Panasonic Youth rob sanheim writes about software, business, ruby, music, stuff and things

MacBook Pro First Impressions

So we are up and running for Seeking Alpha, so I’ve been getting to know the MacBook and loving it. The speed and stability is awesome, so far I really haven’t had to wait longer then a few seconds for just about anything to process, with the exception of an install off CD. The interface has been easy to pick up, even though my last MacOS experience was version 6 or 7. Of course, there have been no “sad macs” like I remember so well from older versions of MacOS.

Hivelogic’s great guide made setting up Ruby with Lighty and everything a snap. The browser situation is not so cut and dried as it is on pc, as there are at least three legitimate options. Safari is just ridiculously fast - Gmail is so responsive, Firefox on my pc doesn’t compare. Camino seems nice, and I still haven’t downloaded the plain jane Firefox to see if its worth using. I’m not sold on Safari’s UI, as the everything seems tiny and I don’t see a preference for making the buttons bigger.

Also, I’m not sure how to really integreate QuickSilver beyond using it as a fast search, and shortcut keys are still a mystery to me for a lot of things (can I open/switch to Terminal from anywhere?) Also, not sure if its worth getting a .Mac account and switching my mail duties to the Mac Mail, or sticking with Gmail.

The main difficulties I’ve had have been getting used to the keyboard and the single button trackpad. I still prefer scrolling with a designated area with one finger, like most wintel laptops, versus the two button thing. Also, there doesn’t seem to be a way to do a simple page down/page up with one hand on the keyboard, which is how I like to skim articles or blogs. Doing function+delete to do what is “delete” (versus backspace) on a wintel keyboard is annoying.

Overall I’ve been very impressed, as things feel quite a bit snappier then the AMD box I have and the pentium 4 laptop my wife uses. Now its just a matter of getting the desk setup with the new monitor and still finding space for printer/scanner/etc.

By now I’m sure you’ve discovered the insanely nice Track Pad on your MacBook, and started to use it to scroll “around” pages…right?

If you are not using the to finger scrolling you are missing out on a great feature. Go to System Preferences > Mouse and Keyboard and check the box for ” [ ] Use two fingers to scroll” and check ” [ ] Allow horizontal scrolling”

Now, while you are reading this page, put two fingers on the track pad and drag both fingers at once. The page should be scrolling…hey, wait…come back. Now make the window really narrow and try dragging both fingers to the left and right…cool, huh?

I constantly try to drag both fingers on the track pad of other people’s Windows PCs…it is a feature I really miss when away from my MacBook. Another nice think is hat you can do a Two-Finger click which serves as a right-click. Anyhow, give it a try. Once you start you’ll wonder how you ever got by without such a feature.

I can probably help you with QuickSilver and shortcuts if you want…it’s a bit different on the Mac side. I have a few applications that I use for shortcut hot keys, etc. You might want to take a look at Butler or Launch Bar, a lot of folks really like them.