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So as you probably know, I recently made the transition from Windows to MacOSX. Having only used friends’ Macs, very infrequently and only first in late 2007, I managed to be convinced that ‘mac-is-best’ fairly quickly. Having used Windows for all these years (im going with since I was 8, so at least 14 years), there comes a time when you just get fed up with such a god-awful system.
For the last year and a half or so I have been desperately hoping for a system of reliability and simplicity to do the simple tasks that I need to do. Then problem after problem kept happening. Far too many scares; almost losing everything, not enough backups and too many complications with a terrible operating system.
Of course I did really enjoy being a Windows user before. In fact I despised Macs. But that was then I guess.
I was very young the time I used a Mac, and hated it ever since. It belonged to the parents of a friend in my street. Of course I had no idea what it was at the time, browsing around Wikipedia I think it was the Macintosh Classic or similar. I remember an air hockey game, that was fun.
Later in school from ‘97 to ‘98 we used Macs. They were terrible. It was Windows all the way.
But recently, as more more power and general ease of use is required, without things cocking-up so often a change had to be made.
My Macbook Pro arrived safely 2 weeks ago and in that time I have enjoyed learning how it all works. It’s certainly been quite a process to learn something so new and different. There are so many aspects that make it far superior to Windows. The greatest is that the user has to think a hell of a lot less when using a Mac. For me, important stuff is in two basic locations; System Preferences and Utilities. All accessible from the desktop, which remains clean and clutter-free.
It took some time to figure out the software to get, where to get it, how it install it, how to use it; then what not to use, remove some apps. With two 500gb external drives, one for Time Machine backups, the other for storage I’m feeling good. Having just in the last few days figured out my digital photography workflow as well as the applications I like, that coupled with my dual display for watching movies/tv shows or controlling iTunes (still don’t like it much) one one on one monitor while working on the other has made me very happy.
I have indeed been promoting the Mac life to everyone I know. I feel like a breathing cliché (took a while to find é, got it in the end), but yes I love it.
They are right about one thing also, it does come with added smugness.
The majority of my hardware concerns stem from the fact that it is a laptop - which is not the fault of Apple Inc. I have mostly disliked laptops in general for a few reasons, but now I find that having a laptop will prove much more beneficial.
The keyboards are difficult to get used to and near impossible to upgrade, at least that’s what I have always been lead to believe - correct me if I’m wrong.
Starting with the Keyboard:
a) So much less pressing of the keys is required than regular keyboards. This annoys me.
b) Buttons are in the wrong places.
c) No number pad on the right
Then there’s the differences in Mac and Win keyboards. So Command = Ctrl? and Option = Alt?
Why can’t they be in the same place as their windows equivalent? After at least (estimate) 15 years my muscles and brain have been trained to do things a certain way and it will not be easy to change that. I did read somewhere of a way to swap Command and Option (not physically obviously). Nice way to confuse other Mac users…
The lack of a Delete key is awkward, but I’m sure pressing Fn won’t be too much of a task.
Mouse
The mac mouse has always bugged me. Only recently has it become in any way nice to look at, though to me it still isn’t as functional as it should be - so it can scroll sideways, that’s not really not necessary.
As Macs do have right click functionality, alone with most software, why can’t they stop being so obstinate and get two buttons on the mouse?
It isn’t going to be a problem for me anyway - I have my own [Microsoft] optical USB mouse which I will be using.
Next, the trackpad - no problems here at all. I’m aware of the recent improvements, with multi-touch which should be fun. Though wouldn’t it be interesting if it was slightly to the right for right-handed people…
CD/DVD drive
And finally.
Each time I have placed a disk into the Mac drive I have felt likeI’m scratching it as it goes in touching the sides along the way. And if something goes wrong? There’s no way out. No classic paper-clip option.
These are just a few of the obstacles that I will no doubt overcome quickly. Plenty of updates to come when it arrives.
I welcome any and all hits and tips!
The next hurdle is part software part hardware - the ability to play all-region DVDs. Not completely necessary, but certainly a nice thing to have. Even if I have only done it once - The Bourne Supremacy which I bought in NYC in the Summer, but t hen I got the trilogy for Christmas.
It’s more the fact that if I wanted to play a DVD that wasn’t region 2 I could. It is a laptop after all, I may travel the world now, but I won’t be able to watch DVDs outside Europe when I do.
