Foo - The new MacBooks are frickin sweeeet

The newly released MacBook computers are really nice, a welcome step up from the 12" ibook. The glossy screen isn't a problem with glare so far, the nifty Mac pre-loaded programs are fun and the whole experience is just a lot more relaxing than bringing home a new PC and praying the install goes properly. Even the lowest end macbook has all the features normal folks need, and if photoshop/indesign slow down, you can get more memory.

Is anyone using the Macbooks or Macbook Pro computers here in the forums? Please tell me how your experiences have been thus far. For instance, have you installed and found Boot Camp to work well? Any problems, milestones, fun facts to tell?

Cheers and enjoy!
thebankman

A colleague of mine has the MacBook Pro 15". Very nice. :) I want one of the Pro's. I'm a bit concerned about the keyboard on the MacBook (haven't actually checked one out yet) and I would like a dedicated higher end graphics card. And I want the (optional) 7200 RPM hard drive.

Haven't decided which size I want. I don't really need FireWire 800 for anything (and there's always the expansion slot), so it's purely a size difference for me. And I'm holding off a bit in hopes that the next gen Core processors come out as scheduled later this summer, and hopefully Apple puts them in the Pro by the end of the year.

I went and checked them out on my lunch break. I think I like the MacBook keyboard more than the MacBook Pro one. It seems to have a bit more resistance and travel, a bit more like on the keyboard that ships with the desktops. The space between the keys looks a bit funny, but I don't look at the keyboard as I type anyway, and I am pretty good about hitting the middle of the key.

That said, I'll probably still go with the Pro when it comes time for me to buy one. Aside from the optional 7200 RPM drive (probably could put one in the MacBook, but what of its thermal properties?), I've come to really appreciate screen real estate and I also want the higher graphics performance. I also wasn't really a fan of the glossy screen. Yeah, the Pro is quite a bit more expensive, but given how rarely I replace my laptops (still have a 400 MHz G3 laptop that was given to me for some work I had to do; last laptop I bought was a Duo 230 running a 68030 processor at 33 MHz--bought used in 1997), I'm willing to splurge a bit for what I really want. I'm hoping when the next gen Core processors come out, Apple will quickly put them in the Pro laptops. If so, I'm probably getting one.

My 6-year old Pismo Powerbook is dead/dying (only 128MB of RAM works now, and can't be bothered to spend more money on it). New MacBook should be here later this week! Unfortunately, I must confess that I am weak... I got it in black. I'm just attached to black after all these years... And it matches my bike :D

I am so getting one when I go to college.

But right now, I'm pretty content with my beautiful iMac G5

But right now, I'm pretty content with my beautiful iMac G5
That's my current desktop. It's a pretty nice computer.

Big f'ing deal. You know what's sweet? This.

http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Stories/011.2/Pictures/Party/SugarCubes2.JPG

How was Montauk slvoid?

Errm, slvoid, what is that in that pic? unless its worth a lot of cash, I'd bet my 15" macbook pro is much sweeter.

Anyway, has anyone had issues/experiences w/ hauling their 15" widescreen mac laptops on a bike? (are any panniers going to work, any specific ones that do a great job?)

I would never turst a computer to a pannier. Backapack. This way if I survive most likely the laptop will survive. I've seen a few of the new the mac books around and they are pretty sweet. I'm not a fan of the Mac and could never ever use one sinec nothing I use runs on the mac and the fact that they rewrited 10 plus years of keyboard muscle memory

BUT I can definitely appreciate the fact that they look really nice and now that they're using the new Core Duo chips from Intel they are speedy as ****. And they still managed to make them super thin too.

Looks like Slvoid's got some chunks of sodium there. Careful, buddy.

I helped some guys last year with a reaction that called for 650g of sodium. We were rinsing it in hexanes then slicing it into small pieces before dumping them into the reaction. Dang AC went out in the lab and the humidity was making the operation rather dicey. We took a break till the AC kicked back on and had no problems.

