Fresh switcher's first impressions for MB

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I have been involved with PCs for about 10 years, and with the exception of home built machines I've been disappointed or angered by almost every PC I've ever operated. The last straw was when the power port on my dell inspiron 1000 took a dive in the middle, forcing me into an unexpected computer search. I decided I wanted something with more battery life, that could still run word, and had software that actually worked. I have over 500gb storage on my home pc so i had no need for an upgraded HD. I also liked the idea of the magsafe power port on the MB pro. I talked to a few of my mac friends and they all love them, so i decided to switch. I waited for the 13.3 MB and ordered it, with the 1gb upgrade. It's been exactly one week since i've had it.

Here are my current observations, starting with my nitpicks:

Battery life: I've found that while using several browser windows, with wireless, a usb drive connected, and word, life is about 3 hrs at best energy settings. It exceeds all my needs, but I was hoping for more. Switching to "better performance" doesn't seem to add or take any life away, but I haven't had enough time to really tweak it for my use.

Games: I still prefer solitaire and freecell to any installed mac game. I plan to remedy this by installing more games; any suggestions are welcome.

Startup time (OS and application): a dream. 25 seconds to startup, 33 seconds for a restart. Love it! Unfortunately it has taken nearly as long to start word, but I am under the understanding that it has to do with emulation software and will pass soon enough.

Heat: I have experienced absolutely no unusual heat from this thing when placed on my lap during prolonged use.

Screen: The glossy screen is very nice and I don't see what some people have been complaining about regarding any glare. No drawbacks for me at all on this one.

Power port and open/close: Awesome features. Love the fact that I can't damage my power port. Love it. I could still trip on the chord and take the MB down with it if I wanted to, however.

Application/ OS usability: I was born into Windows and its all I've known. But OSX is VERY easy to learn and get used to. And its nice having useful applications on call; it will be even nicer when I learn how to use all of them. I don't like how osx seems to hate not being connected to the internet (as i'm in a moving transition and won't have internet for another 2 weeks), but turning off airport solves that one immediately. I've never had to restart to modify an application or any system settings; removing a usb drive takes one click and a tenth of a second. I haven't had any problems adjusting to life on a mac, with the minor exception of not having both a backspace and a delete button. I don't know the equivalent of the alt+tab function yet, but once I do usability will get even better. Basically the only flaws I've noticed in programming are my lack of knowledge regarding them.


All in all a superior machine to my old 1000 and a joy to use.
 
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Glad you're enjoying it. As far as alt+tab I believe there is actually a key combination that works just like that, but you do have expose which runs circles around it. However if that's not the key command you are talking about disregard everything after "glad you're enjoying it", lol. You can always find games on apple's site or try Macupdate.com I found a nice version of Mai jong and Sudoku there.
 

dtravis7


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Try "Solitaire Till Dawn X". It's not free but does not cost much. Has all kinds of Solitaire games and Freecell too.

http://www.semicolon.com/STDX.html

Office is being slowed down by Rosetta Emulating Power PC. When the native version for Intel comes out it will fly.
 
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alt + tab on a windows pc switches between open programs right? If so, you can use apple + tab and it will do the same thing.
 
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I am a recent switcher as well and I must say I could not be happier with my MBP. I am glad you are enjoying your purchase. :)
 
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iRizzo

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I also just switched over to Mac. Im lovin my MBP. I honestly couldn't be happier with anything else.
 
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the 'alt-tab' on windows is -

'option (the apple sign) and tab'

hope this helps.

chris tm
 
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christm said:
the 'alt-tab' on windows is -

'option (the apple sign) and tab'

hope this helps.

chris tm

The apple logo is on the command key, not the option key. :)
 
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sdashia said:
I don't know the equivalent of the alt+tab function yet, but once I do usability will get even better.

Press F9, and what it does is it takes all the windows that are open, and makes them small enough to all be visible. Then you move the mouse over one, and it will tell you what that window is. Then just click on it, and it will go back to normal, with that window in front.
 
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sharpie05

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iBeldar said:
Press F9, and what it does is it takes all the windows that are open, and makes them small enough to all be visible. Then you move the mouse over one, and it will tell you what that window is. Then just click on it, and it will go back to normal, with that window in front.


beat me to it!!! however, the two other buttons that function like that are f10 and f11. if youre already in an application ,but you have multiple windows open for it, f10 will take just the windows for that app, and display them just like f9 does. f11 will take all of your open windows and move them off of the desktop so you can work without clutter, and when you need them back, just ckick on the darker border around your desktop, or hit f11 again. exposé is a wonderful tool! of course you can configure the buttons however you want, but i find the f-buttons a pleasant default.
 
