Randomn3ss

In the spirit of the Macworld 2008 keynote address which announced four new products and services, all of which can be recapped through this live feed from Gizmodo, I present to you the simple question, How addicted to Apple are you?

I’m not that addicted and doubt that I’ll increase my score anytime soon.

Personally, I’m bored with this years announcements and nothing makes me want to jump out of my seat and scream, “I want that! How on earth did I live without it?” I really like some of the features of the newly announced Macbook Air like the black, backlit keys, but not enough to sell my still smells like new Macbook to get one.

So how addicted to Apple are you?

As of 5pm EST, I became the proud owner of a brand spankin’ new 13.3″ screen, white, 2.2GHz something, 120 GB of something, and 2 GB of something else MacBook laptop.  It’s super freaking cool.  It is sexy and light and totally full of memory and I have yet to take it out of the box.  And I probably won’t take it out of the box until Tuesday, when I will be able to take it back to the store to get my data transferred from my old laptop.  Until then, I will continue to use my 2001 Toshiba Satellite with no more memory, a broken CD drive, and the inability to delete programs to make more space.

Why, you ask, did I just drop $1500 (plus tax, minus the “student discount,” thank you Hamilton College, your IDs without dates and the $160,000 I spent for them are the gifts that keep on giving) on a computer I’m not totally psyched to dive into?  Because I’m afraid.  Yes, I am intimidated by new, sexy, smart piece of machinery.  I will not be used to a computer that is speedy and doesn’t immediately get a virus as soon as I check my email.  I am not ready to not hit the “ctrl” key everytime I need to click a link so that I can fool my pop-up blocker.  I can’t commit to long battery life, nor to the time it will take to rip all of the CDs I’ve accumulated in the last 15 months since my CD drive broke.  Will I finally subscribe to NetFlix now that I have a functioning DVD player?  Am I sure I want to be able to download and delete programs with ease?  Do I want to be modern and sexy?

No.

I want the status quo until I have the courage to take my MacBook out of the box.  Also, I have an uncanny tendency to ruin electronics immediately upon first use, like the time I bought my Treo 700wx and dropped it when I went to show it to my friends.  Yeah.  Or the time I bought my new iPod, then went to Japan, got on a bike and wiped out with it, getting the headphones caught in the gear chain.  I’m pretty sure that as soon as I open that MacBook box, I will dump spaghetti sauce on it, drop it into my humidifier, get a coin jammed in the CD drive, and then, suddenly, lose the “r” key. 

Wish me luck.

Now that I’m (kind of) an adult, I don’t really get to make a Christmas list anymore. There are fewer presents under the tree and more cards with some cash in them. It’s not that I’m complaining - money is great - but it’s more fun to open gifts than to buy them for yourself. There are a few choice things I would like to see under the tree this year. Sadly, much of what I would like could be filed under “practical and boring” but, being female, I think I can find some frivolous things to throw in there.

Dear Santa:

I was only naughty on a handful of occasions this year, so I think I’m deserving of the items on this list. I mean, the naughty-ness occurred in the company of good friends and was all in the name of fun. If there was any naughty-ness that was not in the name of fun, I was too drunk to remember it so it doesn’t count. I’m pretty broke, so if you could like, pass this on to people who are loaded, that would be great.

1. A humidifier. I’ve had this persistent sinus infection for the past three weeks and I think it’s partially because of how dry the heat is in my apartment (it’s also due to drinking). But, I think this would help. This one is fancy and cute and from The Sharper Image. It’s also $150. Something between this and “cup of water next to the bed” would be stellar.
2. The Led Zeppelin 2-disc retrospective. I’m really into them lately and would love to have it in my music collection. I can’t get “Kashmir” or “Immigrant Song” or “All of My Love” out of my head lately (and I even like some of Robert Plant’s solo stuff). I’ll also take an iTunes giftcard. I’m kind of a music whore.
3. My computer is dying. It’s a six-year-old Toshiba Satellite laptop that has been very good to me, but is definitely in its last days. The CD drive doesn’t work and I’m pretty much out of disk space on my hard drive. Since I blog, I kind of need a computer (and it’s nice to have a portable one at that). I realize that I could get a regular Windows OS laptop for way cheaper, but I am sick of viruses and popups and installing extra programs to prevent the aforementioned. I just want to buy a computer, have all my files transferred, and call it a day. I want a Mac. Not only are they extremely sexy, but they are easy to use and don’t get all funky from rogue programs. I’ve decided on the 15″ MacBook Pro - it has a matte screen (unlike the 13″, which only comes in “glossy” which is damn annoying). However, I am really sad that it doesn’t come in black to match my two iPods and Bose speakers. Yes - color is important to me. Don’t judge.
4. Because you can never go wrong with this gift… but I can’t guarentee it’ll last past New Year’s.
5. A job with health benefits. I don’t think that’s a whole lot to ask for. Right, Santa? And yeah - that’s a picture of Steve Jobs… get it? JOBS?? HA! Also, if he reads this, it might help my case with getting that MacBook.
6. Maynard James Keenan. You don’t need to put him under the tree, just undress him and leave him tied to my bed, please. He can keep his cowboy hat on. Thanks.

