Hi, I’m Mac

Meet my Macbook Pro. It’s great. And no I would not say I have made a changeover. It’s more accurate to say that I have expanded my horizons. I’ve been a Windows user since 3.1 and have been on one side of the OS argument to the other. Now I stand in the middle because my utilization of both OS is split 50/50. In the working world I have to use Windows because everyone just uses it. Anything multimedia or web development - I use my Mac because it’s better at it. It makes for a heavier backpack, but I like balance in life.

So onto the MBP. I like the machine because design-wise it’s beauty in simplicity. Even unboxing it is an event in itself. I’ve never seen so much thought put into packaging. The laptop construction itself is functional, sleek, and cool. The metal casing caught my eye first, large glossy screen (15″) second, glowing Apple on the lid third (love shameless advertisements), and finally the glowing keyboard (love typing in the dark on this thing). The speakers are pretty good compared with the other laptops I’ve used (IBM Thinkpads, Toshiba Tecras, Gateways, and HPs). And the touchpad is pure real estate as it is ginormous (yah I said it Christen) compared to other laptop/notebook touchpads. I find my fingers always running over the edges on other machines and wanting to use the two-finger scroll function all the time.

Mac OS X is a joy to use. Visually pleasing in both layout and animation… and pretty easy to get a hang of. It took me about 2-3 days to get comfortable with its user interface. I occassionally miss Windows Explorer but that feeling is soon squashed as soon as I use Exposé or the Dock. I quickly delved right into using iPhoto, iMovie, and iDvd to create a DVD comprised of photos and video from our company outing. It resulted in a presentation with unexpected quality and elicited “oohs” and “ahhs” from friends and collegues (no more Movie Maker and Photo Story for me). iChat has made instant messaging a tool I want to use again - easily helping me video chat with friends I haven’t spoken to in a while or who can’t type because they’re busy holding their kids.

Bad points? Heat - this baby does get a little warm. I won’t go into details since it’s been overly documented on other websites I’ve seen. However once in a while I think the casing on the left-side expands from the heat. I haven’t noticed it in a while and haven’t been able to confirm it. Be assured if it’s true I’ll let you know. I definitely stray away from putting it on my lap since the heat makes it uncomfortable. OS X froze a couple times when trying to wake it up from sleep mode. I’ve had to use Force Quit 3 or 4 times using a free FTP client (whaddya expect for free). Other than that it has been clean sailing. Sorry Bill, I like not fearing the inevitable BSOD.