[TonTaub]

Oh well ... don't get confused with the subject line
It obviously (see below) took a very long time to get me there - but finally I ordered and got a 1,5GHz Superdrive Powerbook with all options.

I really do love it!
Right now I'm in the midst of finetuning my settings (currently WiFi) so I didn't do that much besides surfing the web, reading mail etc.
But it's just that great

cheers, Michael.

Originally posted by TonTaub on : 11-15-2002 06:32 PM
Hello People,
after following your posts for months I'll put my first statement here ;-)

Originally posted by scottiB:

My point, other than me trying to use my writing degree again, is that, of all Macs, the iBook has the most devoted users--for good reasons: the form factor, the solidity, the battery life, the silence--that certain je ne sais quoi. People will admire a TiBook from a distance (it is impressive), but they want to pick up the iBook. You're not crazy.

I agree with you.
My story so far:

First I "touched" the TiBook. The smallest modell from the very first edition. I was impressed and I'm even more impressed by reading the specs from the latest models.

Later on I had the chance to play with an current iBook (running MacOS 9.x) on my lap, sitting on a couch (what a coincidence ;-)
From this point of view (sitting there an fiddling ...) I thought "wow, that's not an iBook in the way as I always referred to, this thing is truly serious competitive!".

So from the bang-for-the-bucks-factor I'd go for an iBook.

On the other hand I also want to use an mobile Apple for sitting at the desk at my home office, using splitscreen und e.g. running LightWave (3D App) and to kick my WinPC (<outing>well, I'm sort of a Switcher ;-) </outing>).

I need a screen with more resolution, and a fast CPU ... probable as fast as possible (did I say I'll kick the PC? ).

Reading Digitalmustard's needs, I'd say "go for the iBook" ... just guessed from my desicion process.

HTH,
T T

[TonTaub]

First of all ... I still do love it!
Some thoughts straight from my head:

Since it's my first Apple and I now only litte about the system I played around and tried to get used to it. I like the much more consistent user interface than on other OSs.

I'm trying to get WiFi w/ WPA with my Linksys up and running, currently the connection can't be reestablished when the PoBo was in sleep mode. I've to run Airport Assistent again, which is rather not comfortable. I got some hints here on another place, I'll try them asap.

Many people here talk about fans and noise.
I can hear the right fan constantly blowing, but it's very low noise.
But today eventually the left fan went on - this guy is at least twice as loud as the other one.
I didn't find that bad since both fans together are more quiet than most Intel-based notebooks I've heard.
But there also was this tiny rattling noise, much like if the bearing isn't right or the blades of the fan are touching something.
Get me right, me appartement was dead quiet when I discovered that, and you have to listen very carefully, but I've to admit that I felt a little pi**ed when I heard that.
In Apple measures this is noticable.
I was stressing the PoBo a bit while the battery was charging - so the reason itself, why the fan went on, was quite ok, IMHO.

The backlight of the keyboard seems a bit uneven. I can't tell if that's ok or not, I can't compare.

I installed sidetrack
today and think I don't have to use a mouse (unless I'm using the PBook on the desk with my CRT and keyboard of course ;-)
After having installed the new driver I couldn't shutdown for reboot properly - the PBook got sort of stuck.
After pressing the power button it did a coldstart.
Afterwards I tried rebooting for two times and everything went ok. BTW, the PB wasn't rebooted since two days and behaved very stable and reliable.

I calibrated the battery meanwhile, the meter shows a little more than three hours left after 5 minutes on battery.
When using sleepmode consequently one charge lasts for one day for average home use (looking up the Net, posting, reading, playing around with the new toy etc.)
Of course playing CDs etc. needs more energy.

When I got WiFi with encryption working I'll do the printing stuff - I'm using a printserver on the LAN, something minor seems to be wrong, the documents are stuck in teh queue, I'll have to have a look after it.

I do like the screen - I barely saw such a nice LCD on a notebook (in the office I got a HP/Compaq Evo 620c).

