Macbook It Is
Say hello to Apple’s newest fanboy. On Thursday of last week I made a post about whether I should get a Macbook or Macbook Pro. Well, it didn’t take much time for me to decide, as the very next day I went out and purchased a Macbook. So here’s my recap of the whole ordeal.
Friday was a miserable day in the Northeast, with snow dumping everywhere. I decided during the morning that today would be the day. The day dragged on a bit but I was growing ever excited, ignoring the fact that snow had accumulated about 6 inches and the mall was closing early. I left work on time and remarkably didn’t encounter any delays on my way home (apparently NJ transit runs better when it’s snowing).
I got to the train station and met up with Carin, who was on the phone with the local Apple store. She said they were closing in a few minutes due to the inclement weather, it was about 6:45, they were to close at 7:00ish, they couldn’t give us an exact time. I grabbed the phone and told the guy that I was coming to purchase a Macbook so keep the store open. He said he would do what he could.
We arrived at the mall and rushed off hurriedly toward the Apple store, not knowing whether or not it would be open. When we arrived at the store the doors were still open so we passed through them and saw mostly workers and most of the display computers powered off, but they were still open.
A salesman came to help us and I told him what I wanted and we inquired about the education discount. Carin had forgotten her student ID but the salesman said all she had to do was log into her school email and that would be proof enough. Problem solved. He went into the back and said I’ll be back in a few minutes to begin processing the order.
When he came back we hopped onto one of the computers and he loaded some special URL to begin processing the order. I gave him my info and he tried to sell us the .Mac membership and HP printer. I said no to both but Carin talked me into the printer because it comes out to be free after the rebate. The one thing I did want but didn’t get at the time was the extended warranty, but that will come soon. Once he finished filling out everything he submitted it and said go to the back counter in a few minutes.
A few minutes later we went back and the woman called our name and began to ring us up. The checkout process was very straight-forward and simple, and she gave us an extra rebate form just in case. After paying we had a lot of items to carry, the Macbook, the printer, and a bag with a mighty mouse. She offered to let us go through the back of the store if it would put us closer to our car, which I thought was very kind of them, but in actuality it didn’t help so we declined the offer.
So all-in-all, Apple kept the store open for us, showed exemplary customer service while we were in the store, and had a quick and easy checkout process. It was nice to actually be treated decently at a retailer, any retailer.
When we got home I began the un-boxing and configuring process. It was very simple and much easier than Linux and faster than Windows. Since then it’s been a lot of fun discovering everything this little turbo-charged piece of equipment has. You can be sure to expect a lot of posts about this thing in the upcoming weeks and months.
Here is a little preview of some of the pictures I took upon bringing it home Friday night:
You can find more photos from my Friday night unboxing and configuring in my Macbook Photo Gallery.
you and your mac…..
you are a dork
and i love you
listen we don’t need to hear about your Friday night “unboxing.” Let’s keep this blog PG, shall we?
The next two weeks are going to suck as you get used to the switch, but it will be SO worth it. Thirty days in, you’ll be a pro. One hundred days in, you begin acting like a zealot. It wears off.
@ Carin – you know me
lol….love u too hb
@ Erika – you know you clicked through to the rest of the pictures, so don’t pretend to be uninterested lol
@ Tedious – there has definitely been an adjustment period, but at the same time it’s all so exciting to see completely different ways of doing stuff, even different from Linux not just Windows, so while it may be a difficult transitional period, that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun along the way
When you take a picture of your Mac screen, turn the MacBook’s brightness all the way down to the minimum. It will look crappy in real life but way, way better in the photograph. (Also, turning the lights on in the room can help, too.) Try it, you’ll see what I mean.
Enjoy your new MacBook.
Should have brought a MacBook Pro
– 13″ MacBooks are just toys.
@ DBL – thanks for the tip, will definitely try that moving forward
@ Grunt – that’s precisely what I wanted, this is a test phase for me, the end result if all goes well will be the 24″ iMac
LOL Welcome to the fun side of computing.
truer words have never been spoken Shawn lol
this thing is awesome and keeps getting better and better
Heck yes! If you have any questions about using it, fire away. We’ll be happy to help.
o shesshh… 2 MAC nerds on one post..
who else wants to join in?
@ Shawn – thanks a lot for the support, will do
@ Carin – you know it lol, and get ready we’re gonna be growing in numbers
“2 MAC nerds on one post..”
Wait…who’s she calling a Mac nerd?