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OK not really the world, but the market share is up a good 40% from last year. Mac users, don’t get to excited, Windows still owns 91% of the marketplace. Yahoo news reported today,

Mac’s worldwide market share among Web users increased to 6.6 percent in September, compared to 4.7 percent a year ago

It’s been almost a month now since I bought my way into the cool club and ordered a Macbook, my Windows desktop has been fired up I think twice over the last month. There is still some photos and data, along with music and movies I need on it, but I don’t need them on the laptop. One of the primary reasons the laptop is getting more use then the desktop is because I can park my ass on the couch and watch TV and surf the net. Outside of that, it is merely a tool for me to use.

The learning curve for me has been pretty mild, simple stuff, keyboard shortcuts, working in terminal, stuff like that. Outside of that, most programs I use operate the same for me. I don’t love my Mac the way others told me I would, I enjoy the speed it has and the ability to do what I need when I need it, it is stress-free, that is what is important.

This recent spike in Mac users, like myself, is only likely to grow though. I’ve had my sticky fingers on Vista enough to know I don’t like it. I have to support it for work, but I still much prefer XP or even win2k. Most computer users now-a-days are not buying their first computer. They have time vested, programs they are used to using, things that work and don’t work and ways of working around the hardware not living up to what they thought it would be. In my case, buying a Mac was a matter of getting the most from a computer with the least amount of money. To equip a Windows powered laptop with the hardware to match that of my Macbook, the price was only dollars apart, for me it was a choice of operating systems and expandability, most of which I covered several articles ago. I still couldn’t imagine spending $2,500 or more on a Macbook Pro or even $1,500 on an iMac.

Apple could continue to grow its user base if, and only if, they continue to offer products that are financially viable for most users. The fact that Dell and HP offer desktop units that do what most home users need, email, internet, photos, etc for half the price of an entry level Mac desktop will mean that they will continue to dominate the home market. Not until someone has specific needs do they start to look elsewhere. It is also my belief that, with Vista being as shitty as it is, more average users will start to look into other operating systems like Ubuntu. Ubuntu offers what the vast majority of home users want and need, even though mine is currently dusty, as soon as someone figures out an affordable way to offer support and get some marketing behind it, it will grow.

For now I am a content Mac user who also utilizes Windows and likes to play with Ubuntu now and again.

Now, I know that humans invented shit like Craig’s List for stuff like this… and I also know that’s it’s stupid to spend $2400 just because you have a 30-second crush on someone, but I had an experience today that defies the logic of both of these things.  Today after work I stopped into the Apple Store across the street from the retail store where I work to see if a Mac would be compatible with my Windows OX Treo (that I can, like, barely operate). I wandered around for a bit and was going to approach one of the guys I had seen in my store before, but…

I saw him.

A vision in a black Apple Store t-shirt… unkempt brown hair, unwashed for about 36 hours, scruff, and needy brown eyes.

“Can I help you?”

Um, yes.  You can help me by tailgating for the Phillies game on Wednesday, by cuddling and watching Star Trek: The Next Generation marathons on G4, by letting me play Halo 3 on easy without laughing (do you think he has an Xbox even though he works at the Apple Store???)… or, you could just tell me if my Treo will work with a Mac.

Apple Store Guy helped me by looking on the internet and slightly mocking my lack of technological know-how.  He asked a bunch of questions about my phone, throwing around fancy terms like “USB cord” and “shareware program.”  Psssssssssh, that is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, I am certain.  Then he asked me why my screen was so dim (damned if I know, because it came like that?) and proceeded to pull out his iPhone with it’s super-bright screen.  This was obviously the Apple Store Guy version of “peacocking”; this should have given me the courage to give him my number, because showing off the iPhone was pretty much just like whipping out his penis and waving it in my face (Freud would soooooooo agree).  However, I just pointed out his fabulous taste in Reef sandals because we were both wearing the Sultans (hey, I work in a sporting goods store, I get paid to know this shit).  He laughed, but I groaned inwardly as my attempt to be flirty also resulted in his knowing that I can only fit my ginormous feet into man-dals.  Fuck.

