Time for a little honesty

Ok... It's been, what, just right about 4 weeks with this "thing". Yes, indeed, it has its ups and its downs. So I thought, now that the sheer shock and horror of being forced to live with this killerMac, that I would give my honest thoughts about the impending 'transition'. In reality, there couldn't have been a worse time to obtain this pretty shinny little thing, because I picked it up and took off to the land of littleNet. But then again, I guess it tests if Max are ready for prime time right outta the box.

So here we go, the Pro's:

-I like the mouse pad thingy. It's sleek, and kinda like that monolith thing from 2001 a Space Odyssey. It has no shape, no feature, no form, it's just there. But then you touch it and wondrous things happen. One finger, two finger, three finger more (as long as you program it!) So the base 1 finger mouse move, and 2 finder scroll is pretty cool. I'm all about pressing less keys. And the spread your fingers together or apart to zoom or shrink, fantastic idea. Only... I have fat fingers, apparently, and the zoom goes way to fast. But could be worse.

-Keyboard lighting. It's just cool. Just like the commercial says, "Macs are cool, get one and you're cool, too!" Yup, 1 of the 135 other people in my circus tent was walking by and actually thought I wanted to hear what he had to say, saying "that's a cool keyboard!" Nice, thanks, yalla! But he was as right as he was bothering!

-The built-in video camera. Yes, I know, lotsa PC's have builtin's now. But they dont all have the nifty 'mess with your picture' options to make you look like a king, a fat king, or an inverted colored king. So, props!

-The power cord. The only thing that could make this better would be Christmas lights or a disco ball! See, Magnets? Really? That's just awesome! No bullet plugs that when kicked, and I mean full on swung M16 going wildly at my cord at 2am and yanking it out! That's awesome, it just pulls off and flys away. Mac is not damaged. 19yoa Army dude, fallen on face and berated by me. But Mac is fine. :)

-The screen, keyboard, ports, and general aesthetics, all good to great. Just thought I'd mention that. it's appealing in that girly kinda way.


THE CONS:

-Ok, that last comment about the girly... Actually happened to me. I was in NKIA, at the MWR tent. I went to get on the free Internet, sat upstairs in "the loft", it was night time, dark, and lotsa people trying to Skype and whatnot. So I glance around at what other people are using, and what do I see? About 8 other Mac's. I was like, Hmm... maybe it IS ok. Then I noticed, they were all girls. (Ladies probably, but it was dark:) So poo. All the guys were using Alienware, or ASUS jacked up turbo-charged flame-jobs, or old boat anchors running Linux. :( Frownie!

-Where the H377 is the END or HOME keys? This is NOT a regular keyboard!!! So I'm typing a document, and I need to skip to a part of a sentence, mouse over and I'm there. So I try to get to the end of the sentence. Usually... END Key. But no, not in Mac! It took me a week to find out just how to do that. Why? No Internet. This means Mac has no intuitive way to figure out key combination's. The magic combination? Command-RightArrow. Word by word jump, Option-RightArrow. (Really???) Never would have guessed.

-Ok, key combo's that suck. These are like the secret hand-shakes or passwords to get into the treehouse on the street. If you don't know the key-combo, you don't get in!
---Lock the screen so you can step away from your Mac? No Ctl-Alt-Del here, it's "Control-Shift-CD Eject"... WTH?!?!? Press the Eject button to lock your screen? That's someone making it way to hard to do something simple.
---Menu Item... Oh, that's right, mouse over it. (This is a sux combo because, there is none!)
---Alt-Tab look-alike: Ok, this one, it 'looks' the same, but it ain't! Command-Tab is very close. But if you open a window, then minimize it, then want to bring it back up, sometimes, and I can't figure out the magic combination, but sometimes you press Command-Tab and it will come back to the top. Other times, it looks like it's trying to come to the top, but it just selects the menu'ing item. not the actual window. WHT?!?!? I want my Firefox, and I want it now! None of this must use mouse stuff.
-See, sometimes my hands are on the keys and I'm just too lazy to reach for the mouse, no matter how cute and cuddly that mouse pad is. And when that happens, I want quick keys and short cuts that make sense, and work!

-Applications: Installation, acquisition, theft; sux'ors! Big time! I'm still having an issue with this whole DMG thing. Best I can relate it to is ThinStall's virtual applications. A single file that has launchable files within, all pre-packaged. Neat idea, but I'm having the hardest time saving space on the Mac. See, I download to the Download directory, go to launch it, it installs, then it says "drag this to the applications folder", I do that, and then it copies the DMG to the applications folder. And then, I try to drag a short-cut to the Dock or desktop, and then WHAMMO! Another iteration of the DMG!!! I went to clean up some of the Skype DMG's, and crash! No more Skype. AAAAaaarrrggggg......

-Instructions on how to install applications: a.k.a., "Mac for Dummies". My recommendation: Don't get this book. I actually read in there this writer saying "it's neat how you can do movies and music and stuff on it..." Wanna know what 'stuff' I wanna do? Work, that's what! And find apps, and use apps, and find short cuts, and key combination's. NONE of that was in the book. Glad I stole it! BUWAWAWAaaaa!!!! Well, technically, "I" didnt steal it, it's borrowed from a guy who got it from a place that had a guy that once paid something for access to the place where he could have bought it. :) Pirates rule!

-Ergonomics: there are none. It's flat, and sexy, but my hands are hurting typing this blog. Oh yeah, that's right, I'm using the Mac wrong. See, I'm actually trying to type something, you know, make an article. I guess I should have made a movie of me talking about this, rather than typing. That's the Mac way, right? Audio, Video, and movies, Oh My!


My conclusion: Mac is NOT a work laptop, it's a personal multimedia experience that wants money for everything you do.

I HAVE NOT CONVERTED!!!