Been a little busy with week with work and chores this week so I’ve been kinda quiet on the blogfront (well, except for that iPhone post.)
I finally pulled the trigger and bought an Apple; a nice shiny white MacBook from the refurbished department in the Apple online store. I was watching their offerings for a while and as the stock began to dwindle, and a few of my initial choices blipping off the screen, I was getting nervous that I might miss a good opportunity.
Other than some buyers remorse after seeing the store restocked with more options the day after I purchased mine, I think everything turned out just fine. I’m quite happy with what I got and I would have purchased more machine than I really needed if I would have went with one of the fancier models.
So, this my first extended trial with OSX. I’m collaterally familiar with it from tech support for my in-laws, but I’ve never had my own machine to dial in the way I like. First off, its quite refreshing just for the change of pace. After 5 years of Windows XP its just a little stale.
After completing the initial welcome to your computer walk through (including taking my account picture with the built in webcam), it found my wireless internet network setup but couldn’t connect. That’s a good thing actually, because I have it set up to give access only to certain MAC addresses (hadn’t added the MacBooks yet). After configuring my router, it was a pretty simple matter to type in the access key in network setup. It picked up the wired ethernet with no hassles though.
OSX is pretty slick. Sure, there’s a little trouble every now and again trying to figure out how to do some little task or where to configure something (though Spotlight search seems to help in both cases), but that’s to be expected.
Its amazing to see how much detail Apple puts into their operating system. Seemingly silly little graphical details make the user experience a lot nicer. A couple examples:
- When you’re using iChat and your dock is set to autohide mode, the iChat icon still bounces into view when a new message arrives. I like that a lot more than incessant blinking of my windows chat program in the task bar.
- This one is super silly and makes me giggle every time. After you take a picture in Photo Booth, the picture just doesn’t appear in the tray of recent shots, it slides in and drops to the bottom, just like it was sliding out of a real photo processing machine. Geez, I’m such a nerd.
I’m sure I’ll have more little gems like this to post about as I get to mess around more and get a little more comfortable.
So far, I haven’t really enjoyed the portability yet. The MacBook spends most of its time on the desk in my office. It has made a few short trips to the living room and my easy chair. I’m thinking about whiling a few hours in public at a Panera near me that offers free Wi-Fi while enjoying some of their fine baked goods.
That’s a enough rambling for now, I guess. I’m gonna get back to playing.
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