The Great Experiment (or, Josh Buys a Mac)

I completely blame this on my friends that work at the Mac Superstore. After a lifetime of using Windows, they finally convinced me to get a MacBook Pro.

What it came down to was a combination of curiosity about unknown territory and a realization that if I’m going to explore it, now is probably the best time to do it given that I’m at the age with the highest amount of expendable income. (Also, I have to admit that the musician/writer/web addict/hipster in me would get a little ego boost from all this. Sad, I know.)

I originally intended to wait for the soon-coming announcement of the next line of MacBooks, but Josh and Andy, my friends at the Mac Superstore, told me the other day that they had a couple top-end models of the last line on major sale. So yesterday I went in on my lunch break and picked up the last one they had.

(For the nerds: 17″ hi-def 1920×1200 display, Intel Dual Core 2.6GHz processor, 200GB 7200 rpm hard drive, 4 GB RAM, 256 MB video.)

So far I’m still figuring things out. Though I’ve used Macs before, it’s an adjustment to use one for more than a few minutes because I’m used to being able to zip around in Windows. This is The Great Experiment, after all. I do have to say that it’s a lot easier to figure out from the get-go. I’m not really used to that so it’s a little unsettling for some reason.

I’ve got Firefox running with most of my plugins, I’m running Adium for chat, Twhirl for Twitter. I still need to import all my music and pictures.

Things I love? Multi-touch mouse, the speed improvement, way more screen space, pretty looks and the kind of highly intuitive interface I always aim to create when making websites. I’m also looking forward to using GarageBand.

My two unsolved problems: I can’t get the hot keys working for Spaces and I can’t figure out how to keep the computer from sleeping when I close the lid. Relatively small issues.

Oh, and I miss my Home, End and Delete keys. Fn+Backspace doesn’t quite cut it.