03-18-2007, 01:31 PM

I'm going to be purchasing a MacBook Pro for college (it'll be my first mac) and I'm trying to wait until Leopard comes out to purchase it.

I use OSX at my school and I'm comfortable running programs and stuff...but haven't had a chance to really explore and feel confident about troubleshooting on a Mac (networking, hardware/software issues, using it fluently (shortcuts), etc). I want to make sure I'm able to really get to know the OS before I go off to college.

So here's my question... How long it it take you guys to feel 100% comfortable with your MacBook Pro and OSX?

-Ben

03-18-2007, 02:15 PM

Originally Posted by mrmackie305

I'm going to be purchasing a MacBook Pro for college (it'll be my first mac) and I'm trying to wait until Leopard comes out to purchase it.

I use OSX at my school and I'm comfortable running programs and stuff...but haven't had a chance to really explore and feel confident about troubleshooting on a Mac (networking, hardware/software issues, using it fluently (shortcuts), etc). I want to make sure I'm able to really get to know the OS before I go off to college.

So here's my question... How long it it take you guys to feel 100% comfortable with your MacBook Pro and OSX?

-Ben

A couple of weeks and plenty of time lurking in these forums, there's a lot of good and knowledgeable folks here. There are also a ton of FAQs that will get you up to speed quickly.

Fortunately, troubleshooting your Mac is usually a pretty rare necessity. But if you feel inclined to learn the nuts and bolts of the OS, I recommend Running Mac OS X Tiger.

BTW, Leopard is still pretty far off from what I've seen - is there some killer feature that you must have? If not, I recommend buying now and seeing what the hype is about once it's out. For right now, there is little contained within Leopard that can't be had via third-party apps on Tiger. Even if you do feel the need to upgrade immediately, from what I understand, upgrading is a lot more straightforward for OS X than it is with Windows. It usually runs around $129 which seems pretty reasonable compared to other OSes.

03-18-2007, 02:49 PM

To be honest, I got the hang of OS X within a matter of days, thanks especially to these forums and its wonderful members. :black:

I learned all sorts of tricks and tips by reading various threads both here and at other Mac sites. I found lots of cool software that I find hard to believe that I lived without up till now. And best of all, now I actually get to have fun and do work instead of try and figure out why my computer isn't working even though it was just fine an hour ago.

Like cwa107 said, I have yet to actually troubleshoot my Mac. I know it's cliche, but everything just WORKS. I never have to tinker with networking. Don't have to run any scans for spyware/viruses. The only maintenance that needs to be done is getting rid of temp files, which I have scheduled a program called Onyx to do for me (which technically isn't really necessary, but old habits die hard).

03-18-2007, 03:30 PM

Originally Posted by mrmackie305

So here's my question... How long it it take you guys to feel 100% comfortable with your MacBook Pro and OSX?

About as long as it took to open the box it came in (which is not something to be rushed as a user experience in itself!).

Mind you it was my seventh Mac purchase.

Remembering back to my very first Mac (the G4 iMac I'm still using daily) it only took a few hours at most to become comfortable doing everything I used to do on my PCs before that, what has taken longer is in learning all the fabulous new stuff I do now which I never even attempted before, things like audio and video editing. (for example I just spent an hour or so taking the Grand Prix DVD I recorded last night, stripping out the advert breaks and other rubbish then reencoding it for my Motorola mobile phone)

Amen-Moses

03-18-2007, 03:38 PM

About a week or two- although I still find out cool tips, etc...