I just bought my first laptop. It is called MacBook.

These are just a few of its features:

* 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
* Two 512MB SO-DIMMS of DDR2 SDRAM; supports up to 2GB
* 13.3 inch screen
* Intel GMA 950 graphics processor
* Built in !Sight video camera


My questions for you:

Do you own or have experience with this MAC or any other Apple product?


If so, how would you rate Mac in terms of user-friendliness, reliability, durability, etc.?


Do you have any tips or advice for the novices out there, like me, who are just beginning to use a Mac?

I am a huge proponent of the Mac platform. Too many macs to list.

Number one.

Get yourself a USB mouse with at least two buttons.
Don't install anything for a while. There's plenty of software preloaded. Look into Abi-Word though. If you are not familiar with UNIX don't ever enable root or use sudo. If that means nothing to you... Good... Keep it that way. Anytime anything goes wrong someone will tell you to Repair Persmissions. Don't bother it's pointless. It's so much easier to use a Mac sometimes it seems wrong. It's not. They just do a really good job of making things work. Oh, and use a password. Don't just let it log you in.

Oh and like 30 people will tell you "I Repaired Persmissions and it fixed the problem. Ask them what Repair Persmissions does. They won't be able to answer. Feel free to PM me for the actual answer and why it doesn't do what everyone thinks it does.

Do you own or have experience with this MAC or any other Apple product?

Yep, I own a Mac. Also, a Windows XP "game" machine. I've got a couple of Linux installs for various projects.

If so, how would you rate Mac in terms of user-friendliness, reliability, durability, etc.?

Let's say I'm OS agnostic. Mac OS X is really nice though; I'm pretty happy with it. Personally, I'd recommend getting a Mac for any computer novice. It's difficult to corrupt your system in such a way as to force a complete reinstall (unlike Windows).

Do you have any tips or advice for the novices out there, like me, who are just beginning to use a Mac?

I installed Firefox and Thunderbird immediately. I'm not a big fan of Safari or iMail. You can download OpenOffice for Mac (called NeoOffice Aqua) currently in Beta 3. Also, while I haven't tried it, you can get Parallels or VMWare to run Windows on your Mac as well (not a dual boot but simultaneouly with MacOS).

I will follow your advice. Thanks for sharing.




I'll write it all down and hopefully it will make sense after I actually take my laptop out of its box, which I plan on doing this week sometime...

I've been back on the Mac bandwagon for about a year and a half. My advice would be to buy the applecare for 3 years. My iMac went kablooey about a month after the one-year warranty ran out. The firewire ports started frying everything and the ethernet port went bad. Towards the end, my external hard drive fried and disappeared from the desktop. I was lucky, and a sympathetic soul at the Apple Store fixed it for free, but it would have cost about $800 if they charged me for out-of-warranty service. I really enjoy the Mac, but can't speak very well for their hardware / quality. I also bought a third-party warranty on my iPod, and have used that twice in 4 years.

Speaking of, when you do get it out of the box, put it to work. Do absolutely everything, and do it right away. Burn a CD, Burn a DVD, rip a CD, transfer files back and forth to a smart card or network or something. Connect an instrument to GarageBand if you plan to use that. Do whatever you can to make sure that the thing works. That way, if it is defective, you find out fast. Something we should do with all new electronics.

I would install firefox for internet browsing as well. Safari is OK, but nowhere near firefox in terms of friendliness and compatability.

The only downside to Firefox is that Mozilla based browsers will not follow the rules regarding things like Contextual Menus. Think "right click" in the browser which brings up things like back, copy etc.

So if you install something like Yojimbo or SOHO Notes you cannot copy the text directly to those programs like you can with Safari. So for instance you copy a hunk of text you need for later, you have to take lots of extra steps to get that info where you want it. Sounds insignificant but it's a major pain in the ***other word for donkey***.

All of the Mozilla based browsers (Camino, Mozilla, Firefox, etc) ARE better than Safari but none of them follow Apple's rules.

I usually find that if I either hit CTRL or the apple key, or hold the mouse button down for a few seconds, I get the contextual menu that I need in firefox. I don't have a 2-button mouse, and it is a bit aggrevating at times, but I've learned to copy text with one button, just by holding it down for a while, and that is 90% of the contextual menu that I need.

Another Mac fan here (writing from my PowerBook G4),

I'll second the recommendation for Firefox (just google Firefox browser or go to www.getfirefox.com). Remember that one of the great parts of the browser is that you can add a bunch of small, integrated applets to it (called add-on's). Play around with some.

The Mac is very user friendly; in fact, as one who uses both (Wintel at the office, Mac at home) I don't think there's much comparison. There are some lovely, small features (expose being my favorite) that just make the Mac shine.

Have fun!

TheCook

yes, but other programs cannot use that Contextual Menu - that's the issue. In fact, Apple can't use the menus.

Just an update. I started using my MacBook about a month ago and I love it. But I feel so inept still. I take it to school and I am able to access all of my on-line resources which is so awesome. It fits right in my backpack. I feel like I'm barely touching the tip of the iceberg in terms of what can be done with it, but for now I'm slowly learning my way....

Ah, the Apple! Can't believe I missed this one. I am a Mac head. We've had Macs in our family since the 128k (if I remember correctly) original one in 1984. Currently I have 2 G4's - one of them a dual-core - chained together powering my recording studio.

Fond memories... I remember going to a computer show and seeing the Mac IIcx for the first time... we oohed and aahed over the 25 megahertz processor. Could anything possibly be faster!?!

I use Safari and I don't mind it at all. I also use the built in mail program. All of the iLife programs are really well done - easy to use and to understand. As usual, Apple is all about intuitive design.

My own version of TinyLimp's Vista ads: Now, more like a Mac than ever!!