iam.ollief1.com

Okay, so I now make it 96 hours in the company of MacOS and my shiny new MacBook Pro. Have I learned anything new? Have I become frustrated with the move and reverted back to the PC? I should point out I have written this follow-up post after a few beers, so excuse the haphazard structure. But this will be an honest appraisal of my previous four days with Apple. Well, the last two, the first two to are covered here.

Well, I did open up the Dell earlier today while waiting for the Grand Prix to start. But let me assure you it was to only revert the damn thing to its factory settings and throw it at the better half’s feet. And even then it crashed twice and has given the girlfriend grief all evening. I just sat here typing up blog posts though, checked email and listened to music. My evening has been quite casual in comparison.

Let it be known here first: I will never use a Windows PC for personal computing again. (Providing Apple continue with this quite simply awesome operating system and product.)

I’ve been steadily learning how to do the basic stuff, and I must say the Automator is particularly sweet. I can set it up so that a right-click on practically anything opens up a special menu where I can perform basic tasks. This is especially useful for when I blog about Formula One. I nearly always include a photo which invariably needs to be resized down to 640 and 200 for the thumbnail. Previously, with Windows, open in Paint Shop Pro, yada yada yada…

I did use the excellent free program PixResizer for mass-resizing, but the quality wasn’t quite as good. Hence why I tended to wait for PSP to load for individual photos. But with MacOS, it is a simple right click, select Resizer, the image is duplicated to the Desktop and I can set the dimensions. Done. I can set the Automater to do all sorts of quick tasks for me, and that is a really nice tool.

What annoys me about it? Let me think…

iTunes. I’m not a fan, to be honest. I know, I know, but I really do prefer Windows Media Player. I guess some things suit others better. We all have our preferences I suppose, but for me, WMP is nicer than iTunes. But, I obviously need to get over this. You know, being Apples’ newest fan now. I’m not really going to dual boot into Windows just for the media player.

Erm, thinking again…

When I click the address bar in a browser, the whole address isn’t automatically selected. I have to select it myself. I’m in the habit of clicking anywhere in the bar and typing in the new address. I’ll get used to the click and swipe method (it just needs a little swipe of the mouse rather than a full-on selection of the entire address) after practice.

To be honest, aside from getting used to the layout of everything, these are my only grumbles. I mean, it took me a while to find the Preferences in Firefox, but then I realised that is where it is in all applications, under the programs’ own menu on the far right the other right, that is (so left then). I’m still struggling with the whole copy and paste thing, but I hasten to add I haven’t bothered to search or ask yet. Basically, I’m used to copying and pasting Windows-stylee. Select, Ctrl+C, change window, Shift+Insert. I’m yet to figure this shortcut out, but as I say, I’ve been learning other stuff and haven’t bothered to actually seek the answers yet, I’m sure they’re out there though. And the system still boots quicker than it takes to half fill a kettle. That really is as far as I get. Halfway up the kettle and the bloomin’ thing is ready to go. This might save me money on coffee you know.
But I doubt it. Instead, my computer waits for me. Ah, now that is a nice feeling. I never thought I would ever say that, out loud as well.

So far I haven’t had to uninstall anything that I haven’t installed myself, I haven’t felt the need to optimise anything yet, I’m yet to experience an error message, a crash, a hang, a ‘you have unused icons’ or a ‘are you really sure you want to do that? Like, 100% positive? Would you like to speak to a Microsoft psychologist before committing to that decision?’ message. Nothing odd has happened. It really does just work.

Hehe, Windows on the other hand. Well, she just swore at her screen. Apparently Outlook won’t send email because the auto-installed McAfee keeps intervening and she can’t even uninstall it and use her own copy of Norton. Ahhh, I feel as though I can breathe at last. I’m enjoying this experience. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have another blog post to write. For those reading this on Monday morning, I wish you a happy Monday, mine will be.