My first days with a Macbook

Strax

Strax

Strax

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I finally took the plunge yesterday and got myself a Macbook from the Apple store.

Initial impressions are, how quick it is compared to my windows 7 laptop. Plus I just love the extended battery life, which was one of the main reasons I went for it. The multitouch trackpad is really good too. I am amazed how much better it makes using the touchpad being able to scroll with 2 fingers through web pages.

Also the HE discount makes it a bit more affordable too. The Applecare was £47 for the 3 years, which is a real bargain.
 
You're in for a surprise if you're a longtime windows user like I was. That pretty much changed when I brought my uMacbook last August. I use this 13" bugger more than my gaming pc now :eek:
 
I find that I now spend a lot of time downstairs on the macbook compared to my main windows pc upstairs or even my 17" windows laptop which gets a bit heavy on the knee after a while.
 
My processor in my 17" windows laptop is a 2gig core 2 duo, so this is faster anyway. The main thing I think is the lack of disk activity when doing stuff which makes it feel really snappy. Saying that, I haven't really did much apart from run Firefox on it.;):confused:

I was considering either a memory upgrade or ssd for this before I bought it, but I'm not sure now.

I plan on using photoshop CS4 on this occasionally, so that would probably be a big test, working with large raw files and a few layers.
 
Strax said:
I finally took the plunge yesterday and got myself a Macbook from the Apple store.

Initial impressions are, how quick it is compared to my windows 7 laptop. Plus I just love the extended battery life, which was one of the main reasons I went for it. The multitouch trackpad is really good too. I am amazed how much better it makes using the touchpad being able to scroll with 2 fingers through web pages.

Also the HE discount makes it a bit more affordable too. The Applecare was £47 for the 3 years, which is a real bargain.
Click to expand...

The first day I bought my Alu MacBook i put W7 on it. Snow Leopard is the worst OS I have ever used.

Also £47 is not a bargain when AppleCare comes FREE with HE discount. haha
 
support_bae said:
The first day I bought my Alu MacBook i put W7 on it. Snow Leopard is the worst OS I have ever used.

Also £47 is not a bargain when AppleCare comes FREE with HE discount. haha
Click to expand...

Nice trolling. ;)

You obviously gave Snow Leopard a huge chance seeing as you've confessed to installed Windows on it in the first day of ownership. Also, do you understand that MacBook's are higher priced mainly because of the Operating System? Why didn't you just buy a Windows laptop? :confused:
 
support_bae said:
The first day I bought my Alu MacBook i put W7 on it. Snow Leopard is the worst OS I have ever used.

Also £47 is not a bargain when AppleCare comes FREE with HE discount. haha
Click to expand...

get out of the subsection, sell you macbook, go to ****.com for its replacement. Product is wasted on you.
 
I've had my macbook for nearly a year now and im pretty used to it now although i still have some gripes about it. Who in their right mind thought that dragging files into a folder was ment to copy the files and not move them? Thats very annoying. Also the way the windows seem to work doesn't feel as fluid as windows.

But all in all OSX isn't bad, i just wish xCode worked a bit more like visual studio :D
 
Tilluss said:
I've had my macbook for nearly a year now and im pretty used to it now although i still have some gripes about it. Who in their right mind thought that dragging files into a folder was ment to copy the files and not move them? Thats very annoying. Also the way the windows seem to work doesn't feel as fluid as windows.

But all in all OSX isn't bad, i just wish xCode worked a bit more like visual studio :D
Click to expand...

I'm not quite sure what you mean about dragging. If I've got a bunch of files on the desktop and I drag them into the folder then it moves them, it doesn't copy them. Unless you're talking about something else and I've misunderstood. :D
 
Tilluss said:
I've had my macbook for nearly a year now and im pretty used to it now although i still have some gripes about it. Who in their right mind thought that dragging files into a folder was ment to copy the files and not move them? Thats very annoying. Also the way the windows seem to work doesn't feel as fluid as windows.

But all in all OSX isn't bad, i just wish xCode worked a bit more like visual studio :D
Click to expand...

Whisky Tango Foxtrot? Mac OS X only copies files if they are going from one logical partition to another (in the case of seperate disks for instance).

Indeed many people have asked for the copy behaviour that you claim is default!
(http://devdaily.com/blog/post/mac-os-x/copy-files-drag-and-drop-mac-os-x)
Are you pressing the OPTION key when you select? as that causes copying rather than drag and drop.
 
Congratulations to the OP. It may seem confusing at first, but stick with OS X and you'll soon learn.

I would recommend Safari over Firefox if you prefer speed over extensions/plugins, and to get Perian (link) and Flip4Mac (link) so you're covered regarding media playback that you might take for granted (.WMV etc).

I'll be buying the mrs a MacBook when we move, they're great machines :)
 
EVH said:
Congratulations to the OP. It may seem confusing at first, but stick with OS X and you'll soon learn.

I would recommend Safari over Firefox if you prefer speed over extensions/plugins, and to get Perian (link) and Flip4Mac (link) so you're covered regarding media playback that you might take for granted (.WMV etc).

I'll be buying the mrs a MacBook when we move, they're great machines :)
Click to expand...

It is a bit confusing, but I was using Ubuntu for a couple of weeks on my other laptop and there are a few similarities.

Does safari not have plug-ins? The only ones I use in Firefox are a dictionary and an exif viewer.

I'll go and look at those links just now and download them. The postman has just delivered 'the missing manual' for Snow Leopard so that will be a big help too.
 
Strax said:
It is a bit confusing, but I was using Ubuntu for a couple of weeks on my other laptop and there are a few similarities.

Does safari not have plug-ins? The only ones I use in Firefox are a dictionary and an exif viewer.

I'll go and look at those links just now and download them. The postman has just delivered 'the missing manual' for Snow Leopard so that will be a big help too.
Click to expand...

OS X has global dictionary support for native apps (Safari, Address Book etc). In fact, if you highlight a word and press Ctrl+Cmd+D you can get a definition of any word. No extras needed :).

As for plugins.. Firefox has downloadable extensions such as adblockers etc, whereas Safari doesnt. It's all about a simple, fast browsing experience.

When you're in the Finder (think: Windows file explorer) press the squiggly option key + I on a JPEG and you can pull up EXIF details if they're embedded. Obviously, if you have the Adobe suite you can use Bridge etc, but it's built in to the Finder by standard.

That book you mentioned is very good, don't get too bogged down and think about it too much. Usually things can be done the same as Windows, or by trying things out. Dragging a file to the Mail icon on the dock will launch mail and compose a new message with that file as an attachment, for example.

You can always check out the Mac & OS X sticky over in the Apple Software subform for the essentials of using OS X (link)
 
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Strax said:
Does safari not have plug-ins? The only ones I use in Firefox are a dictionary and an exif viewer.
Click to expand...

Safari doesn't officially support plugins... but developers have hacked ways to add to it. Using these is entirely up to you as they can make Safari unstable and/or break when Apple updates Safari.
 
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