Saturday 27 August 2011

Less than a day... Good and bad...

Well, I've now been a Mac owner for a little less than a day.  I am beginning to learn things (like how to move the cursor by more than a single character at a time) and am playing with various bits and pieces to see test how things work.

I thought I'd put a quick good and bad points list together.  I though that it would be good to come back in a few weeks and see whether I still stand by them.

Always bad news first...

Installations are just a little bit annoying.  Well, very annoying actually.  Office installed like a dream (almost), where as Flash and Chrome were a pain in the neck!  It just wasn't intuitive for me how it installed - and what I had to do.  And once Chrome was installed I couldn't find the app!  I got it in the end, but it was more random clicking than actually figuring out what to do.

Updates...  I opened the machine and immediately installed the free upgrade to Lion (The hoops apple made me jump through to get that onto the machine made me want to throw the machine out of the window!).  And then...  About a GB worth of updates.  All of which required reboots.  So much for starting it out of the box without all of the updates that Windows needs...

It crashed on me!  One of the updates made it restart, and then it just made the bong noise over and over with a blank grey screen.  As it said 'Do not power off during this update' I dared not restart the machine.  In the end I had to hard power off to get it to do anything.  It did reboot fine (phew!) but not the start I had hoped for!

OK then the good news!

The track pad is a joy to use.  Why Windows machines cannot fit a decent sized trackpad is beyond me.  The one on the Mac is a decent size, responds well and doesn't accidentally click for no reason.  I like it a lot!

Scrolling and zooming work as I would expect.  Well scrolling more than Zooming, but neither of them are bad.  On Windows machines scrolling and zooming via the trackpad are always a bit hit and miss.  The zoom never responds how you would expect and there is an unacceptable lag there.  Scrolling is jerky, will it won't it and so annoying that I rarely use it.  On the Mac it's smooth, responsive and is exactly how you would expect.

The screen is on a par with the other laptops that we have in the house, for a machine that is only just four figures I think it is better than I was expecting.  Well, that's an understatement - looking at the Snow Leopard picture that comes with it is just superb!

And finally, the information that OSX gives back for the battery is so nice.  Time to charge is something that I find so useful, not that it has 10% left to charge, but 10 minutes.

Well, I hope that no one finds that list either gushing, or insulting.  Overall it's a probably about as good as I was expecting.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Stacy,

    It's kind of funny how Apple and Mac computers are viewed. Either hate them or love them. I use a Mac. I won't say I love it because I'm too computer illiterate. I'm learning more every day. But I have to say that I like it much better than my experiences with MS. The really neat thing is, my son is a certified tech for an Apple warrantee shop. If I ever achieve just half of what he knows and can do with my computer, I'll consider myself a genious. He keeps my computer running at top efficiency. I'm set up so that he can access my computer from his home or work so that he can fix something if necessary.

    If you have a problem that you can't fix, maybe I can pass it on to my son and see if he can. You never know.

    Did you know that Apple is the largest corporation in the US now? They are actually bigger than DuPont.

    Hugs and Prayers,

    Cynthia XX

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  2. HI Cynthia,

    After the experience of work today, where half the people lost faith in me for buying an Apple (the techies - 'That's not a computer! Stop calling it that!') and half the people seem to think that I am one of them now (the BA's - 'OH! You have a real computer now!'). And I still think that I am one of the few people who can see a machine for what it is. A machine :)

    As for uses, basic use is fine. I am tip-toeing my way around and getting there. What I really need is a cheat sheet / quick reference guide to compare the terminal commands in OSX to to the DOS commands in Windows.

    I don't suppose you could ask him if he knows of one could you?

    Thanks,
    Stace

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  3. Hi Stacy,

    I will have a chat with him and find out what he knows. I'll let you know as soon as I know something.

    By the way, I think my son has no less than 4 or 5 machines running at home. He has some where around 75 Macs of various vintages in storage at his home.

    Needless to say, he's a Mac fan. And very bright.

    Hugs,

    Cynthia XX

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  4. Hi Stacy,

    Here's some information that my son gave me.

    There are many cheat sheets for unix commands.
    Here is a comparator - http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/DOStoUNIX.html

    And here are some plain unix ones - http://mally.stanford.edu/~sr/computing/basic-unix.html
    http://www.math.utah.edu/lab/unix/unix-commands.html

    I hope it helps you. If not, let me know and I'll ask him again. My email: fandfmfgco(at)gmail(dot)com

    Hugs,

    Cynthia XX

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  5. Hi Cynthia!

    That's a great start for me to learn how to use the terminal thanks! Some of those are going to be really useful to me!

    We have 5 or 6 machines here that home, but we got rid of all of the legacy machines a while ago as we just needed the space. As of yet though only the one Mac :) And unless the 17" machines come down by about 1000 euros from their current price I just don't see me adding to the collection. Shame, as I am starting to actually quite like the machine itself (still unsure of OSX though), especially the fact the keyboard is just so solid. It is very nice to type on.

    Stace

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  6. Hi Stacy,

    I'm happy that I could be of some assistance. I personally don't know very much about what I sent you, but my son is pretty sharp and seems to know a lot of these links to get the answers he needs. He's been a Mac user for about 20 plus years now. I think Mac's are addictive! LOL! Good luck.

    Hugs and Prayers,

    Cynthia XX

    ReplyDelete