Mac360 Poll: How Long Have You Been A Mac User?

Jan Colbert said:

I remember reading somewhere that Apple said the MacBook Air is their top selling model.

So much for all those media pundits who said it was too slow, too few features.

People love it.

Jack Jebedee said:

You make an excellent point, Mr. McElfresh.  MBP = LED backlight.  In fact, I considered that very carefully, along with the MBP discrete graphics, before deciding to buy the MB.  My thinking went something like this:

1.  I already have a desktop computer and it does reasonably well (albeit slowly) everything that I ask of it.  The only thing it doesn’t provide in any measure is mobility.  Therefore, I should acquire what I don’t have now rather than purchase something that will only improve what I already have.  I will buy a notebook computer, not a desktop computer.

2.  The degree of a notebook computer’s mobility is inversely proportional to its size.  That usually means that a small-screen notebook is more mobile and a large one is less so.  The MacBook Pros are compromises in that regard.  They have mobility that an iMac doesn’t, but they are not as capable.  That is, their screens and storage and keyboards are smaller than those of an iMac.  On the other hand, the Pros are more capable than MacBooks, but they lack the latter’s mobility.

3.  My original plan was to buy the 17” Pro desktop replacement, but I figured that I would be sacrificing too much screen real estate for something that I’d want to use mostly at home and occasionally in the field.  So for mobility, I got the most mobile thing that Apple makes.  (I love elements of the Air, but there was just too much wrong with it for me to consider the Air seriously.  Damn!  Air II is going to be amazing.)  So here I am with a vanilla MacBook and 4 x 2 GB in RAM on order to share with Mrs. Jebedee.  I’ve got my mobility.

4.  I plan to do big-screen graphic projects using my Ubuntu desktop.  When the time comes—and that isn’t too far away—I’ll buy the other half of my Mac system.  I figure my 24” iMac will have LED backlighting and it will probably be running a quad-core processor, 8 GB RAM, 1 GB video RAM and a BluRay drive.  I’m leaning toward the solid state drive since a BluRay library should be good for as many terabytes as I’ll need.

If my figuring is right, the total cost for the MB and iMac won’t be much more than a 17” MBP.

JJ

PS:  I found the missing <Home> and <End> keys today.

Ron McElfresh said:

Hey, Jack. Good choice. Except a little more money would have given you a MacBook Pro with an LED screen.

It’s only money. Surely your wife would understand.

Mac360 ‘Magic Word’ = h_e_l_l_1_1

Go figure.

Jack Jebedee said:

Belay checking the weather in hell, Mr. McElfresh.  Nothing has frozen over (yet).  I was all set to wait until the MacBook came equipped with LED backlighting but Mrs. Jebedee scolded me for having an endless supply of reasons to wait for the next Mac improvement.  I figured that we might see LED-backlit screens in June.  “Yes,” said Mrs. J, “And in June you’ll find a reason to wait until December.”  I asked why she thought I’d wait until December and she answered, “I don’t know, but I’m sure you’d find a reason.”  I told her that such a thought struck me as ridiculous.  However, I acknowledged that DDR3 memory will be in widespread use when the next-generation Intel processor appears.  When that happens, computers can be equipped with BluRay R/W drives.  “Oh?” queried Mrs. J.  “And when, pray tell, is the next-generation Intel processor expected to arrive?”  I didn’t have to think about it.  “Around December,” I replied.  Mrs. J’s response to that was a raised eyebrow.  “We’re going shopping on Sunday, Mister.”

JJ

Ron McElfresh said:

Jack Jebedee finally bought a Mac? Truly, we live in a new age of wonderment and miracles.

Make sure to let us know how it goes! Black is faster.

Jack Jebedee said:

