markh’s posterous

jenn's old hp laptop died, so i decided to take the plunge and buy a macbook 13" (the new aluminum one) to replace it for her. it cost 2x as much, but all of my friends say it's worth it, so i'm giving it a shot. (i used to be a big mac guy, but gave them up during the Clone Wars of the late 90s. my path back? ipod shuffle -> ipod nano -> iphone -> macbook. ipods are the gateway drugs to macbooks).

so here are a first initial reactions. i'm logging this for two reasons: 1) to remind myself what life is like for someone brand new to your service or program, and 2) to piss off my dear friend albert poon, aka the Jim Jones of appledom. :)

first problem. i can't figure out how to turn it on. no, really. can't find the power button. oh, there it is. so smooth and subtle, i miss it. i push the power button. nothing. i push it again. nothing. i hold it down. nothing. i yell over the cube? how do you turn it on? "bwaaaa" the startup noise finally responds and it starts up.

nice fancypants graphic video at the beginning says welcome in a bunch of languages. wow, get over your nice work with babelfish. show me what this puppy can do.

i get involved with new computer reg, etc. definitely faster than windows, and not technically freaky. that's good. i'm not scared.

second part. it's really hard to use this trackpad. i hate the doubleclick. can't i just tap the trackpad once for what i want? or what about using a keyboard shortcut? i want to migrate to apple os, but you're forcing me to learn a new way of doing things. not easy for an old windows guy, but i'll get there. ("you need to get over your bad habits" i hear albert saying).

i want to move files from my windows machine to the laptop. how do i do that? i try getting the mac to read my laptop on the network. i make my windows machine as visible as possible (max sharing). macbook can't find it on network. i try ad hoc wireless connection. computers connect, but alas can't see files. i try an "smb connection" that i learned about on the web. permissions blocked. i search the web for answers. about 20 posts with people having the same problem. no one with an authoritative answer other than "crossover cable". i successfully connect with bluetooth! yay but only lets me do individual files at a time (no folders). boo. i don't have a crossover cable, so i have to wait to connect to an intermediary hard drive to transfer. boo. migration hard.

it's such a pain to have to close this window trail left behind by everything i click. i faintly remember a keyboard shortcut to solve that problem, but until then, i'm in click hell to keep things clean and neat.

i like the taskbar at the bottom. that's kind of cool. bouncing icons are fun.

i install iwork 09. superfast. nice. can't wait to check that out.

i install boxee. wow this is neat. slick interface for getting video content. nice work boxee. let's listen to flo-rida, because why not? whoops hard core crash. i can't escape anything now. "you spin me right round" i can't control quit. is there a magic key combo to get it to force a close of the program? "spin you right round when you go down" i don't know it. what do i do to get out of this? somebody stop flo-rida!

hold the power down and force a shutdown of the computer. well, at least one thing works exactly the same on the mac as the pc.

ok, i'm truthfully eager to try out garage band, get bootcamp set up, get it hooked up to my home media server, try out time capsule, etc. will take me some time to figure out how to navigate, what i can actually do with the computer, get portable more easily, etc. it's hard shifting to a new world. thought it'd be easier. will be interesting to see how much easier it is for jenn to switch. the true test? will jack be able to make the switch...

stay tuned.