Comments on: First Month with a MacBook http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/ My opinions about convergence, consumer technology, gadgets, Web, and more. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:51:18 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Speiser http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/comment-page-1/#comment-182988 Speiser Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:14:41 +0000 http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/#comment-182988 I had a very similar experience. I bought a Sony Vaio from Costco with Vista Home Premium, and the experience was terrible. The battery performance was about 45 minutes, and no drivers seemed to exist for my peripherals. I was enormously disappointed. I switched to a MacBook (the black one with the faster processor) and I upgraded to an extra gig of RAM. The total purchase price was almost identical to the Vaio (around $1500) and I am very happy. In fairness I did have some problems intially. I am a lifetime PC user also, so there was a pretty steep learning curve for me on the OSX. Also I happened to buy right when Apple was a having a big Kernel Panic Shutdown issue related to their wireless cards. But after 2 months on the Mac, I am very happy. I've learned a lot about how to use the OS, and they released a patch to fix the kernel panics. I still have a couple of PC's, but I am keeping XP running on them, and I will not switch to Vista. I put up a post related to this issue on 1to10: http://1to10reviews.com/2007/07/16/my-new-macbook/ Great post JT. David I had a very similar experience. I bought a Sony Vaio from Costco with Vista Home Premium, and the experience was terrible. The battery performance was about 45 minutes, and no drivers seemed to exist for my peripherals. I was enormously disappointed.

I switched to a MacBook (the black one with the faster processor) and I upgraded to an extra gig of RAM. The total purchase price was almost identical to the Vaio (around $1500) and I am very happy.

In fairness I did have some problems intially. I am a lifetime PC user also, so there was a pretty steep learning curve for me on the OSX. Also I happened to buy right when Apple was a having a big Kernel Panic Shutdown issue related to their wireless cards.

But after 2 months on the Mac, I am very happy. I’ve learned a lot about how to use the OS, and they released a patch to fix the kernel panics. I still have a couple of PC’s, but I am keeping XP running on them, and I will not switch to Vista.

I put up a post related to this issue on 1to10: http://1to10reviews.com/2007/07/16/my-new-macbook/

Great post JT.

David

]]> By: Speiser http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/comment-page-1/#comment-182987 Speiser Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:14:02 +0000 http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/#comment-182987 I had a very similar experience. I bought a Sony Vaio from Costco with Vista Home Premium, and the experience was terrible. The battery performance was about 45 minutes, and no drivers seemed to exist for my peripherals. I was enormously disappointed. I switched to a MacBook (the black one with the faster processor) and I upgraded to an extra gig of RAM. The total purchase price was almost identical to the Vaio (around $1500) and I am very happy. In fairness I did have some problems intially. I am a lifetime PC user also, so there was a pretty steep learning curve for me on the OSX. Also I happened to buy right when Apple was a having a big Kernel Panic Shutdown issue related to their wireless cards. But after 2 months on the Mac, I am very happy. I've learned a lot about how to use the OS, and they released a patch to fix the kernel panics. I still have a couple of PC's, but I am keeping XP running on them, and I will not switch to Vista. Great post JT. David I had a very similar experience. I bought a Sony Vaio from Costco with Vista Home Premium, and the experience was terrible. The battery performance was about 45 minutes, and no drivers seemed to exist for my peripherals. I was enormously disappointed.

I switched to a MacBook (the black one with the faster processor) and I upgraded to an extra gig of RAM. The total purchase price was almost identical to the Vaio (around $1500) and I am very happy.

In fairness I did have some problems intially. I am a lifetime PC user also, so there was a pretty steep learning curve for me on the OSX. Also I happened to buy right when Apple was a having a big Kernel Panic Shutdown issue related to their wireless cards.

But after 2 months on the Mac, I am very happy. I’ve learned a lot about how to use the OS, and they released a patch to fix the kernel panics. I still have a couple of PC’s, but I am keeping XP running on them, and I will not switch to Vista.

Great post JT.

David

]]> By: Alexander Grundner http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/comment-page-1/#comment-182819 Alexander Grundner Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:42:57 +0000 http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/#comment-182819 You should trying booting up the Ubuntu LiveCD on your Sony laptop and see if it works. If everything seems to be running fine, install it to your system via the desktop install tool. I think you'll have an easier time with Ubuntu if you've been a long-time Windows guy (right-click works, keyboard shortcuts are similar, GNOME is Windows-like, etc.). Link: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/desktopedition You should trying booting up the Ubuntu LiveCD on your Sony laptop and see if it works. If everything seems to be running fine, install it to your system via the desktop install tool. I think you’ll have an easier time with Ubuntu if you’ve been a long-time Windows guy (right-click works, keyboard shortcuts are similar, GNOME is Windows-like, etc.).

Link:
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/desktopedition

]]> By: Alpha Chen http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/comment-page-1/#comment-182294 Alpha Chen Sun, 09 Sep 2007 00:17:33 +0000 http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/#comment-182294 You can remap some of the weirder keyboard shortcuts in the keyboard preference pane. (I like to use cmd+ctrl+z for Window->Zoom, myself. Don't really have much use for any of the other system keyboard shortcuts, though.) I also use Quicksilver to navigate menu items; I have the Current Application proxy object's Show Menu Items action bound to a trigger for fast access. You can remap some of the weirder keyboard shortcuts in the keyboard preference pane. (I like to use cmd+ctrl+z for Window->Zoom, myself. Don’t really have much use for any of the other system keyboard shortcuts, though.)

I also use Quicksilver to navigate menu items; I have the Current Application proxy object’s Show Menu Items action bound to a trigger for fast access.

]]> By: Eric http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/comment-page-1/#comment-182226 Eric Sat, 08 Sep 2007 20:09:54 +0000 http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/#comment-182226 Oh yeah, if it doesn't work, hit Ctrl-F1 - that turns on Full Keyboard Access. Should only need to do that once. Oh yeah, if it doesn’t work, hit Ctrl-F1 – that turns on Full Keyboard Access. Should only need to do that once.

]]> By: Eric http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/comment-page-1/#comment-182224 Eric Sat, 08 Sep 2007 20:07:07 +0000 http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/09/08/first-month-with-a-macbook/#comment-182224 You can access the menu with your keyboard by hitting Ctrl-F2. If you've got you MacBook setup to control hardware features (the Keyboard and Mouse pref pane), hit Fn-Ctrl-F2. You can access the menu with your keyboard by hitting Ctrl-F2. If you’ve got you MacBook setup to control hardware features (the Keyboard and Mouse pref pane), hit Fn-Ctrl-F2.

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