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OK, help me out with this F10, F11 stuff. I am a new switcher, and I have never understood them. F9 I understand, and F12 (widgets) needs no explanation. Pure Apple sex appeal.

But F11, I just don't get. It takes all my open windows and moves them off the screen. What can I do with that? If I try to start a new app on my newly uncluttered desktop, it just brings all those old app windows zooming back in from the edges. My desktop is a mess once more.

F10 isn't much more helpful to me. It focuses on the current application windows, greying out everything else. Yes I guess that this could help me focus on my current app, if I have ADHD and can't deal with the other open windows, but I don't have ADHD. Am I missing the intent of F10?

Sorry for the silly questions, but what other kind does a recent switcher pose? :)
 
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mac57 said:
But F11, I just don't get. It takes all my open windows and moves them off the screen. What can I do with that? If I try to start a new app on my newly uncluttered desktop, it just brings all those old app windows zooming back in from the edges. My desktop is a mess once more.
It is so you can open files, folders or apps that are on your desktop, but not on your dock without having to minimize all your open windows. I find it helpful, but I have a habit (from Mac OS 7-9) of actually storing often used stuff on my desktop. lots of people don't do that and wouldn't use the feature that much though I guess. F10 is not a big help to me either ;-)
 
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bobisimo

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The OP has inspired me to share: I just switched, too! And, likewise, I've been using PC exclusively for about 8 or 9 years. But when I needed to get a new laptop, I found that the best option for me was a MacBook. I was nervous because I'm not familiar with Mac, but also excited to learn something new.

Overall, I'm greatly enjoying my new MacBook. I'll divide this post into three categories.

Here's what I fell in love with right away:

Portability is amazing. I have been leaving it in my backpack and I'm not really noticing it the way I was noticing my old 8-10 pound laptop. The wireless capabilities make it truly portable. I can connect to anything and the connection is strong.

Battery life is solid. I had it on at work all day yesterday. It would go into sleep mode often while I did real work, and then I'd wake it up fairly often to show off to a co-worker or such. At the end of a 9-hour work day, I was sitting around 30-40 per cent battery life.

I agree with the comment on the screen. I read so much about the glare that I was really nervous about it. But I haven't had any issues yet. Same thing on the heat. It gets warm, but probably not as warm as my Compaq laptop did. I leave it on my bare legs and never feel burned.

I love the desktop image - specifically, the fact that you can set it to rotate through images! I hooked that up with the abstract images folder that comes with the OS, and now every time I turn on my laptop I feel dreamy and happy.

I tried to rip a CD recently using iTunes and, despite having ripped 100s of CDs with no troubles, for some reason, this brand new CD wasn't working. Tracks were skipping, even with error correction on. I brought it to my girlfriend's house and tried it on her computer, and same thing. Now, maybe it was just a fluke, but I tried it on my MacBook and it worked perfectly the first try. You have to give props, even if it doesn't necessarily make sense.

Oh, and I had a crowd around my desk when one guy was showing off Photo Booth. We started taking turns having our pictures taken and making silly faces with the weird effects. Good stuff. I don't remember ever getting a crowd around my Windows PC.

I do have some annoyances, though:

I miss being able to maximize and minimize windows as you can do with Windows. I understand that you can re-size windows and they always stay that way - but Windows has that, plus the maximize and minimize. I think I am more sensitive to this because I like to quadrant up my screen, so that I can have four apps at the front. I am constantly re-sizing windows, and the lack of that functionality slows me down a little. Speaking of, can you really only re-size by grabbing the bottom-right corner? Eesh.

The pointer has inconsistent movement, some kind of acceleration thing is happening. I installed MouseFix or some utility like that and it definitely improved things, but it doesn't feel perfect. Someone else wrote that, maybe because of FPS, their precision with the mouse was spot on and the acceleration with the macs affected that. That's about how I feel.

Speaking of moving the pointer, only one button? Yeah, yeah. I'm getting used to holding down the button or ctrl-clicking. It's becoming natural. But I still think it's a little weird.

I'm in love with Open Source software, and with Windows there are TONS of options. My favorite new OS program covers screenplay writing. I love it. With Mac? Not really. I've found some decent OS sites and articles, and there's a great thread here that lists a lot of good software, but... good as it is, it's just not on par. I absolutely love OpenOffice, and had to try to get that running. Oddly enough, I got it fired up in minutes. It was pretty simple. But I'd like to try a Mac-specific version, like NeoOffice. I'll have to do that when it becomes available.

