- Joined
- Jun 22, 2008
- Messages
- 3,343
- Reaction score
- 213
- Points
- 63
- Location
- Forest Hills, NYC
- Your Mac's Specs
- 15-inch Early 2008; Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 10.7.5
Hey all. Bought our MB pro last week at the 5th ave location in Manhattan, and am pleased to report that I got the rebate for the iPod touch as well as the wireless HP printer a few days ago, making that a one week turn around time, which is amazing to me ! Also got the education discount, which is sweet so saved on the book and Apple Care.
Also bought a .mac account (haven't activated it yet) as well as an Airport Express and should be hooking that up today or tomorrow. I hadn't yet, because a couple of weeks ago during some electrical storms, my Linux box blew up. Which is strange, because I'd have expected the circuit breaker to cut out, but I think my PSU just kicked the bucket instead.
So I just received a good Tripp Lite surge suppressor, which I'm going to hook up the Airport and MB to. Been leeching a WiFi signal from a neighbor up till now. (he left it open, so....)
Anyway, I've been going through things learning as I go along and everything is cool thus far, but have a question or two (or three).
1. I ditched Safari and am using FF 3. I noticed that in both FF as well as in any file browser when I scroll, the movement is very jerky, not smooth. This is also the case when back deleting sentences/words. In FF I enabled auto scrolling as well as smooth scrolling, just like I had it in Ubuntu (or XP for that matter, but haven't touched xp on any personal box of mine for a couple years) yet when I use the arrow up or down to scroll the page, it will move in segments, jerking a bit at a time.
This behavior is also evident when backspacing (deleting). Rather than what I'm used to, which is the cursor moving very quickly backwards, it moves back one letter at a time, and is annoying as heck. Sure, I can highlight the word, the sentence or even the series of letters I want deleted, but that's way too time consuming. Is there something I have to enable in order to get what I'm used to having ?
2. I was going through the "spaces" preferences, and by default f12 is supposed to bring up the spaces, but in all actuality, it's f4, as is denoted by the actual f4 key on the MB pro. Each f" key on the MB pro has a symbol on it , which is associated with the task it will perform if pressed. Are these able to be changed or bypassed ? Just seems that Apple should have labeled them appropriately as to not contradict their own documentation.
3. Has anybody tried the donationware program called "Witch" ? It's supposed to offer a real "cmd+tab" function, rather than just bring the tabbed application to the forefront of the menu bar. I find the cmd+tab function on OS X to be quite dysfunctional actually. It technically should open that window/app which you're tabbing to IMO.
I also understand that expose is a sort of work around to this, and haven't tried it yet, but to me, expose in theory sounds like a complicated way to alt+tab, in that there are just one too many steps to go through in order to choose a window you want open in front of you.
Lastly, and I'm going out now to look but, do you guys/gals have any recommendations for :
1. A slip cover to tuck the MB safely (padded) away (this is the 15 inch base model) when I'm done with it.
2. A laptop stand for my desk, which will raise it off the desk for air flow, and possibly has a fan to cool the underside ?
3. A good laptop travel bag/case which is very protective, comfortable to wear, doesn't look too much like a laptop bag and possibly has power cables tucked in it (I know that APC has some stuff like this) ?
Sorry for the long post, and thanks for any info provided !
Doug
Also bought a .mac account (haven't activated it yet) as well as an Airport Express and should be hooking that up today or tomorrow. I hadn't yet, because a couple of weeks ago during some electrical storms, my Linux box blew up. Which is strange, because I'd have expected the circuit breaker to cut out, but I think my PSU just kicked the bucket instead.
So I just received a good Tripp Lite surge suppressor, which I'm going to hook up the Airport and MB to. Been leeching a WiFi signal from a neighbor up till now. (he left it open, so....)
Anyway, I've been going through things learning as I go along and everything is cool thus far, but have a question or two (or three).
1. I ditched Safari and am using FF 3. I noticed that in both FF as well as in any file browser when I scroll, the movement is very jerky, not smooth. This is also the case when back deleting sentences/words. In FF I enabled auto scrolling as well as smooth scrolling, just like I had it in Ubuntu (or XP for that matter, but haven't touched xp on any personal box of mine for a couple years) yet when I use the arrow up or down to scroll the page, it will move in segments, jerking a bit at a time.
This behavior is also evident when backspacing (deleting). Rather than what I'm used to, which is the cursor moving very quickly backwards, it moves back one letter at a time, and is annoying as heck. Sure, I can highlight the word, the sentence or even the series of letters I want deleted, but that's way too time consuming. Is there something I have to enable in order to get what I'm used to having ?
2. I was going through the "spaces" preferences, and by default f12 is supposed to bring up the spaces, but in all actuality, it's f4, as is denoted by the actual f4 key on the MB pro. Each f" key on the MB pro has a symbol on it , which is associated with the task it will perform if pressed. Are these able to be changed or bypassed ? Just seems that Apple should have labeled them appropriately as to not contradict their own documentation.
3. Has anybody tried the donationware program called "Witch" ? It's supposed to offer a real "cmd+tab" function, rather than just bring the tabbed application to the forefront of the menu bar. I find the cmd+tab function on OS X to be quite dysfunctional actually. It technically should open that window/app which you're tabbing to IMO.
I also understand that expose is a sort of work around to this, and haven't tried it yet, but to me, expose in theory sounds like a complicated way to alt+tab, in that there are just one too many steps to go through in order to choose a window you want open in front of you.
Lastly, and I'm going out now to look but, do you guys/gals have any recommendations for :
1. A slip cover to tuck the MB safely (padded) away (this is the 15 inch base model) when I'm done with it.
2. A laptop stand for my desk, which will raise it off the desk for air flow, and possibly has a fan to cool the underside ?
3. A good laptop travel bag/case which is very protective, comfortable to wear, doesn't look too much like a laptop bag and possibly has power cables tucked in it (I know that APC has some stuff like this) ?
Sorry for the long post, and thanks for any info provided !
Doug