Posted on 08/04/2010 12:09:11 PM PDT by Swordmaker
On June 20th, I declared that I was going to try A Month of Mac. I took my Macbook Pro (an older model from about 18 months ago) up to Alaska, left my Lenovo x300 in Boulder, and went native Mac.
I’m typing this on my brand new spiffy MacBook Pro 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 with 8GB RAM, with a 500GB solid state hard drive. I can’t figure out why I’ve been so stubborn about really switching to the Mac. This is a beautiful computer.
The key to this switch was that the native mac apps (Mail, iCal, and Address Book) sync seamlessly with Exchange. So I don’t have to deal with the abortion that is Entourage but at the same time I don’t have to mess around with our email server and impact everyone else in our organization. That’s sweet. I had a feeling this would work this time since it works flawlessly on my iPhone and iPad, and it did. The only thing missing is Tasks, but I started using Evernote instead which actually worked even better than the Outlook Task manager.
So – no Parallels or Fusion – I don’t even have a Windows image on this machine at this point. I didn’t use Windows a single time in the last month and now that I’ve rewired my brain for Mac shortcut keys I think it’d be a pretty amusing thing to watch.
I’ve found peace and happiness with iWork as a replacement for Microsoft Office – it’s more than adequate for what I do. MarsEdit is a spectacular blog post editor, Chrome works happily on the Mac as does Skype and TweetDeck, and Adium replaced Digsby. Pogoplug works just like it did before – all my files are where I want them to be. Best of all, my iPhone actually does what it’s supposed to with iTunes.
Did I say that this is a beautiful piece of hardware? Sleep mode – check. Flawless super high resolution screen – check. Super fast everything – check. Find a piece of software you want to play around with – download and run.
The most remarkable thing was the transfer of all my data, applications, and settings from my old MacBook Pro to my new MacBook Pro. I connected them by Firewire. I restarted my old MacBook and held down the T key. After the transfer started, I went and had a meeting for a hour. I came back and my new Mac was set up exactly like my old Mac. Perfect.
Ross – you owe me $100.
Brad Feld is a managing director at Foundry Group who lives in Boulder, Color\ado. He invests in software and Internet companies around the US, runs marathons and reads a lot.
Got my wife away from windows a couple of years ago with a refurb MacBookPro and although she infrequently complains, it is less each month. My "OS repair time has gone down significantly. The hardware is excellent, OS X 10.6 is a good BSD Unix. My main support is to run software update as necessary and run TimeMachine every couple of weeks.
(Disclaimer: I last used windows early in 2004 and have been a unix and linux since the '70s). I now have 2 Hackintoshes (family license) to go with my aging SuSE9.2 machine.
Mel
I don't understand what you can do with Acrobat that you can't do natively via OS X. Have you tried selecting a PDF in the Finder -- and hitting the space bar? Or dragging the PDF over onto Preview?
Just drag a document (JPEG, whatever) onto Preview, SAVE AS from the FILE menu, and, in the FORMAT pop-up menu, select "PDF" -- voila! -- same as saving as a PICT or TIFF or JPEG...
OR... for creating/saving PDFs, try the PRINT menu -- it has a "Print to PDF" option...
A comparable Toshiba can be had for about 1400, minus the SSD, so probably. They are 1500 if purchased aftermarket.
Dennis, you seem to forget that the Mac's marketshare is a small fraction, less than 10%, nothing like 80%. Apple's Mac line does not attempt to address the low 80% of the market. Cheap-ass PCs do that quite well, thank you. You are absolutely correct that PCs address the low 80% of the personal computer marketplace adequately.
The folks who buy Apple's products, do so with full knowledge of what price they're paying, and what they're getting for that price. Very few are unhappy, or feel they've been scammed. Ask 'em. The vast majority are happy as clams at high-tide, and a good number of them are maniacally happy, according to every poll I've ever read.
For the 5-10% of the market that buys Macs, the Mac is the right computer. Nobody is being scammed.
What you said:
What Apple does is con that 80% into buying more computer than they need and at outrageous prices.is just bullsh*t, start to finish. First, Apple does not address the 80% of the market you're talking about. That 80% want a PC, and they'll buy a PC, and good for them.
Second, a Mac is not more computer than the people who buy them need. It might be more than the 80% who want PCs need, but so what? Apple's not selling to them.
Third, Macs are not outrageously priced. I'll tell you as someone who has literally dozens of computers littering my livingroom and shop, that my Macs provide -at least- as much value as my PCs, and in some cases greater value.
So give up that line of attack. It's so off the mark, it doesn't even make it up to the line of being "wrong".
Now, with regard to Steve Jobs, on the plus side, the man is a visionary genius, a consummate businessman, a terrific CEO, a legend of the highest degree. On the minus side, he is also (like many visionaries) sometimes so "out there" that it's hard to believe he's not just bullsh*tting. And there are documented cases of him scamming someone or another, including his early partners. I tire of his adjective inflation pretty quickly, and his initial responses to the recent iPhone4 antenna debacle took some of the luster off his image.
