My Mac Book Pro

On Friday 13th my Mac Book Pro arrived. Naturally the first thing I did was unpack it, plug it in and turn it on. Then I did something which I haven't done in a very long time. I read the manual!

This isn't my first Mac. It is however my first "Real" Mac (I have a Mac Mini at home), It is also the first time I have an actual Mac keyboard.

First Impressions

Speed

I ordered it with 4 Gigs of RAM, figured go big or stay home! It's fast, I expected as much, it is also practically empty of any automatically starting background services (MySQL, Railo, Coldfusion, MSSQL, anti-virus and who knows what else). I have learned a lot and will be running most of the server software in a virtual machine instance instead of polluting my laptop with all those serve services.

Multi-touch Trackpad

This is a really cool feature, in my opinion. The ability to have gestures on the track pad provides a series of short-cuts for common tasks and it sure is handy (I would never have know if I a) didn't read about it when researching, b) didn't read the freaking manual.

Time Machine

Perhaps it's because of the hardware problem I've had with my now dead HP laptop, but I'm in love with this automatic backup feature. I just need to get a networked Hard-drive plug it in and forget about it. I never have to worry about backing up my machine again. I will probably not pay the $499 for a 1TB time capsule instead pick up a non-Mac one, partition it and set one partition up as my time-capsule.

Look and Feel

It's a sexy, sleek laptop. It feels sturdy unlike my previous plastic laptops. I do have a little bit of fear about the monitor but I don't usually throw my stuff around so shouldn't be too concerned. The keyboard is solid, it's taking me a little bit to get used the the Chiclets but like everything else on the keyboard it's all new.

Satisfaction

I have a general sense of satisfaction, though I will reserve final judgment until I have a bit more experience working with it. I am still suffering a little bit from sticker shock but that shall soon pass.

Installed Software thus far

• Firefox
• Eclipse / CFEclipse / Flex plugin
• VMware Fusion

As you can see there is still a lot to do, and keyboard short-cuts to learn and un-learn.