I would never turst a computer to a pannier. Backapack. This way if I survive most likely the laptop will survive. I've seen a few of the new the mac books around and they are pretty sweet. I'm not a fan of the Mac and could never ever use one sinec nothing I use runs on the mac and the fact that they rewrited 10 plus years of keyboard muscle memory

BUT I can definitely appreciate the fact that they look really nice and now that they're using the new Core Duo chips from Intel they are speedy as ****. And they still managed to make them super thin too.


Macs will run Windows, too.

Who would want to run windows on a mac... :lol:

I am going to upgrade, like achen, when the new mobile processors come out and are in the new macbook pro...

I also would like a 7200 RPM HD and dedicated graphics card.

Mandy

who would want to run windows or OS X period when linux is free and open source? :) dollar for dollar performance wise, Apple is getting its butt handed to it, and the Intel chips may help a bit, but you still pay a premium for it

just watch out macbook users, theyve already had battery problems, may even be a recall, depends on how serious it gets, but it doesn seem they either released them w/o enough testing, or they are having QC issues

Over the life of the computer, the cost of the operating system is peanuts. Might as well use whatever combination of Windoze, OS X, and/or Linux that best gets the job done. For me, that means running a Windoze / OS X combo. Sure, Linux is free, but at my consulting rate, taking a few hours to install and become familiar with it would equal the cost of simply buying the other two OSes. And over the life of the computer, we're talking about pennies per hour of usage.

As for quality issues, being the first to buy is always a risky proposition. As much as I'm lusting after a Merom-based MacBook Pro, in reality, I'll probably wait a little while after they first come out before getting mine.

who would want to run windows or OS X period when linux is free and open source? :) dollar for dollar performance wise, Apple is getting its butt handed to it, and the Intel chips may help a bit, but you still pay a premium for it




Have you seen the "DSL/Damn Small Linux"? It's a 50Mb version of Linux that you can either install or use as a LiveCD, say on a 50Mb credit card CD - what can I say, it just works.

I used to have a 2nd partition with Ubuntu, just to give me access to the net whenever my XP died, but no need anymore - just bung this in, turn on the PC, and voila, internet access to help me with troubleshooting and network tools and a host of other goodies too.

Is anyone using the Macbooks or Macbook Pro computers here in the forums? Please tell me how your experiences have been thus far. For instance, have you installed and found Boot Camp to work well? Any problems, milestones, fun facts to tell?


Not yet, but I've got a 2nd hand Powermac 450MHz Dual G4 arriving tomorrow or day after - it'll be my first mac ever.

http://lowendmac.com/ppc/g4mp.html


Very cheap and a fair bit upgradeable, despite being a very old mac...

Have you seen the "DSL/Damn Small Linux"? It's a 50Mb version of Linux that you can either install or use as a LiveCD, say on a 50Mb credit card CD - what can I say, it just works.

I used to have a 2nd partition with Ubuntu, just to give me access to the net whenever my XP died, but no need anymore - just bung this in, turn on the PC, and voila, internet access to help me with troubleshooting and network tools and a host of other goodies too.

Ive been running linux since just after it came out, and very seriously running it for about 4 years(6 machines currently). I tried DSL just to check it out, as live CD's go I prefer SLAX or knoppix. I will say this, linux isnt for everyone, if you dont want to get your hands dirty and learn how to use it, then it isnt a good choice, but then again, to use ANY OS well it takes some time and learning. But if you want to build and cheap high performance machine using commodity hardware its almost impossible to beat. Nothing windows or OS X can even hold a candle to.

Sure, Linux is free, but at my consulting rate, taking a few hours to install and become familiar with it would equal the cost of simply buying the other two OSes. And over the life of the computer, we're talking about pennies per hour of usage.



depends on how many problems you have with it, and what your doing, and not everyone is filthy rich like you :)

does it still look like it came with a kids meal?

depends on how many problems you have with it, and what your doing, and not everyone is filthy rich like you :)

That's cause he's ASIAN and his parents are LOADED.
Unforunately, I'm just your average asian-american. I have nothing...

does it still look like it came with a kids meal?

That was actually supposed to be saccrine or something, I guess it looked too much like crack...