And then there are things I just need to wrap my head around, things that are better with Mac but I still fumble with it:

One example is installing files. When I downloaded Firefox, I was running it from the DMG and couldn't figure out why it didn't seem right. Someone at work said to "think of DMG as a ZIP file. You open the DMG and inside is the EXE. Put that EXE in your program folder and you're done." When I first tried it, I didn't think I was doing it right. I mean, OK, the "exe" is in the programs folder, but I still need to install it. Right? Nope. It's installed. And you just pull it out to uninstall it? Yep. That's it.

I'm actually not sure where this claim falls - with annoyances or things I need to wrap my head around - but with Windows, I got so used to the short-cuts that I never had to think about it. Now, I am constantly looking at the keys. If I want to go to the end of the line or the end of the document or the end of the next word or copy-and-paste and so on, I have to think about it. And usually mess up three times.

The "dock" confused the **** out of me when I first started playing with it. I dragged my erroneous Firefox install to it, deleted the DMG, and then had the icon disappear, or point to the DMG in the trash. It was confusing. Sometimes I would minimize a window and it would go into a second section of the dock, which made me think it was like the start bar in windows - but then other times I'd minimize and it would just disappear. I finally was told that the black arrows show you which programs are running, but I'm still slightly confused by the dock behavior. Suffice it to say, I love the dock and already think it's pretty powerful. I was a little bothered by the lack of functionality you get from the start bar in Windows, but now that I know about the F9 trick, I think I'm totally appeased - and happier with Mac.

The whole "No AV" thing is weird. I feel... mostly... safe... not using AV with my MacBook. I've read enough articles to know that I should feel safe. But, I'm just so used to Windows! Same goes for things like defrag and scan disk and disc clean up. Same thing goes for not shutting my MacBook down since I bought it. Don't these things need to reboot?! A friend told me he hasn't rebooted, aside from the occasional update, in about 2 years. Eesh!

Oh, and Finder! You mean I really can just throw every file into one spot, and never organize any of it, and Finder can instantly get it for me by narrowing a list of potential finds as I type? Neat. I'll probably still organize, but...

Well, this turned out to be quite the post!

I could probably go on but I think I'm putting every one to sleep. I'm really enjoying my Mac and the learning of a new OS. And the MacBook itself is just wonderful. I think I'd have been happier at 12 inches, but I don't know... widescreen is so in these days. Who wants to be without it? :)
 
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F10 uses expose to toggle between applications. If you press tab after F10 you can cycle through active programs. It's kinda neat and I like it. Also something I use all of the time, if you use apple + tab, keep the apple key held down and press Q to quit the highlighted application (tab or arrow keys to switch selected app).

Sorry if thats confusing but I find F10 and especially Apple (command) + Tab to be very useful.
 
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try function + F10, it depends on how you have your keyboard setup
 
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bobisimo

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Another annoyance for me to add to the list...

Most web forms look something like this:

User:
Pass:
Click here to remember me:
Submit!

In Windows, each press of "tab" cycles through each of the four fields. In Mac, it cycles only between User and Pass. Meh! :)
 
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bobisimo said:
The OP has inspired me to share: I just switched, too! And, likewise, I've been using PC exclusively for about 8 or 9 years. But when I needed to get a new laptop, I found that the best option for me was a MacBook. I was nervous because I'm not familiar with Mac, but also excited to learn something new.

Overall, I'm greatly enjoying my new MacBook. I'll divide this post into three categories.

Here's what I fell in love with right away:

Portability is amazing. I have been leaving it in my backpack and I'm not really noticing it the way I was noticing my old 8-10 pound laptop. The wireless capabilities make it truly portable. I can connect to anything and the connection is strong.

Battery life is solid. I had it on at work all day yesterday. It would go into sleep mode often while I did real work, and then I'd wake it up fairly often to show off to a co-worker or such. At the end of a 9-hour work day, I was sitting around 30-40 per cent battery life.

I agree with the comment on the screen. I read so much about the glare that I was really nervous about it. But I haven't had any issues yet. Same thing on the heat. It gets warm, but probably not as warm as my Compaq laptop did. I leave it on my bare legs and never feel burned.

I love the desktop image - specifically, the fact that you can set it to rotate through images! I hooked that up with the abstract images folder that comes with the OS, and now every time I turn on my laptop I feel dreamy and happy.

