The Mac is in da house!
The FedEx guy dropped off the MacBook Pro about half an hour ago and I’ve unboxed it, run through the setup (<5 minutes) and run the software update to get all the system files up to the current version. This process was pain-free, the Mac even made setting up the wireless network drop-dead simple. The OS update (think Windows Update) surprised me a little as over 250 MB of update files were needed. The whole process only took 15 minutes though and after a reboot I set up the Bluetooth Mighty Mouse which is pretty cool itself. I’ve done a little tweaking (of course) and now am getting my apps installed, including Parallels to get Vista running on it. First impression– this notebook is FAST!! Even with all the eye candy of OS X this thing blazes through everything. Some things happen so rapidly I have to double-check that they did in fact happen, mainly since I’m not used to the Mac. I’ve got a few pics of the unboxing after the jump.
The Apple packaging conveys one message very well– simplicity. It makes it clear that what is in this package is very simple and elegant.
Welcome to the World of Mac, and have fun. I hope you enjoy it!!!
Posted by: Nik Jones | March 22, 2007 at 12:26 PM
No doubt about it, Macs are nice. No doubt about the installation process, it's easy... Now let the fun start and look for some (free) open source applications :)
And for finding little apps versiontracker.com is the best ressource for macs.
Have fun... and I'm jealous.
Posted by: Nikoooo | March 22, 2007 at 12:30 PM
From my experience, everything on Mac is much easier and it just works. Now, an advice: get rid of Safari and install Firefox!!
Posted by: Jose | March 22, 2007 at 12:34 PM
Installing firefox is important so you can reduce the amount of Mac eye candy. :-)
For me, when Safari doesn't work, the only thing that does is IE 6 in XP under Parallels.
Posted by: Scotty | March 22, 2007 at 01:02 PM
If you want slow motion eye candy, try shift-minimize or shift-F9. Enjoy your purchase, it gets better with time.
BTW, if you have a Firewire you could clone your disk (now that it's new). Did you know that you can boot your mac from a clone disk if you have a firewire hdd, so even if your internal hdd fails you can keep on working until you find time to repair it.
Posted by: Richard | March 22, 2007 at 02:20 PM
Yeah! I'm fairly sure you'll never look back once you've gone Mac!
Enjoy it. However, I would suggest XP Pro and not Vista... Vista is a hog! Unless you specifically need Vista, try to do most of your stuff in Mac OS, then only boot Windows when you HAVE TO!
Good luck.
Posted by: Dion Forster | March 22, 2007 at 02:35 PM
I smell Apple conspiracy here...
http://www.laurennmccubbin.com/ass-sprain-seriously
(Really, it's related! Read what she's typing on!)
Posted by: Mike Cane | March 22, 2007 at 02:54 PM
Congrats, JK!
I'm sure you'll enjoy your Mac and OSX!
Posted by: ArchiMark | March 22, 2007 at 03:50 PM
JK,
Congratulations on the new machine!
Will we see APPLE TV entering the mobile tech manor soon?
Have fun.
Posted by: Neil Ingram | March 22, 2007 at 04:09 PM
Nikoooo, Why would you install FireFox? Safari is a faster, more stable, and better looking browser.
Posted by: Mitchell Rusk | March 22, 2007 at 04:49 PM
Hey, JK, a HUGE favor, could you go over the Paralells/Mac setup for WIRELESS. I just got a Imac Core Duo this week and I am STRUGGLING to get the network setup correct between Mac/Parallels/Home Network. Screenshots would help a lot! Thanks.
Posted by: Cisco Guerrero | March 22, 2007 at 05:01 PM
If you don't like Safari, try Camino or, even better, OmniWeb. Both are much more Mac-like than Firefox.
I switched in '92 (but I still use Windows at work - obviously not by choice.) I hope your Mac experience is as pleasant and trouble-free as mine has been.
Posted by: trex67 | March 22, 2007 at 06:04 PM
@ Mitchell
While I did not propose to you Firefox instead of Safari, I am indeed using it on my iMac G5 :) The reason behind is mostly the webmail of my wife that is not supported by safari. I must add that there are some great add-ons that are not available elsewhere. Among those I love the cooliris previewer, Unplug to save flash movies and the download manager "DownThemAll".
@James
You can actually remove the icon of Dashboard from your dock without affecting its action. A simple click on F12 and your widgets will appear... Else for system maintenance, I use Onyx, which is a free application that does everything that other make you pay for. Awesome tool.
Cheers
Posted by: Nikoooo | March 22, 2007 at 09:59 PM
If you haven't already, the first thing to install is Quicksilver: http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/
Posted by: Swissfondue | March 23, 2007 at 04:16 AM
Awesome! I hope we can expect a typical quality JK review. I'm particularly interested to hear how hot it gets.
Posted by: KMT | March 23, 2007 at 10:00 AM
FYI:
http://divnull.com/lward/software.html
Posted by: Mike Cane | March 24, 2007 at 02:35 PM
Macs simply work.
http://www.ginvites.com
Posted by: brad | May 05, 2007 at 12:06 AM