Ah, yes.  I bought my first Mac – a white MacBook – on Sunday.  Mrs. Jebedee and I bought a pair of them.  I fully intended to buy the black MacBook, paying the nearly $200 color penalty, just so that Mrs. Jebedee and I could tell our MacBooks apart from a distance.  We arrived not quite an hour after the store opened and I noticed that the matte black MacBook was starting to look like Captain Jack Sparrow covered in Kraken barf.  Oops!  I immediately changed the order:  “Make that a pair of white ones, please.”
I wore my embroidered Ubuntu beanie into the store, thinking I’d have a little fun.  I couldn’t believe the response.  I got half a dozen high fives and “Me too!” from the sales staff and geniuses.  Apparently a lot of power users there are running multiple operating systems.  “The MacBook is ready to load just about anything thanks to Boot Camp,” said the geniuses, but they advised Mrs. Jebedee to use her education discount to buy VM Ware’s Fusion to load Ubuntu as a virtual machine.  “Sits right there on the dock and you run it and OSX at the same time.  Cut from one, paste in the other.  But be sure to download Ubuntu from VM Ware’s web site, not Ubuntu’s, because VM Ware optimizes Ubuntu to work with multiple processors inside Fusion.  By the way, there’s a $20 manufacturer rebate on Fusion right now.”  We’d already paid for our MacBooks, the extended warranty, MS Office Student and Home Edition and a pair of padded carrier cases.  Oh, and Mrs. Jebedee bought a compilation of games on DVD.  She loves computer games.  We decided to buy VM Ware Fusion on our next trip to the Apple Store.
I thought that Mrs. Jebedee – a mature college student—would use her education discount to buy Fusion for my benefit.  No, she’s buying it for herself.  She likes Ubuntu a lot and wants to have it on her machine.  I didn’t know that she knew so much about Ubuntu.  Her desktop machine runs Win XP.  She only uses my ancient Ubuntu box when she’s waiting for me to get ready to go somewhere and that’s only to play some game to pass the time.  “Yes,” she told me.  “I love the games that come with Ubuntu.”  Hmmm…  I don’t know if that’s a particularly good reason to install an entire operating system.  I voiced my opinion:  “Yes, dear,” I said.
We didn’t realize until we bought it that MS Office Student and Home Edition 2008 comes with three licenses.  Is that normal?  Does the Windows version do that?
We’re going back to the Apple Store next Sunday.  We didn’t realize that the store conducts an absolute beginner’s class every Sunday at 10:00 before they open for business at 11:00.  Cool!  Tonight I discovered how to make the <Delete> key delete instead of backspace.  Now I’d like to find out where the <Home> and <End> keys (or their equivalents) are on my MacBook.  And how do I right click on the touch pad?  I checked Apple’s online support and couldn’t find a cheat sheet.  So Mrs. Jebedee and I will find out together on Sunday and in person.  Oh, and we’ll pick up Fusion for two then, too.

JJ

Michael Tomlin said:

My first Mac was a Mac SE which I’ve had for 20 years now. And, believe it or not, it still runs!

Since then, I’ve owned,

LC!!!
iMac (original)
iBook (white)
Cube
iMac G4
iMac Intel Core Duo

I’ve sold all of them except my current system (iMac, Intel Core Duo) and I can’t bring myself to part with the Mac SE.

Wahiawa786 said:

Y2K: Saw a classic Mac for sale at a hospital thrift shop for $40. I looked at it, but thought the price was high. After a week, the price dropped to $25, and a Mac SE 4/40 joined a previously IBM/Wintel-only home. I contacted a college friend who’d been using Macs since the IIe days and he walked me through the basics. Bit by bit, the unit was upgraded from Mac OS 6.x to 7.5.3, along with a 32MB motherboard and 540MB HDD. It left for someone afflicted with a Packard Bell computer. 2001: Bought a PowerBook 1400 from eBay and considered a Kanga to surf the Internet. Late 2001: Bought a Rev. 2 Wallstreet (266) from a Canadian eBay seller. Software and hardware arrived from time to time, from FileMaker Pro 3.x and OS 8.1-9.x. The PB 1400 left for a computerless family then next year, along with a Canon inkjet printer. A Sonnet G3 500MHz upgrade for the Wallstreet was added to use a 16X CD burner. The Wallstreet went to a across-the-street neighbor a couple of years later. A “400MHz Pismo” turned out to be a Lombard, but it was OK, nevertheless. HDD and RAM upgrades from 40-60GB and 512MB made the units OSX 10.2 capable. A 500MHz Pismo joined the Lombard, as DVD burning dropped into the sorta-afforadable range. The Lombard left for a computerless former co-worker. A 667MHz TiBook didn’t quiet make the cut for DVD burning, but was interesting. In late 2003, a 1.25GHz G4 AlBook arrived which could “do DVDs.” The TiBook left for the Lombard owner, and the “PowerPC vs. Intel” question popped up. Ye Olde Pismo continues with OSX 10.4.11, along with a 1.5GHz G4 unit that “doesn’t do DVD+R DLs or home made DVDs.” The 3GHz P4 tower (Windows XP and Nero) has been fitted with TWO DVD+R DL-capable burners and burns DVDs, unlike the AlBook under Toast 8!