The first round is in and the Warriors may have gotten a gift at #7. Perhaps the Dion Waiters rumors were just a smoke screen to get Cleveland to pick him up at #4 because once that pick came in, it was almost a lock that Barnes would slide to #7. Outside of the Warriors getting Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, this has to be the best possible outcome. They fulfill their biggest need at SF and get an almost certain long time future NBA starter in Barnes. This leaves Dorell Wright on the outs but rumors have been swirling that they were looking to move him, anyway. As for their second pick, Festus Ezeli, not much to say here. Not a huge risk and they get a big body who can hopefully defend and rebound.

A starting five of Curry, Thompson, Barnes, Lee and Bogut has a ton of potential. Only question marks are the health of Curry and Bogut. I see Barnes coming off the bunch at the beginning of the year but towards the end should crack the start line up. Let's hope it's because he's improved his game so much to merit a spot there and not that the Warriors are so out of the running that they want to give him minutes like Klay Thompson last year.

NBA Draft is today. Interesting draft for the Warriors in that it's the first draft with the new brain trust completely in place - Lacob, West and Myers. With two first rounders and two second rounders, the Warriors have options. Their biggest need is SF and there are rumors that they are looking to trade their picks for a veteran SF. Definitely a good deal if they can swing a Rudy Gay or Andre Iguodala. The Wilson Chandler rumors are just crazy talk...

But let's say they do keep the picks, who to get? Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Harrison Barnes are the top two SF's in this class and either one would make an immediate impact. But since they both look likely to be off the board at #7, the most likely option is a project big man in Drummond or there has been talk of trading down and getting Terrence Ross. Another possibility is Dion Waiters who Jerry West is very high on. Problem there is that you would most likely have to slide Klay Thompson over to SF which is not his natural position. Regardless of who they choose, this seems to be a deep draft so whoever they get won't be a totally dud. They may not a future all-star but they'll get a nice serviceable player. But then again, it could be another Anthony Randolph, as well.

My hard drive died about a week ago and I've been in limbo. For all that the iPad can do, it is NOT a laptop replacement. It can do about 80% of the things a laptop can do but that other 20% is pretty darn important.

So if you're counting, this is the 2nd hard drive failure I've had in the last 3 months. Each time I was visited by the infamous click of death (hear below). I decided that the aggravation and loss of productivity was not worth the price-to-storage ratio of the standard platter hard drive. I vowed to never again hear the dreaded clicking of my hard drive failing so I upgraded to an solid state drive. Though these things aren't cheap ($400 versus $100 for 500GB of storage), I figured that it was worth it for a more reliable and faster storage solution. Well I can't speak to the reliability since I've only had the drive running for a few hours but the speed is unbelievable. From pressing the power button to being on the desktop took less than 10 seconds. Mac OS X opens all the previous programs I had open before shut down, so that means I'll have anywhere from 6-9 separate programs that need to open before I can really start working. This process usually took about 3 minutes but with this new drive, I'm ready to go in under 30 seconds. Opening Excel or Word would take 20-30 seconds each but now take less than 5 seconds. There is no way I can ever go back and would actually trade off CPU or RAM upgrades in place of an SSD.

So next time you think your computer is slow, the best thing you can do to speed things up is just get an SSD. The performance improvement is dramatic.

Now that the WWDC Keynote has come and gone, the question I have to ask myself is whether to get the new MacBook Pro 15" with Retina Display. I was hoping that they would release a 13" version but alas, no. Judging by how the internals of the device are a big departure from the "regular" MacBook Pro, I'm thinking a smaller version won't be out any time soon. Plus, Apple is probably trying to differentiate their product lines to basically three classes of laptops - ultra portable, consumer and professional. Looking at the price/specs, there is virtually no reason anyone would buy the non-Retina Display 15" MacBook Pro. For $400 more, you're getting double the memory (+$100), SSD (+$500) and that before mentioned gorgeous Retina Display (besides the fact that it is thinner and lighter, plus has those "hidden" design improvements - quieter fan, stronger construction, etc). But hey, you do get a nice DVD drive on the old MBP that you'll use a handful of times a year.

The bigger question is whether I should upgrade from a 13" to a 15" MacBook Pro, at all. I like the portability of the 13" model but the new MBP is actually slightly less heavy even though it's 15". I'd have to probably get a new bag because the Brenthaven one I have is specifically designed for 13" laptops. Still, $2,199 is more money than I've ever spent on a laptop and I'm having a hard time justifying the cost. If it were $200-$300 less, it would be a no brainer but that psychological $2K number just makes me cringe. Perhaps I should go demo it at the Apple Store first.....................

In a moment of foolish bravery, I turned my Twitter feed to public from private. A few minutes later, this is what I was greeted with...

Thinking someone was replying to my rant about Sleep Train, I clicked on the link and got this.

Oh Internet! You never fail to put me in my place. Twitter feed back to private.