We chatted some more until I saw an older couple start to approach (fucking cock block!) and he asked if I had any further questions.  I could sense the longing in his eyes, him waiting, yearning for me to have one more question about Macintosh and everything they (nee, HE!) had to offer.  And I couldn’t do it… I froze.  I said I was good, then basically turned and ran out the door, which I summarily pulled into my chest before realizing that you push the door out.  We shared one last glance and he was gone, off to help tech-savvy geriatrics talk to their grandkids in Arizona via webcam.

Clearly, I’m going in there tomorrow after work.  If anyone has some shit I can make up to ask him about Macs, please let me know.  Until then, I adore you, my raven-haired, Bassethound-eyed, probably Shins-loving, Reef-and-board-short-wearing Apple Store Guy.  If you ever need a backrub, someone to share your Wii with (the VIDEO GAME SYSTEM… Freudian slip much?) or moderately-priced sporting goods, I’m your girl…

Nearly a week into making the switch to my new Macbook, I think I’ve found a decent word processor, one other than Microsoft Word. I’ve previously tried AbiWord and OpenOffice, each have their own characteristics to them that I liked, however the negatives to each were far greater. OpenOffice was pretty much a diaster, not user friendly at all and as much as I wanted to like AbiWord, the spacing of words on anything other than 100% was terrible. Most of the time when I write articles, I prefer to do so at 120-150%, just my preferance. Sure I could just increase the font size but that causes problems when I want to print, since 12pt looks just fine on printed paper.

On the suggestion of Randomn3ss commenter Joe, I downloaded and installed Bean. Bean is one of the first programs I saw on several sites listing open source software for Macs but I overlooked it, I’ve had success with OpenOffice on Windows and figured it would be very similar on Mac so that was my first choice. Upon first launching the processor, I knew that a coder didn’t write this program, it’s aesthetically beautiful to look at, well as nice as a word processor could be.

As a blogger, it has two of the most important things that I need and use,

• Easily zoom in and out
• Word / character counting

The zooming is done live via a left to right slide bar in the bottom left of the application, this is a slick idea, one I’ve never seen done before.

The word / character count is also live and in the middle bottom of the application, as you type, it updates. This is particulary handy for me because when an article that I’m writing starts to get close to the 1,000 word point, I consider splitting it up into two parts. For school students who need to meet a minimum word count, this feature alone is a time saver.

I’ve written the last few articles in Bean and now this one, I’m rather fond of it. Each time I use it there are a few more features and functions that show to be more useable. This definitely isn’t a piece of software that you need to read a book to use, finding answers to what you want to do is really intuitive.

The only down side to Bean and the two other word processors I’ve used is that they don’t do grammar checking, only spelling, which is built into the Mac anyway. If there was a grammar plugin for Bean, it would be everything I need from a word processor. I’m leaving AbiWord and OpenOffice installed for a few more days, just to make sure there isn’t anything from that that I may need from them, but Bean is the clearly the break away word processor from the pack.

Three days into using my new Macbook and one thing not built in to my liking is a word processor. TextEdit is nice, but just seems lacking and not robust enough, not that I’m a super user of word processing, but it just felt lacking. Microsoft Office is an option, but I didn’t want to pig up the hard drive space with bloated software, even though Word is what I am very used to on Windows based systems.

OpenOffice.org is really interesting, I’ve used it on Ubuntu and a few times on Windows, it is a really polished system, but for Mac they only really offer the Alpha software called Aqua, which comes with a nice big warning message

Even with that big warning, I downloaded and installed the program last night and wrote Dig a big hole for a little rock article, works really well even if it is in alpha. I don’t really have any complaints about it, but it just didn’t feel like it was giving me enough.

Today, as I sit here using the WiFi at a local Panera Bread, I installed the open source word processor AbiWord. It is super clean and aesthetically resembles Word a lot. Writing this article is my first time using it, but there are some minor issues that I’m not fond of. Mainly, the spacing. Viewing the page at 100% in 12pt Times New Roman font on this monitor, running at 1280×800 is a bit small. Zooming to page width or 200% (no 150%) is much easier on the eyes, however the spacing is way off for the letters. By this I mean the space between letters and words is off. See the screen capture below.

