Finally took the plunge--New Mbp13!

Well after months of reading forums, reviews and indecisive moments I've finally taken the plunge and switched to Mac! After being a PC guy for years, it was hard to spend double the money a similar PC laptop would have cost.

I'd like to thank everyone on this forum and others for the advice along the way. I have yet to open the box but I'll let you know my first impressions.

Tbone

Enjoy and check this: a few pointers here -

Well I just opened it and powered it up. The first impression was incredible compared to any PC laptop I've purchased in the past. It's hard to believe the thought put into packaging the product, it's almost too nice to unwrap.

Typing this on the keyboard feels a bit strange, but any new keyboard takes a bit of getting used to. Definitely lots to learn about this new machine.

Tbone

I remember reading a post that listed some recommended programs to download to enhance the mac experience. I remember vlc? for movies but there were others. Can't seem to find the post now...

Flip4Mac - 1Password - Superduper - Launchbar - caffeine - sharpshooter - to name a few i use often

Hello there folks,
I'm gonna join the happy 'I've got a new Mac' club too. I've had mine for about 6 weeks now. I've got a few gripes and things on my 'hate' list but to be fair they're all things I just probably don't know how to do yet.
which is what brings me here.

Apple gripes and hates thus far:
cant translate
cant have full screen windows sometimes.
no album art
word and excel are actually not compatible after wasting money on iworks.
photos not fullscreen apart from edit, cant scroll
put things back in the dock
usb holes are really close together
itunes didn’t/can't import all my songs
touchpad really slow and unresponsive sometimes and you need to really hit the button to make it click even though I set it to click when you touch it.
can’t play any movie formats
garage band has no instruments
no PDF support
It emptied my hotmail inbox when I set up the e-mail......Be warned, default is empty the server.
Killed my archos
Filled my downloads box with stupid multiple icons and attachments from headers or footers a million times.
really slow to show photos or large thumbnails when you scroll through a folder.
Two fingered 'right click' doesn't always work immediately so I end up doing it again and undoing the copy or paste or whatever.

I work in developing countries and after being surrounded by dead and dying windows machines brought to a grinding halt by locals wielding virus infected flashdrives I thought I'd give the apple a go. It's my first computer I've owned myself and it was the build quality that I went for. For me dependability and reliability are everything. My other choice was to get a toughbook and run Ubuntu on it but I'm not that computer savvy so MacBook Pro it was. I had to leave the country just after I got it so no apple support for me. Please be kind to any of my dumb newbe questions which are sure to follow

Well so far the experience has been great. Surfing the web is great, no problems there. I have a few problems/concerns though:

I tried setting up Mail but can't seem to get it to work. I think this has to do with my settings but am still working on it. It won't 'get mail' and if I make and send a new message it just shows the grey spinning thing next to 'sent' on the left. I think it's an issue with connecting it to my mail account. It will do this forever and mail won't close unless you force quit. Still working on the mail issue...

My second and bigger concern is with iphoto. I loaded a bunch of my pics to it and it seemed to work fine but then it shows the spinning beach ball. From what I've read the beach ball is a sign of a major problem.

Secondly if I try and close iphoto when it is working, it shows a message saying iphoto is saving important information and gives the option to save later. Even if the blue bar goes all the way the program doesn't end unless I click save later.

I don't know if this makes any sense(I hope so). Any help would be great. It took me a long time to make the switch to Mac and it's almost getting frustrating dealing with these issues. I was trying to avoid these kind of problems which is why I switched.

Thanks

I loaded a bunch of my pics to it and it seemed to work

Click to expand...

How did u do this? Did u use File > Import to Library?

I dragged them from the hard drive into iphoto. Do you have to use an import function? Maybe dragging them caused a problem?

Tbone said:

I tried setting up Mail but can't seem to get it to work. I think this has to do with my settings but am still working on it. It won't 'get mail' and if I make and send a new message it just shows the grey spinning thing next to 'sent' on the left. I think it's an issue with connecting it to my mail account. It will do this forever and mail won't close unless you force quit. Still working on the mail issue...

Click to expand...

What is the mail server you are trying to setup Mac Mail with? Is it through your ISP, own server, or a free web based server like Google's Gmail? You will set it up differently depending on which one you are using.

I don't really use iPhoto so I can't help you much with it.

Maybe dragging them caused a problem?

Click to expand...

Very possible.

Thanks for the input guys. I haven't tried iphoto again but will soon and see how it goes. If I have problems with iphoto again I'll clear it all out and start downloading again.

I've been trying to get Mail set up. According to my outlook account(on the pc I'm replacing with this mac) the incoming is pop3 and outgoing is smtp. I entered all the info again and managed to get it to read my email. The inbox is full and I can read any of the messages. The problem now is it won't let me send email. It tries and then pops up saying:
'Connections to the server “shawmail.cg.shawcable.net” on the default ports timed out.'

under that is says smtp(offline)
Is there a reason it says offline? I don't know how to put it online. The strange thing is that while the outgoing message is trying to send the incoming show up and notify me that they're there.

My email service is through the isp, shawmail

You should either contact Shaw Mail or go to their website and see if there is a walkthrough of how to setup it up for Apple's Mail program. It seems you are missing a setting you have with Outlook. Did you setup Outlook yourself or did someone else do it? Each mail server is a little different. For example with my ISP I have to use me ISP's username and password for SMTP even though I use a separate private email server.

Some require you to use a specific port or use SSL so there could be a lot of combinations. Also when you go into Mail's preferences is Shaw Mail set as the SMTP for your account?

Lastly I've never heard of Shaw Mail. Are they an internet service provider (ISP) like Comcast or AT&T or are they just an email server? For example, my email provider is not my ISP but like I said earlier I have to use my ISP's SMTP settings in order to send emails.

Well, I got the email working. I removed the account set it up again, using the same settings but it now works fine.

Shaw is a cable tv/internet/phone provider here in Canada, just like Comcast there.

Now that mail works I'm trying to set up my printer wirelessly. I got a d-link DIR-655 with the shareport. I tried setting it up on my old pc first to see how it works and it doesn't. It might be an issue with the pc, I haven't tried it on the mbp yet.

Has anyone set up a printer on the DIR-655? I will try and mess with it the next few days.