That's cause he's ASIAN and his parents are LOADED.
Unforunately, I'm just your average asian-american. I have nothing...
I thought they built that big azzed wall in China to keep all you folks IN... and now y'all keep sneakin out :LOL

you drunk?

I thought they built that big azzed wall in China to keep all you folks IN... and now y'all keep sneakin out :LOL

Yeah I know right, they know what's up with that. Too much talent sneaking out.

Yeah I know right, they know what's up with that. Too much talent sneaking out.
But you're throwing off the curve here for the 'muricans

Yeah I know right, they know what's up with that. Too much talent sneaking out.

It's all right, the wall is porous enough to let talentless hacks like me in, too...

Oh, and the MacBook is indeed pretty sweet.

Macs will run Windows, too.

Windows on PPC... would you be a dear and linkify?

@Mothra, you shouldn't have any malware migrating because everything's in your fake_windows dir. I suppose that you could have the precise setup in wine such that some virus can modify the binary of one of your programs and you just happen to be surfing the web through firefox in wine (because you can?) while using your credit card, and then.... bam. I'd say a security breach through wine is about as likely as one through OSX.

Yeah, I'm triple booting (winxp,gentoo,osx86). The binary's I was refering to are other windows executables (binarys) in your fake_windows dir, which I suppose could be modified by a malicious windows code you run through wine.

That may be windows on osx/vmware, but i doubt it's windows on ppc (if ya know what I mean). ;)
Any idea what the overhead for that is, can I run wow and rip a movie in dvdshrink? In terms of OS's, I've only kept osx86 and windows around because I've been too lazy to delete them, and since stable wine supports wow with no problems, I just might kiss gentoo goodbye and move to arch for a bit. Can't really see much point in windows or osx for anything besides gaming and a few high end applications.
As for wine, my point was that anything you do in wine (lets say, sign on to wow) can be seen as a potential security risk because windows software isn't exactly secure, who knows what that installer is really doing (unless it's OS). And yes, like you said, you can wipe your ~/.wine directory and reinstall, however, I have had to reboot when downgrading from wine's cvs version, so in some extreme cases you may need to.

Macs will run Windows, too.
That's another beef. They originally wouldnt and you had to "hack" it then they realized that they had already lost the battle so they released a bios firmware or program that would "let" you.

I want to do what i want with my own software and my own hardware.
And that utlimately is why Mac is where Mac is now and not where Microsoft is - despite being ahead of the game 2 decades ago.

Apple lost their market-share big-time back in the '80s through greed and ego, no doubts about that! About 50% of the Mac-128k's $3000 retail price was pure profit, unheard-of margins by any standard! Problem is they're all collaborating today to keep us power-users in check. Apple, IBM, Intel & Microsoft are the big players in the new EFI and TPM standards which is big-brother on your desktop, scary. With widespread and mandatory usage of monitoring software on your computer which requires authentication to run software, it's gonna squeeze out all smaller independent software-vendors and you won't even be able to run programs you wrote yourself!
I don't think that will happen completley, because then us windows developers will become Linux Developers and while it may take a few years years to make the Linux API's like what windows api's has been for a decade+ and Microsoft knows this.

Theyu realize that this was not feasible 5 years ago b ut in 3 years it could/would be feasible.
All operating systems are slowly coming to par with what the "basic" man needs. Now it's more of an idealogy and what you do.

For example I enjoy the whole VS.NET Platform and the .NET Platform and the whole Visual C++ debugging. A level of API, debugging, documetnation and tools that no other platform comes to par for what I use them. In 5 years if the linux zealots stop trying to keep linux as being something that only somebody with 100 spare hours can realy use then this could changea and then MS would really be given a run for their money as one thing nobody really touches is their development platform, tools and documentation. Linux most stable, most widely supported development options gives you a man file or a huge html file and VI.

omg omg omg i love this game, in the pic, its a picture of those little snap thingys that you throw at the ground and they go snap, or you throw them at your friends face and they go snap snap snap. i always opened them up to see what was inside, if there was a little time bomb or something but all i saw were little white rocks, i thought "how lame is that?"

Merom-based iMacs are now released. Come on Apple, give us Merom-based MacBook (Pro) laptops already! I want one.