Mani's blog: Mani Chandrasekaran's Weblog

Credit: Image linked from the CNet website.

I finally, took the plunge and bought a black Macbook with Intel Core 2 duo processor in Bangalore, as my official office/personal laptop. I did some background research, to find if it was gonna be a good fit for a techie like me, before I bought it. Here are some of my tips, to become productive with a Macbook quickly (in Bangalore/India):
1. Get a Macbook either from retailers like Reliance iStore on MG Road, the Ample iStore at Forum or any Apple reseller in Bangalore. Call the Apple helpdesk to get the details. The sad part, the Sun employee discount which you get in US/UK and elsewhere is not available in India I also got Leopard loaded on my Macbook.
2. Be prepared, if you are a Solaris and Windows user, everything is different in a Mac !! But, its ok, you can find your way around. Arun Gupta, who is also a Mac newbie, is documenting his discoveries
3. Cisco VPN client works, NeoOffice for Openoffice stuff, Adium for IM, Firefox and Thunderbird for browser and email. I also use Lightning for calendar with Sun Calendar server.
4. I use Samba to connect to Solaris NFS stuff. The printing stuff works easily.
5. I got Tata Indicom wireless internet while travelling. There is no installation CD, but shoot me an message, if you need to get Tata indicom working. I believe, the Reliance thing also works. For road warriors like me, this is very critical. The speed can be patchy.
6. I got an extended two year warranty, 2GB RAM, a wireless mouse and Mini-DVI to VGA adapter for doing presentations.
7. Finally, I bought VMware Fusion to get a MS Windows XP and Solaris SXDE running on top of Mac OS. There are a couple of gotchas to get Solaris SXDE running:

• You will need > 800 MB RAM for a VMWare to run Solaris GUI install. So, dont insert the SXDE DVD and start the installation. Just enter an name, and select Solaris 10 as the OS. Uncheck, the install now option. Now, set the RAM settings to > 800 MB. Now, you can start the installation.
• There is some issue, with Fusion thinking, SXDE is 64 bit OS etc. Follow, the tips linked here, and you will be ok. Now, dont ask me where is the .vmx file Its inside some freakin package, I would say RTFM. You will need to unzip, add the new line and close the package.

There are other options, like using Parallels etc, but I dont have the time to do R&D.

Hope the tips were useful. Thanks also to thambi Rajesh for sharing some Mac tips.