I currently use DVDXPlayer, a great multi-region media player, for Windows only. Why is it impossible to get around this problem with Macs?
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I don’t think I will find any other software compatibility problems:
Firefox - check
Photoshop - check
MSN msgr - check
Skype - check
Googletalk - check
Flickr Uploadr - check
Office suite - check
As for photo editing, I will have to teach myself a new work-flow technique - which won’t be a bad thing anyway, and I’m sure it will be nice and easy.
The Macbook Pro has been dispatched. In a matter of days it will be mine! There are many things I am looking forward to, as well as many Windows habits I’m not looking forward to trying to kick. So lets see what these are:
Software
Of course I know that with my Mac I will be able to do everything I’m used to (and more?), only slightly differently. There will be certain things I will miss greatly though. The first is a nice little program called Winamp, which I have used for at least 8 years. I like everything about it; its simple layout, those sweet skins (having used the same ‘Flying Circles’ skin for many years), the plugins and its general functionality.
Most of all I will miss the ‘J’ and ‘Q’ functions - simply hit J on the keyboard followed by any combination of letters in either song title or artis followed by Enter to play the track.
Even better than ‘J’ is ‘Q’. Single-click on any track in the playlist followed by Q on the keyboard and that track will be queued after the currently playing track. Do this 20 times and you have your own ‘mix tape’.
Finally, I just cannot stand music stopping suddenly. Sudden silence after hitting the stop button; it just won’t do. Or that quick jump when changing tracks, or a long gap between two consecutive tracks. The music should flow. Smooth transitions. I want crossfading plugins. Now I’m not going to bad mouth it just yet in this respect as I’m not entirely sure how possible it is to enable [decent] crossfading in iTunes. Is it?
I do know that I can’t have it looking like Winamp. I saw recently something about having a ‘minimal view’, but I want to see the playlist too. I hate that it’s so largeand takes taking up most of the desktop.
I have never liked iTunes. I first used it when I had an iPod a couple of years ago. It broke. I still use it, however, for podcasts. I still don’t like it. The Apple Store is good. But when I want to listen to music I don’t want something that’s so huge and feels so bulky.
a) Winamp people - please make a version for macs.
b) Feel free to try and convince me that iTunes is good, or suggest something better.
When I first heard of Twitter I thought it was so totally ridiculous. Sending and receiving txt messages is not new. It’s distinctly old technology. So I signed up.
After receiving some useless messages from some people I had added - the sort of messages that said, “Just got the kids to bed, now gonna have lots of hot sex with the wife” or “Monday mornings suck, I hate my job”, or “I hate technology and computers. What’s a blog?”
As well as the usual mutterings of new technology ideas, crazy entrepreneurs telling us their new money-making scheme, conferences in Cork, Seminars in Limerick, photo meets in Dublin and sheep giving birth to deformed creatures from hell with a Tinyurl linking to a picture.
So 11 months after getting bored and switching off, I have switched it back on.
Today there was talk of a random piss-up in Dublin, delicious biscuit meetup group, querying the cost of twitter txting among other things.
I now understand its usefulness, as well as its potential. I have some ideas of my own.
Here is an email I received 30mins ago.
I’m not genius at tracing mail but it seems like it is coming from Godtube. This was in the original/detailed message:
Received: from FE4.exchange.rackspace.com ([10.244.5.57]) by FE4.exchange.rackspace.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Tue, 4 Mar 2008 18:49:48 -0600 Received: from admin.godtube.com ([67.192.33.245]) by FE4.exchange.rackspace.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959);
Having realised that I’m spending at least £20 topping up my phone each month and getting very little beyond txts for that cost I thought it was time to get a contract. I went for the £25/ month deal with O2 - 200mins, 200 txts. Its not much more than what I was spending and there are a lot more benefits. Including of course I nice new phone, which was unexpected.
The nokia 6500 Slide is a beautiful phone. The slider is smooth and navigation is clean and simple. Having always been a fan of Nokia phones, I am pleased with this upgrade from my 3100 bought in Nov 2006.
It’s the first time I’ve used the icon/grid menu view - it wasn’t the default view on the previous phone, and I didn’t realise it was possible until the girl in the O2 shop told me. Having said that I never liked that view before. Until I began using it myself that is - now I do like it. But that’s nothing new. In fact there isn’t a lot on this phone that’s terribly new - just new to me.
