mac and i

got me a macbook pro 13" last month, and the magic mouse some days after.

so, this is what all the hoopla is all about! feels good, looks good, works...okay.

ive been using PCs since jurassic times (did you know monitors only came in green then?). and when i say use, i meant using a PC at least 8 hours a day, 350 days a year (the few days i dont are those time i go home to the province for the holidays), for 20 odd years.

the mac is all it is hyped to be. intuitive, user friendly, blazing fast and all. but i would not recommend it to a user with a PC background as intensive as mine, unless said user is prepared to unlearn a lot and have a kid's enthusiasm at learning something new.

because everything's new. the file structure, the system logic, even the minimize buttons are different.

and now people ask me what ive been asking before: "is it better?"

my answer after a month of fiddling....

its supposed to be. macs have the distinct advantage of having hardware & software being done by the same company and so, obviously, it can maximize its full potential in its applications and interface. softwares for PCs on the other hand, will have to contend with varyng performance because PC some in all types of configurations.

its supposed to be. safari is indeed fast. iPhoto is better than acdc. iTunes works wonderfully. my beef so far is that most media i have, and continue to find, seem like a better fit for PCs (many amateur videos, for instance).

i had to download vlc for mac and have reconfigured that all my video files open in this application because quicktime is such a hassle.

and lets talk files. i got a few portable hard disks with all my files. im talking word, excel and powerpoint. i had to buy the office for mac if i wanted to be able to continue work on them, and these software are a drag on a mac. veeeeery slow.

but the new files are real nice and fast (pages and keynote; havent used numbers yet).

finally, since macs seem targetted to a slightly upscale market (techs and geeks), many really useful third party applications (file joining/splitting, zipping, etc) come at a price. granted that, if you were earning in US dollars, they are relatively cheap. but compared to free apps for PCs, well, you get the drift.

bottomline: i wish i did macs years ago!