How To Build The Mac Of Your Wildest Dreams.

So you’re a Mac user? What’s your Mac? Got more than one? Looking through the Apple Store to see what’s what?

What’s your dream Mac’s specifications? Here’s how to build the Mac of your wildest dreams.

Macs are gaining in popularity among Windows PC users, particularly those dissatisified with Windows, or in love with their iPods, or both.

As a former Windows PC owner (Carol and I still own a PC, but use it to keep burglers out), I can tell you that creating the ultimate Mac is no chore.

Today’s Macs are elegantly styled, as fast as anyone’s PC, and run everything from Mac OS X to Windows to Linux and beyond.

There are no cheap Macs, but your dream Mac shouldn’t be limited to the less espensive corner of your mind.

Assume for a moment that Steve Jobs called you from Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, CA. and offered to give you whatever Mac you wanted.

Name it. Configure it. Load it up. Whatever software you wanted, Steve would make it happen.

What would you get? A MacPro loaded with every option available from the Apple Store online?

Would you deck out a MacBook Pro with gobs of RAM, biggest hard drive, and everything Adobe and Microsoft?

What a great dream. Let’s not kid ourselves.

As much as we can fantasize about Steve’s call, we’re not waiting around, right?

Back to reality but still with a dream. Money is an object. You know what you can afford. What Mac will you buy and why?

For example, I travel plenty. Yes, there’s a Mac at home and I use my 17-inch MacBook Pro even while sitting on the sofa.

On the road it’s me and my Mac so portability is a requirement.

If I had it to do all over again, I’d still go with a 17-inch MacBook Pro, though this time I would wait for the Core 2 Duo chip from Intel.

Using the Apple Store online, I’d do the following (money is an object, but so is long term value):

The base price is $2,799 for a 160 gigabyte hard drive and two gigabytes of RAM. I’d increase the hard drive to 200 gigabtyes for an extra $100.

The MacBook has an option of a 17-inch glossy widescreen display. No thanks. The regular display is better on the eyes for travelers.

I’d then add the USB Modem and the MagSafe Airline Adapter. The grand total is now $2,907.

For me, that’s the newest Mac of my wildest dreams.

Then I asked Carold the same question. She’s a teacher and does plenty of work on her Mac at home so needs are different.

Carol worked her way through Apple’s online store and came up with her best dream scenario.

Screen real estate is important, so Carol chose the 24-inch iMac with Intel’s Core 2 Duo inside, and bumped the RAM to 2 gigs, and the hard drive to 500 gigs.

Total price tag moved to $2,373. She also added NewerTek’s miniStack USB/Firewire hard drive from MacSales for $279.

Her grand total for a dream Mac (within the confines of affordability) was $2,652, about $250 less than what my Road Warrior Mac would cost.

We were both pleased with our selections and dreaming of what it would be like to have the latest and greatest.

Then the trouble began.

The longer I thought about, the more I thought it would be worthwhile to have Windows XP running on my Mac while on the road.

Don’t ask why. Sometimes I buy stuff just because I can and think it would be cool and then never use it again.

Parallels cost another $80 and Windows XP Home was another $210 at CDW. Tack on another $300 and my dream Mac is complete for about $3,200.

Building the Mac of your wildest dreams is easy enough. It’s just a dream, right?

So what Mac would you build? Tell us your dream Mac, then tell us your reaility Mac.