The overall performance is very nice. The Evo I mentioned above runs a 1.5GHz Centrino and a Debian GNU/Linux variant with KDE - that system is nice but doesn't feel so consistant and responsive.
I went for the faster harddrive and I'm happy I did so.
I started moving things over from my old PC at home and the bottleneck is certainly not the Powerbook.

So far so good.

soon, Michael.

[TonTaub]

Ok, after more than two weeks a short status, straight from the top of my head (additional info may follow):

*Battery lasts for about +3 hours when doing easy stuff (mail, web, ...) and WLAN
*Updated to MacOS X 10.3.4, works ok.
*Airport works now stable with WPA/TKIP and sleep mode is fine too
*Did not do Airport Update 3.4.2 (since it works anyway)
*Purchased and installed Ableton Live 3
*Tried to get a 80GB Travelstar 5K80 disk in an 2,5" USB 2.0 enclosure running, no luck at all - seems to be a cr*ppy SB/IDE adaptor (any recommendations?)
*Zizzling noise when AC-adapter connected, on my friend's PoBo too - seems to be "normal"
*Connection to an external CRT is great, it just works!
*I do love exposé!
*Had troubles to get my printer (HP Deskjet 970cxi running via a printserver) - now it seems to be "solved" (reinstalled the printer several times).
*Transferred all my mail and stuff from my old PC with NT4 to the PowerBook - Mozilla 1.6 is doing fine!
*I'm doing ok with the new user interface (remember, I'm a switcher ;-)
*I decided to set lidwake to "0" since I accidentally reactivated the PoBo a couple of times.
*I'm still looking for a possibility to swap the standard function keys so that I need to press the "fn" key to change volume, brightness etc. so I can use the function keys for Live 3.
*Just out of curiosity checked and corrected permissions yesterday - a lot of stuff has been fixed, I wonder why it was wrong that soon!?
*My friend's PoBo got a stuck red pixel :-(
*Finally found and installed X11 - works so far.
*Decided to install xnview, but didn't manage to integrate it properly like other apps. Maybe there's something else I like?

so far, :-) Michael.

[nate_02]

congrats on your new PB!

After you install a bunch of software, repairing permissions is always a good idea.

[JKT]

Originally posted by TonTaub:

*I'm still looking for a possibility to swap the standard function keys so that I need to press the "fn" key to change volume, brightness etc. so I can use the function keys for Live 3.

This is very easy to do - System Preferences>Keybaord and Mouse

Tick the "Use the F1-F12 keys for custom actions" box. This inverts the usual behaviour so that you need to press the fn key to alter the brightness/volume/num lock state/etc. The wording and therefore the meaning of that option is a little unclear until you read the rest of it.

[TonTaub]

Originally posted by nate_02:
congrats on your new PB!

After you install a bunch of software, repairing permissions is always a good idea.

Thanks!

So I instinctively did the right thing ;-)

cheers, Michael.

[TonTaub]

Originally posted by JKT:
This is very easy to do - System Preferences>Keybaord and Mouse

Tick the "Use the F1-F12 keys for custom actions" box.

Ah! Obviously I didn't read on. Thanks a lot, I'll check that when I'm back home.

cheers, Michael.

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by TonTaub:
*Decided to install xnview, but didn't manage to integrate it properly like other apps. Maybe there's something else I like?

Your AlBook came with GraphicsConverter, right? Preview also does rudimentary conversions.

[The Placid Casual]

1 1/2 year shipping? UPS must be really slipping these days

(And congrats on the machine!)

[TonTaub]

Originally posted by Stradlater:
Your AlBook came with GraphicsConverter, right? Preview also does rudimentary conversions.

Yeah, but I'm still used to a very old version of ACDSee (V 2.4.1 or something like that).

iPhoto is ok, but I use my own directory and file structure.
xnview is that what comes closest to the functionality.

Preview is very nice (wish I'd had had it on the PC) but does only rudymentary browsing.

Thanks, Michael.

[TonTaub]

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:
1 1/2 year shipping? UPS must be really slipping these days

(And congrats on the machine!)

hehe - confusing subject, admittedly ;-)