I tried to rip a CD recently using iTunes and, despite having ripped 100s of CDs with no troubles, for some reason, this brand new CD wasn't working. Tracks were skipping, even with error correction on. I brought it to my girlfriend's house and tried it on her computer, and same thing. Now, maybe it was just a fluke, but I tried it on my MacBook and it worked perfectly the first try. You have to give props, even if it doesn't necessarily make sense.

Oh, and I had a crowd around my desk when one guy was showing off Photo Booth. We started taking turns having our pictures taken and making silly faces with the weird effects. Good stuff. I don't remember ever getting a crowd around my Windows PC.

I do have some annoyances, though:

I miss being able to maximize and minimize windows as you can do with Windows. I understand that you can re-size windows and they always stay that way - but Windows has that, plus the maximize and minimize. I think I am more sensitive to this because I like to quadrant up my screen, so that I can have four apps at the front. I am constantly re-sizing windows, and the lack of that functionality slows me down a little. Speaking of, can you really only re-size by grabbing the bottom-right corner? Eesh.

The pointer has inconsistent movement, some kind of acceleration thing is happening. I installed MouseFix or some utility like that and it definitely improved things, but it doesn't feel perfect. Someone else wrote that, maybe because of FPS, their precision with the mouse was spot on and the acceleration with the macs affected that. That's about how I feel.

Speaking of moving the pointer, only one button? Yeah, yeah. I'm getting used to holding down the button or ctrl-clicking. It's becoming natural. But I still think it's a little weird.

I'm in love with Open Source software, and with Windows there are TONS of options. My favorite new OS program covers screenplay writing. I love it. With Mac? Not really. I've found some decent OS sites and articles, and there's a great thread here that lists a lot of good software, but... good as it is, it's just not on par. I absolutely love OpenOffice, and had to try to get that running. Oddly enough, I got it fired up in minutes. It was pretty simple. But I'd like to try a Mac-specific version, like NeoOffice. I'll have to do that when it becomes available.

And then there are things I just need to wrap my head around, things that are better with Mac but I still fumble with it:

One example is installing files. When I downloaded Firefox, I was running it from the DMG and couldn't figure out why it didn't seem right. Someone at work said to "think of DMG as a ZIP file. You open the DMG and inside is the EXE. Put that EXE in your program folder and you're done." When I first tried it, I didn't think I was doing it right. I mean, OK, the "exe" is in the programs folder, but I still need to install it. Right? Nope. It's installed. And you just pull it out to uninstall it? Yep. That's it.

I'm actually not sure where this claim falls - with annoyances or things I need to wrap my head around - but with Windows, I got so used to the short-cuts that I never had to think about it. Now, I am constantly looking at the keys. If I want to go to the end of the line or the end of the document or the end of the next word or copy-and-paste and so on, I have to think about it. And usually mess up three times.

The "dock" confused the **** out of me when I first started playing with it. I dragged my erroneous Firefox install to it, deleted the DMG, and then had the icon disappear, or point to the DMG in the trash. It was confusing. Sometimes I would minimize a window and it would go into a second section of the dock, which made me think it was like the start bar in windows - but then other times I'd minimize and it would just disappear. I finally was told that the black arrows show you which programs are running, but I'm still slightly confused by the dock behavior. Suffice it to say, I love the dock and already think it's pretty powerful. I was a little bothered by the lack of functionality you get from the start bar in Windows, but now that I know about the F9 trick, I think I'm totally appeased - and happier with Mac.

The whole "No AV" thing is weird. I feel... mostly... safe... not using AV with my MacBook. I've read enough articles to know that I should feel safe. But, I'm just so used to Windows! Same goes for things like defrag and scan disk and disc clean up. Same thing goes for not shutting my MacBook down since I bought it. Don't these things need to reboot?! A friend told me he hasn't rebooted, aside from the occasional update, in about 2 years. Eesh!

Oh, and Finder! You mean I really can just throw every file into one spot, and never organize any of it, and Finder can instantly get it for me by narrowing a list of potential finds as I type? Neat. I'll probably still organize, but...

Well, this turned out to be quite the post!

I could probably go on but I think I'm putting every one to sleep. I'm really enjoying my Mac and the learning of a new OS. And the MacBook itself is just wonderful. I think I'd have been happier at 12 inches, but I don't know... widescreen is so in these days. Who wants to be without it? :)


Download Quicksilver from Macupdate.com A lovely app!
 
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iRizzo said:
Hmm...when I press F10 on my MBP it just adjusts the keyboard brigtness.
same with me, I think they're set diff. I've had mine for a couple months and I still can't get the F keys to respond, so I just set hot corners :black:
 

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