfriends, I say that you obviously never had a guy - who was as much in love with gaming and ESPN as he was with you - deposit his new TV at your place. 

So, with this in mind, he bought an HDMI cable for his laptop in order to connect Star Trek Online to the TV.  That idea seemed intriguing and I started doing the research on what cable my Mac would need.  I already knew that I didn't have a standard HDMI port, but surely, something would be around to do the job, right?

No.  Of course not.  Apparently, my laptop has a mini-DisplayPort plug and although their is a mini-DP to HDMI cable, I bought my computer a few months too early for it to work.  MacBook Pros made in April of 2010 have mini-DP ports that support HD video and audio.  Mine simply transfers video.  A separate cable running from the headphone jack to the TV is needed for the audio to work.  That wouldn't be too bad except the TV (and most others) doesn't have a way for you to link up the HDMI input port with a composite audio port in order to use them at the same time. 

Luckily, there is a third-party cable that will fix this problem, but it is $30.  SophistiGamer's HDMI cable is under $5 at Amazon.com.  *considers shoving pencil in mini-DP port instead*

I know what some of you are thinking.  "Why is Overclocked using a Mac to game?"  Its quite simple really.  I'm in grad school.  When I'm not in grad school, I work full-time as a librarian, in a position that has all the work of a librarian, getting paid far less because I lack a Master's Degree.  If you would like to chip into my student loans, I would gladly buy two computers. 

Yeah, didn't think so. 

So, when it comes down to it, the gaming takes a back seat to my work and school needs.  Eventually, I think I will build a desktop, but until then, I will improvise... and silently curse Steve Jobs for his obvious money-making ploy as I watch my boyfriend's Klingon fleet destroy the Feds on the huge HDTV.