I just do a radio show about them. I ain’t “one of them”.
hahaha very cool site you got there Shawn, been on there a few times today and will definitely be an active reader.
I was wondering what your thoughts are on TextMate? I’m looking for a good blog editor to write posts in when I’m offline during travel, and I have heard a lot about TextMate and a plugin for it called BlogMate, are you familiar with either of these and if so what are your thoughts?
“hahaha very cool site you got there Shawn, been on there a few times today and will definitely be an active reader.”
Cool – but I hope you listen to the show, too. That’s where the real fun is.
“I was wondering what your thoughts are on TextMate? I’m looking for a good blog editor to write posts in when I’m offline during travel…”
I honestly don’t know anything about it. The way our site is set up, I just type using any text editor (actually, I usually just use my email app) and, with TypeIt4Me creating the html code, I can easily cut and paste into Drupal once I get back online. Sorry.
@ Shawn – will definitely tune in some time and check it out
shawn- what station show is this? and what about your website.. MAC nerd?
“shawn- what station show is this?”
No station – we’re a web broadcast. If you go to our site, you’ll see the “Listen” graphic in the upper right.
“and what about your website.. MAC nerd?”
LOL I just talk about Macs. I’m not a nerd about it.
Don’t worry Shawn, I’ll make her listen with me one time.
LOL Maybe she’ll enjoy it – my wife is the co-host.
haha.. maybe we all have something in common
@ Carin – you probably would like it hb, you were a Mac user before me
Yeah – give it a listen. It’s not your typical “techy/geeky” kind of show. It’s more of a “lifestyle” show and we have a lot of fun, take emails, have chat rooms running, interview guests – and give away a lot of prizes.
i
BTW, I just checked out your Flickr photos.
*One* of you is *really* cute!
jon and i need to win a getaway weekend
please keep us posted on when that might be
@ Carin – You couldn’t be anymore right lol
@ Shawn – what types of prizes do you give away? If not weekend getaways maybe 24″ iMacs? (wishful thinking)
i doubt they give away 24″ macs. lol
“what types of prizes do you give away?”
Tune in to hear….
Usually software and hardware from whoever is sponsoring the show or being interviewed. We also giveaway iTunes Store Gift Certificates.
And we’ve given away many iPods and yes, even a Mac or two.
kinda advise as to the times you are one, will def listen in!
@ Shawn – that’s a cool intro you have to your show, hope you enjoyed/are enjoying Boston. I didn’t notice a schedule or shows anywhere on your site, can you point me to one?
“kinda advise as to the times you are one, will def listen in!”
Technically, the show is live on Wednesday evenings, starting at 8:30pm ET. But if you go to the web site and look in the upper right, you’ll see a “Click Here to Listen!” graphic. Clicking on it lets you listen to whatever the latest show is.
“Shawn – that’s a cool intro you have to your show, ”
Thanks!
“hope you enjoyed/are enjoying Boston.”
Didn’t see much of Boston (combination of busy and too cold and dreary) but we’ll be back soon (on our motorcycles) to do more exploring.
“I didn’t notice a schedule or shows anywhere on your site, can you point me to one?”
Every Tuesday evening, we send out and post a press release for the following Wednesday show. And, as i said, you can listen any time by clicking the graphic in the upper right.
Hope you enjoy it!
Hey Jon, on one of your other posts I saw you lamenting the loss of right clicks and now I read that you bought a Mighty Mouse with your Macbook purchase. If you use it with your MacBook, take a trip to your System Preferences (if you haven’t already)
and set the Keyboard and Mouse control panel for the secondary mouse click to be a control-click (the Mighty Mouse default is for both left and right buttons to be primary left clicks).
Also, have you tried the Trackpad two finger solution for right-clicks? I don’t have this on my PowerBook’s Trackpad, but the new MacBooks can do it — might have to set it up in the Keyboard and Mouse preference panel. Put two fingers on the Trackpad while clicking the button.
ps Two finger scrolling is pretty usable, too. And I’ve set my Trackpad up to be used as a mouse click. Just tap the Trackpad for a single click or twice for a double-click.
Cheers!
@ Neil – I’m addicted to the two-finger scrolling, so much so that I subconsciously try to do it on my Sony Vaio.
One thing I did like better on the Vaio was the trackpad mouse click ability, but now that you say I can do that with my Macbook that is out of the window, thanks for the helpful tips!
Your Vaio two-finger scrolling attempts sounds like when I use friends’ MacBooks that aren’t set up for trackpad clicking.