It really does feel nice being able to listen to Stand By Me by Ben E King on Radio 2 walking to work in the morning. A feeling I had forgotten about since my iPod became an ornament over a year ago. Walking those (seemingly) empty streets; no distractions.
So far I’ve only found one problem - connecting it to my PC via the USB cable provided. Having installed the software it just doesn’t want to connect. Though Macs have Bluetooth built in…
All I want to do is fill the 20 MB with a couple of tracks by Tegan and Sara, Fionn Regan and Foy Vance, that and to transfer the pics I have taken with it to see if they will look half as impressive as they do on the phone.
There also seems to be a universal problem with accessing the net on the Opera Mini browser, which comes pre-installed and the Gmail App won’t connect either.
As a final downside; the battery life isn’t great.
Other than all that it’s a nice phone, a small improvement to my life.
Here is the message I was greeted with via instant message when I arrived home yesterday evening:
J - im sitting here reading, and i quote “The fund has already started for my MACbook!”
J - DUDE
J - wtf?
J - wwwwwwwtttttttttffffffffffffff
J - tyin u up to a life of apple that. unservicable parts, overpriced hardware, increase in viruses due to the amount of wabs usin them
J - ur warrenty will die and it will die
J - within teh same week
J - guaranteed
J - where havvvvvv ur balls gone?
J - y dont u jst get a decent laptop?
J - same price bt with all the jazz of windows and actually feelin ur a part of wat urdoin
And so it seems some people aren’t so fond of the idea of me getting a Mac.
Is there any truth in what I’m being told?
I am always in search of gig guides, and to know where my favourite bands are without having to launch their Myspace page. The answer came to me a couple of weeks ago. Sceptical at first, assuming it was just another web 2.0 hopeful, I turned out to be quite wrong once I delved into the recently launched Showclix.com.
Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, this could be the key to accessing information about live music anywhere in the world, by bringing the social aspects of the web to the forefront. Showclix is a search engine for gigs and concerts, as well as a ticket provider - a definite competitor to Ticketmaster.
Simply key the name of a city in the search box to find artists stopping by on their tour. There is a profile page for each concert date which draws in related information on the artist such as a short bio, links to the band’s website and Flickr photos. From here you can select the ‘remind me later’ button to be reminded by email days or weeks before the gig date, invite others to check out the listing, or select that you are going so everyone will know.
The next step is to add your city to your RSS reader and track new concert announcements as they happen.
Though my favourite feature has to be the tour tracker. Once logged in, the tour tracker will notify the user when their favourite bands are playing in their area as soon as it is added to the site.
This is a great tool for bands, promoters and gig-goers alike. With the ability for anyone to add dates, it can be used as a free promotional tool and with its super user-friendly environment makes it easily accessible to anyone wishing to find or track concerts of their favourite bands.
Speaking to Lynsie Camuso, site founder, I am told that a new ticketing system is due to be implemented for the States in a few weeks, and this side the pond soon after. Here’s a brief list of what it offers ticket sellers:
- Sell tickets online 24 hours a day
- Provide mobile & e-ticketing delivery options
- Process point-of-sale transactions
- View & manage ticket inventory real-time
- Access & edit your event settings instantly
- View customer details & order history
- Create presale & promo/coupon codes
- Manage comp & media tickets
- Create & send email newsletters
- Export customer, sales and traffic data into excel
- Generate real-time sales reports
- Create customer & demographic reports
- View daily traffic reports & conversion rates
Showclix certainly has the right idea, picking up on the need for a way to easily track artists in this era of the ever-popular live music event. I have a feeling I will actually use this site.
Check out the blog (Shlog) for site updates, as well as music and concert news.
After six days without a functioning computer and having to enjoy a few home comforts as I stayed at my parents’ house in order to get work done on my Dad’s PC, I finally have my own back again.
Thankfully we have lots of spare parts from all the computers and upgrades my Dad and I have gone through over the years. After trying his graphics card followed by hard drive, we deduced that the problem was with the motherboard. With a couple of spares lying around we went for my old one. This board uses a different type of CPU but one was found. Hooked it all up and now I’m back online - a little less processing power than before, but hopefully not for long.
The fund has already started for my MACbook!
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