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Apr
7
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I've been using my MacBook Pro now for two weeks. I still find myself fat-fingering from time to time but on the whole it's been a pretty smooth migration.
I couldn't live without a virtual desktop and couldn't wait for 10.5 / Leopard so I installed Desktop Manager which is pretty good but because it doesn't seem to integrate with the dock, it's way too easy to loose applications. I'm not sure this is an active project - so I'll be hunting around for an alternative.
Talking of OS/X 10.5 - there are rumors that it will support ZFS. That makes a huge amount of sense and would be a really smart move by Apple (assuming it's true). I was starting to think about installing Ubuntu or Solaris on my MacBook but if Apple is going to be augmenting OS/X with Solaris technologies then I may not need to.
The other change I made was to scrub OpenOffice and switch to NeoOffice - so far so good, though I'm still struggling to get NeoOffice to deal with a projector (in a sensible way). What I want to be able to do is put NeoOffice in presentation mode on the projector but keep my desktop clear for reading and making notes. So far I can only make it display (in presentation mode) on the primary desktop. Any ideas how I achieve what I want ?
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Apr
1
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I had some stuff to catch up on so took my kids and MacBook to the park (at the end of the street) - just for fun I did a quick scan with AP Scanner and I can hardly believe my eyes - I can see 18 unsecured Access Points with good signals. So thanks to my neighbors, I've found another place to work. I wonder if there's anywhere in suburban Northern California where I can't surf the web for free.
UPDATE - sorry I got that wrong, AP Scanner was displaying all APs; if I filter out the secure APs - I can only 
see 9.
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Mar
25
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I've been a Mac user for a week now; actually 1 week and 10 minutes if you include the time spent with the original MacBook that was pretty much DOA. It's taken me the best part of the week (in between work) to actually get everything set up and working. Those things FWIW are : Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, Palm Desktop and Open Office - that's basically my office productivity suite.
Things I like :
Keyboard - very good feel, quiet and fast. As an added bonus it lights up - should I ever feel the need to type in the dark !
Desktop - very slick, quick and customizable. I didn't like the vanilla look and feel so changed all the icons, modified most things to my liking. It's good you can do this.
Stuff works - always a problem with Linux (even Ubuntu) was getting APM, Wireless, etc. to just work. All the time. With the Mac I just don't find myself having to massage things all the time. Open the lid, do some work, surf the web, close the lid. That's the way a laptop has to be.
The scroll button on the Mighty Mouse (but see below).
The magnetic power jack. I don't know why but I just can't help fiddling with it. Magnetism is neat.
Things I don't like
OpenOffice on OS X is a bit of a hack - it runs inside X11 and doesn't do much / anything to adopt the OS X look and feel or keyboard shortcuts. I rely on the keyboard more than a mouse (having grown up on X-emacs) and having to switch between OS X and X11 slows me down (eg. copy & paste - which I use about 30 times a minute !). At the moment it's manageable but this is the kind of irritation that will probably wear me down.
There's no virtual desktop !! I did try something I found on the web but it didn't work. How can anyone work without a virtual desktop !
The mousepad button is raised about 1mm - I don't know why - it seems like a bug.
The Mighty Mouse "side buttons" require a pretty unnatural squeeze - I'm getting the hang of it but I've had better mice with way more buttons and they've not felt quite as awkward.
Things that are different, but I'll probably get used to.
There's only one mouse button. Many would argue there's no need for more than one. Unfortunately my hand doesn't care - it expects 2 buttons.
The Mac Button.
Overall I'm pretty pleased - It hasn't taken me long to get up to speed and with only a few mishaps along the way - I somehow corrupted my original login and had to create a new one and copy all the files over. As an added bonus, the kids like Photo Booth. This week I'm traveling so I'll see how the MacBook deals with that.
Update
I just enable track pad clicking (and double clicking) so I'm happy there - thanks Max.
I just downloaded Desktop Manager - pretty sweet and it should tide me over 'til Panther - thanks Mozam.
