# Project! 10 days with apple



## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

I'm going to put together a journal of 10 days with apple machines. the 12inch Ibook and the Ipod Mini (4gb). Th goal is to go a full 10 days without using the Dell (thank gods) or my Minidisk player (Poor bluey!). I'm, planning some pictures, comparisons and other fun. if anyone has a webspace where I could display the results, that would be awesome 

Anythig I should pay special attention to? I have not written such an article.


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## Vexel (Jan 30, 2005)

Just start a thread


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## Grunt (Jun 14, 2005)

You've already started a thread - post the results here


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

alright, as soon as I get back home to lethbridge, this thread will have my opinion. I Think I will find a place to up the information up elsewhere or more permanently than a forum post, as i think it would be elpful for other consumers to see a fairly new users abillity to move to Apple systems.


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## CN (Sep 3, 2004)

Sounds cool. You could post the results here, or if you use .Mac you could use that webspace (although from your post it sounds as though you don't). Either way, keep us up to date with a URL or whatever


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## zekite (May 3, 2005)

I'm interested in your project...although I can't offer you webspace. I will be setting up my in-laws this summer with an eMac in hopes of converting them. This will involve some intense mentoring, followed by Apple remote assistance and personal/periodic 'help sessions'. It just makes so much sense for them to have the eMac. 

Good Luck


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

zekite said:


> I'm interested in your project...although I can't offer you webspace. I will be setting up my in-laws this summer with an eMac in hopes of converting them. This will involve some intense mentoring, followed by Apple remote assistance and personal/periodic 'help sessions'. It just makes so much sense for them to have the eMac.
> 
> Good Luck


Thanks for the support  I am going to post everything in this topic once I get home, however I might see if some apple friendly site would host it. It's rather have people find it through google as an article, rather than just the post here 

Good luck with your mother in laws machine. Hopefuly she takes well to it and gets to enjoy machines.


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Day one.

Here we are, day one of this project. I purchased an apple Ibook (the focus of this article) and received a free ipod as part of a rebate program. This isn’t so much to do a trial run of the mac operating system, (I have used it on and off for the past month or so) but rather to use a new machine, and see what I can find as someone using only and apple.

We’ll start from the top. Today we open boxes. Now this may be silly, but I was impressed by the box. It’s a very nice display box, handle included, and extremely well packaged. Minor things like a top sheet to clean up the look of the Styrofoam, a two layer package, these were cool. inside I had several adaptors or plugs, the Ibook, manuals and installation material.

Here I have a few shots of the ibook along an empty soda bottle (600 ml). Not the size. This is the 12 inch model but it has exactly the same dimensions as one of my university text books, save in width. That’s very handy and I can see this being a very easy machine to pull out when needed. Secondly the height when closed. that Cylinder is the cap from our friend Mr. Soda bottle. Two caps in height, that’s a small laptop.

Reading the instruction manual (which was plain and easy to understand with a few pictures to guide me) I found that I needed to Charge the Ibook to 100%, they drain the battery to calibrate it. Well I plugged the machine in, and fired it up. To my joy, it was already to g, all I needed to do was enter my name, and a few preferences, I wasn’t timing but I’d probably say about 15 minutes at most. now compared to the last Windows machine i assembled, this was pleasing. I was expecting do a OS install, but that was unneeded. As you can probably guess, this is my fist pre built system that I have purchased in a very long time 

The operating system is easy to understand, and pleasingly, it came with Two word processors, and office suite, web browser, media players, accounting software, and a media suite. Very very nice. I plugged in my Digital camera, and it recognized it, needed no drivers and imported my pictures very easily. Excellent! I plugged in a usb mouse, same deal. by the way it recognized both buttons and the scroll wheel, so yes you can use a two button mouse with a mac. 

Following apples switch guide online I had already burnt a disk with all the data I had wanted to transfer. The CD was recognized and the files moved over easily. The only format not recognized was the Open Office.org save files, and I’m sure once i install that program, I'll be fine. All up things are going well.

the next step for me was to organize the Dock. The Dock is a small bar along the bottom of the screen that works like a combination of the start menu, and Task bar in windows. it allows you to launch programs with a click, and manage the programs you have open. I know I won’t be using garage band, or mail anytime soon, so I removed them by dragging the icon into the trash. Poof ! We have smoke, and they are gone. Next I wanted to add Apple works ( a productivity suit) to the dock. I drag the application on to the dock, and it’s there. I now have a link I can use to launch Apple works as desired, and I did not have to create a short cut, not did I loose the original program to the dock. it’s a very smooth system.