But the Mac is not, as you put it, "Steve Jobs greatest and most successful scam." The Mac is a great example of a high-end product line built on quality and service, and delivering great value to millions of satisfied users.
Nobody's being scammed.
I just did. My Mac stopped loading Microsoft Office all of a sudden so until I get it working again I’ll have to use my PC. :-(
Thanks for the reminder about the speed - it boots up and shuts down really quick, and it doesn’t come loaded with all the bloatware.
I went through the same steps your wife went through. I first tried it with the live CD, liked it then I partitioned the hard drive so I could still have Windows in there in case I didn’t like it. Nowdays I hardly ever switch to windows anymore.
The only time I do is if I’m traveling and I want to watch my home TV with Slingbox - which unfortunately doesn’t support Ubuntu yet.
Point being a single HW solution provider, regardless if it’s Hitachi or IBM; they’ve all been used by Fortune 100s, the US Gov, Dept. of Defense et al, for mission critical needs.
A single provider can, and does, have it’s advantages, especially when cutting edge/custom requirements come onto play or when you just want it to work.
Only Apple would be STUPID enough to develop wonderful touchscreen platforms .... and then leave them OFF the freaking laptop where work actually gets DONE.
You don't need Adobe reader on any Mac or iPad. It displays PDF files natively. In fact, the Mac display IS Display PDF , and the Mac can create a PDF file from any application.
Search for any PDF on the Internet on your iPad and click on the file. You'll be able to read it.
One is available. But why do you want it? I have it on my Mac having inherited it from a client who bought it because he was told he absolutely needed to have it and he NEVER used it.
Neither have I.
OSX uses the international PDF STANDARD for display and can create PDF documents from every OSX application WITHOUT requiring Adobe Acrobat. The user simply prints it to a PDF file. Nor does it need a PDF Reader application because that, too, is built in and is handled natively.
http://www.microcenter.com/
I wish and pray you well!
Massachusetts has had one of those every summer in recent years. I consider it a good time to cross the border to the Apple store in neighboring tax-free Salem, NH. The lines will be shorter, the Massholes having gone to the Burlington or Galleria store.
So, I'm assuming you're attributing the triple price to the Macbook because of the order of your listings. Therefore you say you can get a " good and solid" PC Laptop for $333. Where??? What's it made of and how long do you anticipate it lasting?
You are talking cheap plastic bargain basement laptops with minimal features at that price point, Dennis. We've repeatedly told you that Apple does not compete in that market. Twelve to eighteen months from now, your buyer will be buying another laptop to replace the one he's purchasing today.
If you want an OSX Mac in that price range, buy a good two to three year old refurbished Intel MacBook for a little more and get a Laptop that STILL beats that bargain basement PC and will run the latest OSX Release Snow Leopard faster than it ran the OSX release it came with.. And will still have just as much life expectancy left in it, if not more, as that bargain bin new PC.
There exists an Adobe PDF reader for OS X. But there is no reason to use it, since Preview works just fine on PDF docs.
Also, if you are using Firefox on the Mac, you should install the PDF Plugin for Mac OS X. It makes PDF docs display seemlessly in the browser window, very much as Preview would display them after download, but without the hassle of having to download the doc and start Preview on it.
Did you glom onto it?
No, it's not. And already done.
Thank you.
I, for one would not wish to be tapping away at a vertical screen in a production environment, getting splotches and other marks on the screen. Working on an iPad or iPhone in a slab format is not the same asvthe L form of a keyboard-screen layout laptop format. I don't think that format lends itself well to the touchscreen approach. Apple DID provide an oversized glass touch pad that gives room for more gesture control... Which is, I think a better paradigm for the form factor.
Hate to say this, but pretend you’re talking to a 10 year old. No, scratch that, the average 10 year old probably knows more about computers than I do. I use this I-pad to read books, search the Internet and post on some sites. Every so often I come across a story or picture or video that is blank or has a small blue question mark in the center. I click on it and it says (not a direct quote, it’s not in front of me right Now) “adobe reader and flash cannot be viewed on I-pad” Are you telling me there is some other way I can view this stuff on my I-pad? Are you saying I can convert it to a different format?
Ah! OK. Now I understand. It's not Adobe Reader. It's Adobe Flash. Adobe Flash is a proprietary video and animation format that is a resource hog that really does not work well on ANY touch devices. At core it relies on keyboard input and mouse over events to trigger menus and actions on the screen... Touch screen devices don't, as a rule, have mouses or physical keyboards. Also, to provide long battery life, Apple has determined that Flash, with its heavy resource demands, is unnecessary, when other, open source formats such as H.264 video compression can do much the same thing without the severe overhead hit on the device and battery. The vast majority of Flash content are advertisements. There are also some on line games written utilizing Flash scripting. But those can also be accomplished using non-proprietary standard HTML5 code.
Adobe, of course, wants the continued use of it's product because it profits from the sale of the creation software and licensing. The other standards H.264 and HTML5 are free to use.
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