Outside of that, I really like the program. Common things I use like word count are readily available, however other things like spell check use different shortcut keys. In most programs, F7 will do spell checking, for Mac, FN + F7 usually does it. For AbiWord, Command + Shift + : does it. Not a bad thing, just different. It will take a bit more writing to choose, I may install MS Word just to see what it’s like in OSX, but open source stuff tends to be a bit smaller and faster.

Anyone have suggestions on any other word processors I should be looking into?�

As scheduled, the Macbook I ordered last week showed up today, I’ve officially bought my way into the cool club. With a bit of glee, I opened the box at work and plugged in the shiny white plastic covered notebook that so many swore would make me smile and love mac. After a few minutes, the laptop was configured and on the Wi-Fi at work and the mass downloads started for all the updates. Good thing I could let this run while I was doing other work, there was nearly a gig of data that had to come down.

With all the updates done and my lunch coming up soon, I looked forward to configuring the system and installing software. First thing I did was install Firefox, this proved to be a bit more of a hassle than I was anticipating. One of my first computers was a Mac Classic II back around 1990, about 5 years ago I had a G3 iBook for a while but got rid of it and I use Macs on occasion at work, but I’m not nearly as proficient in using software as I am with Windows. So I go on to download the .dmg file onto my desktop and double click it. I’m shown a funny screen that is the familiar Firefox icon and the Applications folder, a plus symbol between them. I click on the Firefox logo and it launches Firefox, but it’s still not installed. Not after some poking around did I come to figure out that I needed to now drag the mounted image into the Application folder in Finder. Great, first thing I do on a Mac and I feel like an idiot, and I’m a network admin. Now that I feel dumb, I move onto some other quirky things about the Mac that are, well they are quirky for a Windows users.

Now I’m not saying one is better than the other, but there are some really funky things to get used to. For me, I’m very dependent on the CTRL key in Windows for several things, the Command key in Mac does nearly the same things but is in a different physical location on the keyboard. While my touch typing hands are very used to striking the CTRL key with my left pinky, I now must figure out how to efficiently strike the Command key with my left hand, curling my thumb in seems to give me the best results thus far.

There is a lot of shit installed, nearly 18 gigs of data were installed upon first boot. Only two pieces of trial software, those are now ditched, tons of stuff that I’m still trying to figure out what exactly it does and what I’m supposed to do to work it into my daily routine. A co-worker tells me that he can clean a lot of this out, mostly the foreign languages and printer driver crap that I’ll never use

Turn the bloody screen brightness down! Holy shit, this is really bright, I feel like I need suntan lotion on my eyeballs from looking at the screen. I have every intention of doing a color calibration on the screen when I have some free time at work, until then I have some minor tweaking done and the brightness turned down to about 40%.

On a positive note, there is lots I’m very happy with.

• The keyboard, although slightly off-center, is really a joy to type on
• The mag-charger is such a stupidly simple design, works so well
• Although bright, I’m very impressed with the resolution of the monitor
• Software installs are fairly quick, once I figured out how to do it
• I’ve only bogged down the system once, got to love Core-2 duo
• After installing the CS3 suite, I opened it all at once, it all opened!
• 1GB of RAM is actually very impressive
• The hinge. I’ve loved the hinge design since the original iBook, it makes so much sense
• Spell check built into everything by default
• Bluetooth works great with my cell phone, although I haven’t tried to sync with iCal
• Touchpad has right click! Granted it is not the traditional way of doing it, but it works. Two finger scrolling is also pretty dang nice

There are also a few things that I’m still scratching my temple about.

• Dashboard. Yes there are a lot of cool applications, not sure how often I’m likely to use it though
• TextEdit, the program I”m writing this in is nice, but I think I’m going to look into Open Office or another rich text editor
• It’s so white. I’m almost afraid that I’ll have to carry hand wipes with me just to keep it clean
• It’s so soft - the case that is. I’m very afraid that this thing is going to scratch, badly. My G3 did the first day I had it.
• Is a remote really needed? Yes, very cool and seems to work well, but I doubt it will get any use outside of showing non Mac users what it does.
• The Delete key really is a backspace key, there is no dedicated Delete key, which I often do use in the Windows world.

