The Switch
Posted by Christopher Wojno Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:38:00 GMT
Thanks to my parents over the holidays, I am now a proud owner of an Apple Product: a MacBook. Anyone who has read other articles on my blog knows I’ve been around the operating system block (I’ve used many different operating systems). I am very impressed with the initial start up process. It was up and running in minutes. I am physically unable to express my happiness about not having to re-install Windows to get rid of all the pre-loaded bloat that accompanies just about any other computer you buy from someone. That’s not a problem with Windows, but rather the vendors. Never-the-less nothing is perfect.
Learning Curve
They keys do different things. No big deal. There is a small learning curve about when the Apple key is used and when the control is used.
The application layout also takes some getting used to. I’m familiar with the Windows policy of C:/Program Files and the battle of installing things to D:/Program Files (they really should stop partitioning things and then not changing the default location). I am also familiar with the Linux/Unix policy of /usr/local/bin and /usr/bin. However, Mac, in what may be quite possibly the world’s greatest move ever (though I may speak prematurely here) has created a very very organized way of arranging applications. Each application is stored as a folder with the executable, resources, and configuration files contained in it. It makes getting applications off the ‘net very easy. It’s strange thinking of an application this way. I also thought that many things would be command-line driven. There are many command line counter-parts to most of the utilities (Mac is based on FreeBSD after all), but most things are GUI-based.
Good Stuff
There’s a dashboard application that dims the screen and runs widgets that can do just about everything I care to do with a computer. I really like the sticky notes. They let you put up written notes anywhere on the dashboard.
It’s nice to have a good default music player. Windows Media player is just aweful. It takes me a long time to figure out how to add songs into it when I don’t do it for a few months at a time. I found how to do it in iTunes (without reading a help file) in less than 20 seconds. 2.4GB of music transferred later, I was listening to my songs from my old computer.
The Apple Remote is neat too. No longer must I get up to change the options of a currently playing movie. And using the web camera to pick up the IR, genius. It has a few, but powerful set of buttons: Menu, Fast Forward, Rewind, Volume control, Play and Pause. I was really getting sick of using the XBox for DVD’s. I can actually hear the audio now without the roar of the XBox’s cooling fans. Not having to wait for the wireless controllers to boot is a plus as well. After 10 minutes, they shut down automatically to conserve power. I usually pull the batteries when I’m done starting a movie, however.
I really like that the keyboard lights up. I’ve wanted an illuminated keyboard for a while. Just to prove they’re green, it uses two light detectors embedded in the speaker grill to determine the amount of ambient light. So it shuts off the lights when you can see them, but illuminates when you can’t. The only problem: when you’re logging in, they keyboard will not light up until you’ve actually logged into the computer. Makes it hard to see your keys when you’re entering your password. The screen also dims itself according to the ambient light, so you don’t go blind working in the dark.
I was also impressed that ruby and rails comes with the operating system right out of the box. Good move!
The saga will continue…
