Shuroki Online

Its been a little while since I’ve written an article for Oxfoot (nothing new) but what is new is how I’m writing it — on a shiny new Apple MacBook laptop!

A little history
The first computer that I ever used was an Apple ][e. It was in elementary school where we learned to program the Logo turtle to draw little pictures and started learning the BASIC programming language. My best friend at the time had an Apple ][+ and we spent endless hours at his house programming goofy little ascii movies, Madlibs knock-offs, and text adventure games... in between playing a healthy dose of video games, of course.

In 1984 my mom bought an Apple //c - wow, 128k of RAM! and it was portable! Well, it had a handle, at least... and shortly thereafter I got my first modem (300 baud, thank you very much) and entered the world of BBSes and software piracy.

When I entered the workforce, one of the first jobs I had was working in a Service Bureau doing print pre-press work. That work was primarily done on Macs and some windows machines. When I scrounged up enough money to buy a modern computer, I ended up with Windows 3, because I couldn't afford (or, at least wasn't patient enough to wait to save the money up) for a Mac. I've regretted that for the last 15 years...

Jumping into the Windows world has served me well. I’ve benefitted from a very successful IT career that probably would not have happened if I hadn’t become an expert in the Windows world on the desktop, and the Novell (and later Windows, then Linux) worlds on servers. Even though I worked away in Windows and Linux, Apple always stayed in the back of my mind.

When Apple moved to a Unixey platform (BSD to be exact), my interest was much more piqued, as being a techie I had gotten very used to living on a command prompt and enjoyed that level of control. Then the bombshell was dropped last year, and Macs started moving to Intel processors. Suddenly, you could move to a Mac, but still be able to dual-boot with Windows and Linux when/if you needed to.

There’s the possibility that there will be some kind of Win32 native support in the future (which would allow you to run your Windows programs right on your spiffy Mac desktop without having to reboot), and thanks to the BSD core, there is always Wine.

Coming back to Apple
I was in the market to buy a new laptop and I started pricing various models from the usual places. Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM/Lenovo, Compaq, etc. Apple had released the MacBook Pro, but I couldn’t afford the base starter price of $2,400 – much less upgrades to something I’d really be happy with. There was a rumor that the iBook/Powerbook lines were going to get an upgrade to Intel, but nobody really knew when it would happen. The rumor mill started churning that an announcement was coming “”soon”", so I decided to hold off and wait.

I only had to wait a few weeks, and with no real fanfare, the Macbook was released. It was basically everything I thought (widescreen 13″” screen, similar form factor, USB, firewire 400, etc) but it alsohad the same Intel Core Duo processor that its big brothers run (everybody figured it would have a Core solo processor).. all starting at $1,200! Wow – now we’re talking!

I placed my order (bumping up the RAM a little among other tweaks) and in a little under a week my Macbook showed up at my door. I have to say that I have never been so happy with a computer purchase in my life. I’ve bought systems off the shelf, I’ve bought systems custom configured through the mail, and I’ve built countless systems from the ground up — and the Macbook blows them all away.

First of all, the interface is so much cleaner than Windows. The dock that launches applications at the bottom is simple and organized and the desktop and icons work just like you think they should – but above all – everything is a little softer and more refined. The corners are rounded, there are soft, almost unnoticeable shadows under windows, so that its easier to see when they are overlapping. The text of icons you are working with get wrapped in a little color bubble that makes them stand out and easy to read. All of those little things add up.

But mostly – Mac OSX “”Tiger”" (10.4.6) “”just works”".. When I first started it up, I answered a couple questions and *bam* – I was on the Internet through my wireless router. I clicked on a “”network”" button and *pop* – all of the Windows computers on my network showed up in a list. I selected one, entered a name/password for it and all of its files showed up. I was able to copy the files, double click on songs or videos and everything just worked.

It was actually easier to network the Mac with my Windows machines than it is to setup WINDOWS with other Windows machines. Because there wasn’t any “”setup”" – I just clicked the network button and everything was there.

Similarly, everything else I’ve tried has worked just as easily. Plugging in a printer prompted a couple questions, and then I was printing.. Plugging in a USB mouse, external harddrive, flash drive, iPod, digital camera video camera… all just pop open and work.

Aside from these mundane operations concerns – I am absolutely amazed at the number of really cool applications that come with the Mac. There is a HD Movie editor so that you can take your digital video off of your camera (through the integrated firewire port) and break it into scenes, insert transitions, titles and effects, then hand it over to the DVD building program to put together DVD menus and burn your masterpiece.

There is a multitrack audio editing program, appropriately named GarageBand which allows you to record, mix, edit, and put effects on any audio source you can imagine. There is a fun little Photo Booth program to take goofy pictures with the integrated webcam. There is, of course, a web browser, e-mail, word processing, calendar/scheduler, address book, online chat, games, web page builder… the list goes on and on.

In the last week or so, I’ve basically been goofing around with neat little programs to discover every little thing this sucker can do.

One of the coolest features is the included remote control, that works with a program called Front Row. Basically, with the Mac on your desk (or on the bed in a hotel room, or plugged into your home entertainment system) you hit the menu button on the remote control and up pops some basic icons that give you access to the media on your computer. You can view picture slideshows, watch DVDs, watch downloaded video content (or online movie trailers) or listen to any music you might have.

The very simplistic remote control buttons are easy and intuitive to use to get around this content from across the room, or next to you on your desk. The remote control also works with the Keynote program (Apples version of Microsoft PowerPoint) so that you can easily navigate a slide show while giving a presentation on the road.

There are some Windows programs that I can’t run, but most things have a free alternative available that runs on the Mac. I just finished installing Windows XP so now I can reboot into Windows and run everything else (read: big games). I booted Knoppix Linux off of the DVD once, and it didn’t like the keyboard or trackpad right off the bat, but there’s plenty of time to tinker )

If you’ve thought about getting into Apple computing, but have always been scared away by the price, compatibility, or “”differentness”" – I can heartily recommend moving to one of the new Intel based Macs. There are currently the Mac Mini (small desktop computer for casual web surfing/e-mail/chat/word processing), the iMac (standard desktop machine with integrated 17″” or 20″” flat panel LCD and core duo processor), the MacBook (what I bought and described above), and the MacBook Pro (MacBook’s big brother targeted at professionals that need dedicated video performance, heaps of RAM and gobs of drive space with the processing power to do professional audio/video editing and the like).

Shortly we should be seeing the PowerMac G5 replacement which is the professional desktop line for high end video production, 3-D rendering, and the like. I’m guessing it will be released as the “”Mac Pro”" given current naming conventions.

I am still living in a Windows world (mostly) at home and at work.. but I’m happy that now I have a little computing oasis to come home to, where I don’t have to deal with rebooting Windows, viruses or spyware. Now if Apple would just make a car, I could buzz to and from work on auto-pilot enjoying my favorite podcasts without having to worry about crashing on the way!

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