Overall, I have about 2 hours logged in actual time on this. I’m writing this article from my couch, in front of my TV with Bella, my dog, trying her best to snuggle on my lap under my arms between me and the Mac to sleep. Hopefully I can start to utilize some of the other features and functions that are in this laptop, I didn’t buy all this extra power just to surf the web. Until then, it will be sitting comfortably in the Crumpler Considerable Embarrassment messenger bag (full review coming soon) that I bought to transport it in.

For the last few months I have been shopping for a laptop. Knowing that I have rather specific requirements for what I wanted from the hardware and within a certain budget, I’ve been pretty picky. All this, and I told myself I would either wait until service pack 1 of Vista was released or try to pickup a refurb Dell unit still running XP. Since I wasn’t in too much of a hurry, I could take my time and really get a feel for what I wanted. This usually meant playing with whatever laptops the big box stores had while I was there for some other purpose and looking for deals online. From a tactile feel, I’ve always liked Sony Vaio laptops, however they are way over priced for what you get. HP seemed to have everything I wanted, however their 15.4” models only run a screen resolution of 1280×800, I wanted better than that from a 15.4” and they didn’t offer much in the 14” and smaller line that was anything near affordable. Back to Dell. Dell offers some sick screen resolutions on their 15.4” lines, but the price goes through the roof when you add the video card to drive them, and they don’t come with bluetooth or a web cam by default, they are about a $100 add on. I can live without the web cam, who would want to see me anyway, but I want bluetooth for easy synching with my phone and for a wireless mouse. The added video card and bluetooth put me over the budget I had of around a grand.

My hardware requirements are:

• Intel Core 2 duo
• At least 1GB of RAM installed
• At least a 120GB hard drive
• DVD burner – double layer doesn’t much matter to me
• Extended battery
• Bluetooth
• Under 5lbs

Looking at a refurb site, I thought I found a 13.3” Vaio that fit my needs and an older 1.83 core 2-duo processor. It had everything I wanted and a few things that were nice add-ons, but only came with a 90-day warranty. The company selling the laptop offered a 3-year on-site warranty for an additional $99, but it was done through a third party, something I’m not fond of. I was still very interested in it though and asked some co-workers their opinion on the hardware setup. All agreed that it was a lot of computer for the money, but asked if I looked into the Macbook refurbs, there was one that was about $50 more but had a 1-year warranty.

Reluctantly I went to the Apple site and clicked on the refurbished section. Sure enough, they had a 13.3” Macbook with a better, 2.15 Core 2 duo processor and everything else on my want list. Black would have been my first choice, but they only had white in stock. The next 2 hours really had me pondering what to do. A co-worker has been running Tiger on his new (refurb) 15” Macbook Pro with VMware Fusion, allowing him to also run Windows and Ubuntu all at the same time without rebooting. This sounded great, although I can only think of one application that I have that is Windows specific that they don’t have a Mac version for. At least the option to have Windows is there.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a fan of Macs, most don’t understand why though. I think OSX is a great operating system but I don’t like the overpriced hardware one needs to buy to run the operating system. Up until this point, one can almost always buy more hardware for the money and run Windows than OSX, I still feel this is true with most of the desktop units that Apple offers. In my case, laptop to laptop, the refurb Macbook is in the same price range with the same features as Windows based ones and the ability to run Windows and Ubuntu on it is very attractive.

The laptop is supposed to arrive tomorrow, we’ll see if FedEx ground comes through or not, but several of my friends that know its coming are more excited to me. In telling a few Mac using friends that I ordered one, their first question back to me has been nearly identical, to the word, do you love it?

I can’t say that there is any proper way to answer that, even after I get it and start using it on a regular basis. I’ve never said, Wow, I love Windows! Nor can I say that about nearly any product I use on a regular basis. What makes Mac addicts so into their hardware? Some of these friends who know it’s coming bought a Mac because it looks pretty, which in most cases, it does, some are programmers and designers who have been using Macs so long that they are just more proficient with them. Where does all this supposed love come from though? Why do Mac fans get all excited in the pants at the announcement of a new keynote speech by Steve Jobs?

My main computer uses are

• Internet
• Email
• Photoshop (most RAW processing digital photos and adjusting for output)
• Minor coding (usually in Dreamweaver or Scite)
• Writing / blogging
• Bittorrent

My hope is that none of these tasks are drastically affected as I make the transition to a Mac. I have no intentions of moving entirely, my XP based desktop is still plenty fast and will serve for grunt work with specific Photoshop work that requires a higher resolution than my laptop will provide me with.

Expect updates on how my introduction into OSX goes as well as other learning curves, widgets, and other Mac anomalies go. Wish me luck!