Saturday, August 16, 2008

Why I like my new mac

I recently wrote about my new apple macbook and I really don’t want to be that guy who jabbers on about how cool his mac is and how relatively uncool PCs are but, basically – it's true. Now, granted, there are a few things that that mac doesn’t do as well – for example, the MS Word version for mac doesn’t post directly to my blog like the windows version does. It also won’t do mail merge to email (which I actually used occasionally.) It doesn’t sync my palm to my groupwise and groupwise isn’t as nice on a mac as it is on a PC.

BUT I’m really glad I switched. Here is a short list why.

  • Size and weight – I like the size of the macbook and also how light it is. It is really a much more portable computer than either the IBM or the Dell that I had – certainly a lot more portable than the recent Dell I got from work.
  • Style – let’s face it, these folks at apple know how to design stuff. They just look so cool!
  • Ports and connections – all the ports are on the side so when I tip it back I don’t bend the power cord connection. Speaking of which, it’s magnetic so it just comes off without breaking (not that I ever had any problem with my old one, but this design just makes it less of a possibility.)
  • Speed – there are two ways the mac is faster. It starts up and shuts down faster. A lot faster. But it also opens up programs faster. Not that I’m impatient or anything but, well, let’s move on.
  • Searching for things – finding files is a lot easier and faster – you type into the little search window in the finder and you get results instantly instead of the five minute wait for windows search to do it’s thing. I used windows search only when I had to because it was such a pain – I search for things on the mac all the time.
  • Preview – thanks for Bryan for pointing this one out to me. If you think you have the right file but you’re not sure you highlight the file and click the spacebar – it shows you the file instantly so you can see if it’s the one you want. It also works as a great way to view photos.
  • Video chatting – with the camera above the screen I can chat with people and see them. I don’t use it much but I get to chat with Bethany face to face occasionallyy in Georgia and I finally got to see Father Ron Hatton, an internet friend who’d voice I had heard and who’s pictures I had seen. I feel like we’ve actually met now. Yeah, I know you can buy a camera for a PC and do the same thing – this is built in, easy and seamless. Oh, and the camera let me quickly take this picture showing my new t-shirt.

So, there it is. Why I like my Mac. I’m that guy now. And I’m OK with that.

1 comment:

Rev. Ronald J. Hatton said...

And I'm OK with you being OK with that! Since I have owned Macs exclusively since 1985, I have a bias, of course, but I am glad that your experience so far has been mostly positive. I use Mac Journal to post to my blog sometime, and never knew that the PC version of Word would let you do such a thing. Now I want that feature! :-)