[jamil5454]

Whew!

First I would like to say that fedex rawks! My iBook shipped from taiwan tuesday morning and was here thursday morning, with standard apple shipping.

Next I would like to say that I LOVE IT! It's myt first mac, so I'm still adjusting. I figured I'd tell a little about this iBook to provide information for future "switchers".

I had to drive ~45min to the FedEx station in Houston because I wasn't home both times they tried to drop it off on Thursday (sure I could've got it on Friday, but I'm impatient...). It was worth it. When I first opened the sleek white box, I was presented with the manuals, CDs, and cables. I then realized that the iBook was underneath the styrofoam, after which I continued to take it out of it's sleeving. It feels heavier than it looks - but - it's welcome weight. I then tried to turn it on and nothing happened at first, so I thought the battery didn't come charged. Well, this being my first mac and the iBook completely silent (it seems like w/o fan), it actually did turn on but I couldn't notice it and when I was puttingit back in the box the screen lit up. YAY! I followed the first-time setup wizard which was suprisingly simple, and then proceeded to log in. I had a few first impressions:
-It was noticeably slower than my 2yo windows/linux box (AMD athlon 1800) but most of all the loading times were slow (loading pictures into background, etc)
-Everything was extremely simple. At first I thought, "where is everything? how do I do this, or this, or this?" I quickly found out, because OS X is, indeed, intuitive. OS X feels like everything is at my fingertips, while in WindowsXP I had to do a little digging
-It felt really tough. The polycarbonate plastic is very hard, and best of all it hides scratches and smudges really well.


My iBook is a new model stock 12"

I had ordered a 1gb stick of RAM from newegg a few days earlier, so I was anxious to put that in after I experienced OS X. The installation took a whole 10 minutes, 6 of which I was looking for a screw driver.
RAM makes a WORLD of difference. Applications install much faster, launch faster, and nothing is fighting over the hard disk now.

I really had to work to find a few things that bothered me, but eventually I found some -

-It's not the iBook's fault, but I can't stand trackpads. the iBook trackpad is a perfect trackpad, but a USB optical mouse is much easier to use. The trackpad will do for quick tight situations.
-The Cd-drive is the loudest component in the computer. I rarely have CDs in there, and my PC is like 6 times louder, but I'm just conveying information. I almost thought I broke it the first time I popped a CD in. It draws the CD into the slot when you have almost pushed it all the way in, so just be patient and keep pushing the CD in. When it does draw the CD in, it makes a few loud mechanical/clicking noises which I thought again it was broken, but not. this seems to be normal, and btw the CD drive response/load speeds are above average.


So... here are the specs of my new iBook -
G4 1.2 ghz
1.25 gb PC2100 RAM
30gig HD
combo drive
airport extreme
12"
radeon 9200 w/ 32mb

Oh yeah - another thing. I noticed that OS X and the default set of applications took up almost 10 (!) gigs of space. When I first booted my iBook, I had about 18 gigs of free space. Oh well, I'll probably buy an iPod I can use for extra storage.


So for anyone with US$1000 and deciding whether or not to take the plunge, do it! Well worth it. Switching was fun.


PS - did my iBook come with Tony hawks pro skater 4? and if so how do i launch it? im still a mac n00b.

[AleroLeanne]

Congratulations on your new machine and thanks for the great post! I ordered the exact same as you on Wednesday, so maybe I'll see mine today! (If not, then Monday for sure...I hope). It's been six years since my last new Mac and I've never had OS X so your post is really helpful. Now I can know what to expect when I receive mine.

Do you have any pics to share?!

[A Ghost Is Born]

The previous models of the ibook included tony hawk 4. The new ones have a dinosaur game ans a marble game. If you want to free up some valuable hard disk space, I would recommend downloading the Macoroni application (there is a demo version of it or the full version for like $10). Anyhow, it does a lot of things for you including erasing all the extra languages that you don't use. Another consideration is getting an iPod or external harddrive. I use my 40GB to store my docs, photos, videos, etc. You may also want to remove unnecessary apps (i got rid of the two games, appleworks (replaced with office, the Earthlink trial versions, Internet explorer (as I like safari more), etc. I think you can reformat your HDD and put all the applications that you want on there. I am not sure how to do this but I have friend coming over soon to help me with it.

[AleroLeanne]

I have a question about that...if I wanted to get rid of say the Earthlink sign-up, do I just drag that folder to the trash? Or should I do a search of the hard drive? Is there a specific way I should go about it?

Thanks for the macaroni tip...I'll try that too.

[jamil5454]

I don't have a high quality digital camera, but I do have a cheap Pencam. Since I just finished installing the macam driver for it, I'll post some (crappy) pics in a few minutes!

[jamil5454]

Ok, here's a quick pic I just took:



and here's a short video of me opening "daydream" with GarageBand from a fresh reboot:

http://www.boukheir.com/movie.mov

[AleroLeanne]

Very cool! It seems like you and your new 'book are getting along well. I hope mine comes today. I called the store but they haven't received anything yet. Maybe the truck is still on its way...

[polendo]

Originally posted by jamil5454:

-Everything was extremely simple. At first I thought, "where is everything? how do I do this, or this, or this?" I quickly found out, because OS X is, indeed, intuitive. OS X feels like everything is at my fingertips, while in WindowsXP I had to do a little digging
-It felt really tough.

I love it when that happens. It happened to me, and it also has happend to a lot of windows users.. I read that same message all over other Mac forums.

It's so simple that at first we over try to do things that are intuitive.

Enjoy it!