[1]I never thought I would be blogging from a Macintosh – ever. I used Apple IIs and Macs in the early days (80s) of the PC, and I thought they were nice machines that had no place in the business arena, but were great for graphic designers and educational purposes. So I stayed firmly rooted in the IBM PC camp while keeping an eye on the Mac world. Now, more than twenty years later, I have finally decided to purchase my first Mac, and I am very pleased with my decision thus far.
From the ease and speed of the selection, configuration, and ordering process on the Apple.com [2] site, to the timely delivery of the machine, to the intuitive setup process and user interface, this has been the most positive and exciting experience I have ever had in acquiring a new PC. It is hard to believe that I am using a completely new operating system, and was up, running, productive (with my Google tools), and playing (on SecondLife) within an hour of powering up the machine for the first time. I cannot get over how well engineered both the hardware and the GUI are. So elegant and yet useable.
I have really missed not having a laptop for the past year. When my ThinkPad finally bit the dust last spring I decided to replace it with an HP mini tower with a high end graphics card and monitor so I could enjoy my SecondLife experience more fully, as well as for more speed and precision when editing photos and graphics. I have been pretty happy with the HP, but I hated being tied to the office all the time. I yearned for the freedom to work from other locations. I wanted to be able to watch UT basketball while blogging at the same time – as I am doing right now. This is as close to heaven as I have been in a long time.
This OS X Leopard operating system beats the pants off Windows. The networking is effortless and fast. Upon bootup – with an Ethernet cable attached to our office LAN – the OS found the network, found the internet, and attached me to every shared device and directory available without any action from me whatsoever. Try that with Windows. So far, the most annoying problem I’m having that I haven’t been able to resolve is the locating the ‘end’ key or function. But I haven’t cracked a manual yet, or looked at any online help yet either.
Well, I’m off to learn more about the features and functions of my new ‘toy’.
Happy Easter!
10 Comments To "Taking the Mac Plunge"
#1 Comment By Pam/Digging On March 22, 2008 @ 5:09 am
After years and years as a PC user, I received a Mac laptop for Xmas, which has been great for allowing me to use the computer while doing other things (eating, watching TV, brushing my teeth–yes, it’s true). It’s taken me a while to become comfortable with the new system, but I do love the Mac. However, I’ve still not learned to use it for photos, so I go back to my old PC for that. I really need to get over the hurdle and just start doing it.
#2 Comment By carol On March 22, 2008 @ 7:08 am
Glad to hear there is another Mac user in the garden blogger community. I haven’t tried to use the iPhoto application yet, but I intend to test out that function today. I suspect that I will continue to use Photoshop on my PC to edit my photos for a while (I can’t afford to buy Photoshop for my Mac yet.) I’ll let you know how my iPhoto experiment goes…
#3 Comment By giorgio On March 22, 2008 @ 11:10 am
Congrats on your new Mac – you will still be feeling that ‘new’ experience in 6 months time 🙂
Re photos on the Mac, just plug in your camera/card reader and iPhoto will launch usually. It’s a really useful photo app that comes as standard on every Mac. If it doesn’t launch automatically, go to >Applications>Image Capture>Options and configure it to launch iPhoto when importing pics and thats all you have to do.
Re Photoshop, just call Adobe sales and ask to migrate your license over to a Mac and it will cost you only a few dollars rather than hundreds.
You might be interested in this link:
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its near where I live in the UK – a lost garden now rediscovered
Enjoy
#4 Comment By REB On March 22, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
You’ll find a lot of OS X info using the Help menu while in Finder. Photo Editing, other than the simple adjustments in iPhoto, can be handled by Aperture 2.0 if you aren’t into the complexities of Photoshop for professional needs. It’s strictly photograph focused. Here is a lengthy review of this $300 program for professional photographers. Another choice is the new Photoshop Elements which may be more familiar and costs a lot less. Here’s a lengthy review of the new Aperture 2.0:
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#5 Comment By Mark On March 22, 2008 @ 12:05 pm
Hello! Glad things are going well for you. As for “end”, Command and the right arrow will take you to the end of a line. On laptops, Fn and right arrow takes you to the end of a document. Finally, just a down arrow, when you are already on the bottom line of something, will take you to the end of the line. Have fun!
#6 Comment By Carol On March 22, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
giorgio – I can honestly believe that I will still be loving this experience as much in 6 mo as I do now. Today is day 2 and I get more comfortable with the environment every hour I use it. It’s like putting on a perfectly fitting comfortable shoe. I tried the iPhoto app this morning with great success (see post above). It isn’t Photoshop, but it worked perfectly for fast downloading and editing. And the news about migrating Photoshop to Mac really made my day!! I also use Dreamweaver CS3 and I assume that I will be able to migrate that license as well. Thank you so much for sharing this very valuable info with me! And thanks for visiting my garden blog.
REB – thank you for the info. It looks like I will be able to migrate my Photoshop license to Mac for a very reasonable cost, so I will probably choose to do that. I will look into Aperture though. Thanks for the link.
Mark – ahhhhhh. What a relief! I can now go to the end and beginning of lines quickly. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Man this machine is awesome!
#7 Comment By slappy On March 22, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
I think the Macs are the best computer to buy today. You can run both Windows in either Parallels or bootcamp. I no longer have the need to have 2 or 3 machines on my desk. Just one to to do it all. Congratulations on the MBP.
#8 Comment By Andrew On March 22, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
Here’s another tip for navigating through / manipulating text:
You already know that when using arrow keys or the delete key, you move or delete one character at a time. Moving up and down moves you up or down one line.
When you use Option + arrow keys or the delete key, you move or delete one word at a time. Moving up or down with Option moves you one paragraph at a time.
When you use Command + arrow keys or the delete key, you move or delete one line at a time. Moving up or down with Command moves you to the beginning or end of the document (or web page).
#9 Comment By Partners in Grime On March 22, 2008 @ 7:38 pm
Congratulations! A Mac is like a fresh spring bouquet after a long brown winter of despair.
#10 Comment By Carol On March 23, 2008 @ 9:48 am
slappy – the ability to run multiple OSs was a major factor in my decision to by a Mac now. This OS is very impressive.
Andrew – thanks for the handy tips!! I’m starting to get the hang of this already.
Partners in Grime – you said it! I can’t believe it has taken me so long to ‘see the light’.