[mixtup]

Hey everyone! I�m going to be providing you with my impressions and experiences with my new 15� TiBook 1Ghz SD and switching to Macs; the Lightside

There is no real logical order to this post (or the subsequent ones in this thread) since I�ll just be writing my impressions as they hit me. Here goes:

The TiBook itself is beautiful. It looks and is packed like someone cares for it and is proud to sell it as their product. Unpacking was an event at the house. Everyone oohed and ahhed when I got to the computer. �It�s so� elegant�.

The OS is also very nice and has a lot of hey-check-this-out features (Genie effect and Dock magnification). It�s cool because it�s cute, pretty, elegant, etc. But there�s really some substance (ie a kickass OS) under all the cool-looking stuff.

The display is gorgeous. I had the TiBook on in my room and my brother said it lit up his room! I live in a tropical climate where there are always some bugs around. They never seem to attracted to all the lights that are always on in my house. But lately there�s been one or two around my display. "I can't help it, it's so beautiful.....ZAP!"

The Help application seems to be horribly slow. Sometimes it will hangs while looking for a document. Or it will take long to start up. On the other hand: I think it�s cool and helpful that new apps can add themselves to the Help sidebar. Overall OS X Help makes Windows Help look like a sick joke.

One thing I was a bit disappointed about were some problems with my modem. It kept on disconnecting all the time. I think this is a serious flaw because:

1) switch evangelists preach out of the box connectivity and, furthermore,
2) it�s a pain in the ass to have the modem act up because for some people it�s the only gateway to download a software update that might potentially cure the problem.

In the end I turned off �Send PPP echo packets� and this helped a bunch. I don�t know what this option does but seeing the problems it causes it shouldn�t be checked by default. I�d like to thank inquisito and everyone in the various other threads for that solution (posted in http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...threadid=63157) .

Going back to Windows to move my files has proved to be stressful ("your system is low on virtual memory"). After trying to upload my mail to my IMAP server with Mozilla on Win2k, I quit and went to Mail.app. All went smoothly, except for the slow dialup connection.

Transferring files was fairly easy. I know nothing about networking. I popped in the crosser cable to my TiBook and my Dell. I read some Help on the PB, poked around in Win2k until it worked. I ended up accessing the Ti from Windows because it was the first thing that worked. Transfers were painless.

Okay that�s all for now, I�ll be updating this thread as I spend more time with my TiBook. Thanks for reading!

[arkitus]

Congradulations!

give us more...

[MusicalTone]

Thanks for posting. I am a recent switcher too and agree with all of your comments. I dont know what it is about dialups and the mac but it didnt work great for me either. Now using broadband and Airport extreme and a lot better (although I did have to switch to channel 1 and select b only). Help is a tortoise, dont know why. Its a shame, as you point out, it is elegant and well produced otherwise. You will find MSWord is slow too for some reason, Excel and Entourage are fine. Overall the postives far outweight he negatives. 3 months into my mac experience and I am still contantly in awe and wowed by it. Enjoy.

Antonio

[wanderlust]

Congratulations! And very cool. It's always nice to hear things like this. I've been a macster for years, although I am obligated to use windows occationally. I like the mac experience better. I'm with you on the help section though. Why it takes a computer with the speed of a "super computer" so long to launch a helper app is beyond me. Surely the architects haven't overlooked this or thought it was fast enough. Queer for sure.

I haven't used dial up for years, but back in the days, I used a global village modem and connected fine without ever having problems. It was OS 8.6 back then. Perhaps it's an OSX thing.

[cambro]

I don't know why it is, but Apple seems to use crappy modems. I think it is a symptom of their opinion that if you aren't using broadband, you should be. It's internet connetion elitism and Apple should try to improve on this front, particularly in consumer machines.

That said, there are ways you can obtain a more reliable modem connection. The modems Apple uses seem to be particularly sensitive to line quality. Reducing the modem from v.92 to v.34 sometimes helps to improve reliability.

[psisquared]

One thing it sounds like you may have overlooked is that there is no need for a crossover cable on Apple's latest powerbooks(not sure about earlier ones). Any old ethernet cable will work as the ethernet card autosenses the cable type and adjusts itself accordingly. No need for carrying around multiple cables! I've always found this little touch very nice... Enjoy.

[mixtup]

Here�s a bit more:

The sleep indicator light is way cool. Although it�s funny that I realized this because it wouldn�t let me sleep because it lit-and-dimmed, lit-and-dimmed my room over and over.


There�s something I�ve noticed about Macs. And actually I realized this even with the (now) Classic Mac OS: It encourages you to keep multiple apps open. In Windows the default behavior is to quit the application if you close the last window that is open. Coming from Windows, when I saw this behavior on the Classic Macs I thought it was a bad practice; you had all those apps open consuming memory. One of the things I read about Macs that encouraged me to Switch, was how you could have a lot of things open at the same time and be productive. I say this cautiously as I still haven�t fully tested this capability, but it seems that having a lot of apps open is a good thing. You are more productive and can get things done quickly. I realize that the reason why I thought that closing programs was good might be because I had a crap os that could not manage its memory (You are running low on virtual memory) and forced me to things little by little or once at a time. So much for multitasking. So I�ll get back to you on this issue, when I can give the TiBook a real test.

The keys feel pretty good. I can tell the difference when I go to another keyboard, but to me it�s just different not bad. I�m not too picky about this, probably �cause I don�t know how to type However, I have noticed that in certain circumstances my fingers catch the bottom of keys. It feels like I might pry them out, but this hasn�t happened. Maybe its, again, because I don�t know how to type. <embarrassed/>

About them hinges� At first I kept getting this resistance when I tried to push my screen to a greater angle. I thought the hinges were sticky, but I figured out that if you push the screen forward, then backwards it�ll do so smoothly. This seems to be so the screen doesn�t fall back, duh. <embarrassed/>

Okay that�s enough for now, I seem to be in the habit of picking on myself tonight.

[mixtup]

Originally posted by psisquared:
One thing it sounds like you may have overlooked is that there is no need for a crossover cable on Apple's latest powerbooks(not sure about earlier ones). Any old ethernet cable will work as the ethernet card autosenses the cable type and adjusts itself accordingly. No need for carrying around multiple cables! I've always found this little touch very nice... Enjoy.

Yeah, I called a friend of mine because I didn't even know there were so many different types of network cables. I thought an ethernet cable was an ethernet cable. He told me I needed a crossover cable. I asked him if that also worked as a network cable. He told me it didn't. (which I thought was stupid, but again I don't know networking)

He probably wasn't aware of Apple's capability, but he isn't into Apples. But God bless him because he knows a hell lot more than me about computers (esp. networking) and made a cable for me.

[mixtup]

Originally posted by MusicalTone:
You will find MSWord is slow too for some reason, Excel and Entourage are fine.

My use of Word has been limited, but I have noticed the app is quite slow sometimes.

Office X is so Mac cute that I almost forgot that M$ makes it (made by Microsoft hired Mac lovers maybe?).

I switched to OpenOffice on the PC and didn't look back, so we'll see how the beta works for me on the Mac.