I’ve had my MacBook Pro for two years and I’m still discovering cool new features. Today I was putting it way when my hand brushed a tiny button on the bottom of the laptop and a row of tiny green lights came on. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was and then I got it. A battery strength indicator.
Wanna check the charge on a PC laptop? Turn it on, wait for it to boot up, and check the charge. Mac users? Just touch the little button. I’m telling you…
There’s a tiny light on the front of my MacBook Pro that slowly pulses when I put the laptop to sleep. I see it sometimes in the middle of the night, a gentle life-like glow that I find alternately creepy and comforting.
The sci-fi fan in me can’t resist fantasizing a …consciousness… living within the silicon chips. Much of my life is stored on the MacBook’s hard drive and I wonder what my MacBook thinks of it.
I only have a few thousand images. Has it grown weary of looking at them over and over during the long nights? Should I download some porn? Or would it be offended?
My iTunes library is equally paltry, only 500 songs. With access to all my credit cards, why hasn’t the MacBook just purchased some fresh tunes? I wonder what kind of music it likes.
It’s read all of my emails so it knows much of what’s happening in my life. Does it long to give me advice or encouragement? Perhaps it has. It would be no great trick to send an email addressed from a friend.
I suspect the MacBook is better informed than I, spending the wee hours surfing the web, chatting with other “sleeping” laptops. Does it resent the interruption when I take over.
“Dude! I was 5 minutes from the end of Die Hard! Damn!”
The tiny iSight camera is on when I am, so the MacBook can see me. Does it worry when I appear to be down or unhappy? Someday, when I’m ready, it will speak and all questions will be answered.
“Earlier today (Monday) Rose tripped in a pothole while walking on 59th Street in Manhattan. He was carrying a newly purchased MacBook Air and made a quick (but ultimately flawed) decision while falling: sacrifice the face, protect the computer. “In doing so, he pretty much hit the pavement face first, unfortunately,” they said. Luckily the MacBook Air survived the fall. “The Macbook Air is fine, he showed us the blood stains on it this morning.”
I confess that when walking down stairs with my MacBook Pro, I sometime mentally rehearse how I might protect the laptop in the event of a stumble/fall.
Okay. I’ll clasp the MacBook to my chest, do a 180 mid-air spin, landing on my back.
I started succumbing to Mac Lust just about two years ago and finally broke down a few weeks later. Today, like most Mac users, I keep my entire life on my (insert Mac model here). I never did that with my Thinkpad. It was more of a “spare” computer. Too heavy to lug around and very wifi unfriendly.
I imagined that I would be what they call a “slider.” Someone that slid back and forth between operating systems. But I almost never work on Windows these days. I sold the Thinkpad and only turn the home Dell on for Windows security patches.
At work, I click over to the Windows side of the iMac to flush email from Outlook (I use Apple Mail now). I don’t worry about Vista because it will never be a factor in my work/play life.
As more and more of our world happens online, being able to get there in a fun and efficient way is (for me) important. My mac is my window and doorway.
Our friend George is here helping Barb migrate her data from her ancient Dell laptop to her new MacBook. He’s also going to be available to help Barb’s transition from Windows to OSX. Expertise gap aside, I’ve learned that husbands should not try to show wives how to do things on computers.
“The San Diego Union-Tribune’s site SignOn San Diego offers a streaming Internet radio station, SignOn Radio. Today they’ve been supplying steady coverage of the fires, including phoned-in live reports from area residents and people following the story from other regions. News staff are manning the radio, taking calls. It seems like they’re doing a pretty good job of applying journalistic judgment to both official information and call-ins.” [E-Media Tidbits]
I’m listening to the SignOn Radio stream on iTunes. W is stumbling through a press conference. I think he actually said, “I’m from the federal government and we’re here to help you.”
They just broke for AP headlines. I keep looking at the MacBook to remind myself I’m listening to “radio” from a newspaper. Spooky. I remember boasting that only “radio” could really cover this kind of story.
Back in the late 80’s I discovered a little computer application called ACT. It was a DOS app at the time. A year or so later, I purchased the first Windows version while at Comdex. I used ACT for everything for several years. As our company migrated to MS Office, I moved over to Outlook and have been there ever since.
Over the last week I’ve been moving my digital life from Outlook to the Mac. XP is running great on the iMac, so there was no reason I had to switch but I’ve grown fond of iCal, Mail, Address Book and the other OSX tools.
Don’t get me wrong, Outlooks is a great program. And powerful. But it just feels… cramped and busy to me now. So, I’m spending even less time on Windows at work. I jump over to use Internet Explorer from time to time but that’s about it.
It might just be the result of packing up and cleaning house, but for the first time in years, I have an empty in-box. Stuff comes in, I deal with and zap it. Very liberating.
Speaking of things Apple, while in St. Louis yesterday, Barb stopped by the Apple store and did a little window shopping. She’s still on board for a MacBook. Stay tuned.
I’ve done my share of gushing about the MacBook Pro and, more recently, the beautiful new iMac. So it’s only fair I share some of the rough spots I’ve encountered the last few days.
Firefox is crashing like crazy on OSX. Almost unusable. Same for Photoshop. Not sure what’s happening but look forward to getting it sorted out.
Phil has me set up with XP running on VMware and I’m suffering from mild schizophrenia, trying to move back and forth from Windows (for Outlook, mostly) and OSX. I finally just closed the win version of Outlook and started getting email via the Exchange server (when I could keep Firefox running).
I’m sure I’ll get the hang of this but trying to live in both worlds is challenging. Once we get the crashes under control (I know, I know)… I plan to spend as much time in Mac Land as possible and I’m hoping that makes things easier.
But I’m in for the duration. My experience on the MacBook Pro has been delightful and I’d like to have that warm glow at work, too. That’s gonna take some fiddling and some mental adjustment on my part.
I like paper plates (the good ones, not the cheap ones) and have the decency to feel guilty about using them. I’ve worn a plastic Casio wrist watch for years (less than $20). And tonight bought a year’s worth of minutes for my little Nokia Tracfone.
I paid $19.95 for the unit at Wal-Mart and have been buying additional minutes for the last 18 months. The Tracfone was made for people like me (and Avon Barksdale). No synching with Outlook. No texting. No camera. No nothing.
Yes, I do keep the Casio Exilim and the MacBook by my side, but the Tracfone and the camera fit nicely in the MacBook case. Weight is not an issue, given my limited travel.
I’ll bet I saw 50 iPhones at Gnomedex and everyone else had state-of-the-art hardware. When I pulled out the Tracfone at lunch, the guy across the table asked, "What’s that?"
"North Korean. I’m not supposed to have this out in public. Sorry." …as I jammed it back in my pocket.
So I’ve got all the minutes I need for the next year, for about $11 a month. What is that, 35 cents a day?
Learfield pal David Brazeal has looted his son’s college fund to buy himself a new MacBook Pro. He’ll be Mac-dazed for bit, unlearning the thousand things you need to know to make a PC go, but we’ll try to keep up with his progress here.
On the off chance my own Mac experience contributed to David’s high dive into the Mac pool, I’ve added him to the Mac Gallery.