Next up I installed the one computer game i have. Diablo 2. it installed as quickly as any windows computer i have used recent;y and as well. I’m not a big gamer, so I can not do that comparison for anyone. Diablo 2 ran fine, and looked very nice on the screen. it ran as smooth as anything, and that was a bonus. Again Diablo 2 is NOT a new program so I should hope it runs well. 

Next up I need to kill the battery, so I bring the machine upstairs and plug it into my router. The Connection was immediate, no pop ups nothing I was just online. this is due to the greatness of a router, and I appreciated not being told when the network connection was or was not unplugged.

After updating the software (again This still beats having to do a fresh install of XP) I had 11 updates. it went rather quickly and while doing this i decided to watch Xmen. Xmen runs well both in a window and at full screen, however the transition between the two is not perfect. Now this is Probably due to the 256 megs of ram i have,l and I do plan on upgrading as soon as possible . on the upside the 256 is inbuilt so I will always have base ram, and anything I ad is an addition, not a replacement. 

I fired up Safari the included web browser. it did a fine job of going to my fave web sites, and loaded them fine. Except for Live Journal. the script was all hammered together. I’ll look into this tomorrow.

So far I have used my camera and mouse. The system has been updated, I can watch my movies, and surf the web. not bad. I opened up the system preferences and played around a bit. I made an account for my wife, and made the dock smaller than the base size. this is pleasing as well, every change happens in real time, I don;t have to click apply, the computer does what I tell it to the first time. That’s nice. good computer, have a biscuit.

That leaves me at the start of this article, or more accurately the start of writing it. I opened up Apple works and using the writing application composed this document. I like the program it is very neat, and haas all the options i need right up front (spell checker and font manager). before I finished here i opened installed my favorite fonts form my old machine. I double clicked on one, it opened the font, and asked if I wanted to install it. On saying “yes” the font manager opened, and I was able to install the entire directory. on the plus side it also filtered through and removed the few fonts that were corrupted,. it asked my permission, but didn’t require me to sort through file by file to find the corrupt ones. 

in closing for tonight This has been a very pleasing experience. I have NEVER had a computer set up, doing useful tasks this easily in my life. The operating system feels more like it is offering advice when it asks something rather than giving me a pop up and telling me that I have a camera, I can open it by clicking somewhere. it’s very fast, in that I don’t have to take extra steps to get things done, the camera opened, I selected import pictures and it completed the task. I could then close the photo manager (iphoto) and move on to something else. This is great, and i look forward to the next week.

Cheers,
-Aaron Myradon


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## mac_geek (May 14, 2005)

A great synopsis of day 1... a really enjoyable read. I can feel your excitement in your prose!

...but Appleworks?! You're drinking the Kool-Aid...


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## Elias26 (Apr 19, 2005)

That is awesome bud! I am happy that you are so thrilled with your new computer, as so you should be given the price tag of said purchase. So I am assuming you won't be going back to the PC world anytime soon? *heh*

We got another one boys and girls! He's got a few screws loose, but we'll take him nonetheless. But on a serious note, I love that about the Mac OS X. It's the OS for dumb dumbs. Yet it isn't, if you know what I mean. Everything comes so easy that even a retard can set it up, yet only the smart people run Mac OS X, because lets face it, it's superior in every way to Linux and anything Windows has out there. Plus she's a beaut!

So Myradon, you downloaded any widgets yet? How are you loving Expose? Or when you switch users. I love that 3D cube effect. No more computer turning off and restarting, taking forever.. just switches from one user to the next within mere seconds and gives us a nice lil' show too. Tiger's awesome! I love that pussycat.


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

mac_geek said:


> A great synopsis of day 1... a really enjoyable read. I can feel your excitement in your prose!
> 
> ...but Appleworks?! You're drinking the Kool-Aid...


HAHA okay and what shouldi be using?


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Elias26 said:


> So I am assuming you won't be going back to the PC world anytime soon? *heh*


Well aside form absolute nesseccity,. no windows is dead to me... assuming the Ibook works out.



> I love that about the Mac OS X. It's the OS for dumb dumbs. Yet it isn't, if you know what I mean. Everything comes so easy that even a retard can set it up, yet only the smart people run Mac OS X, because lets face it, it's superior in every way to Linux and anything Windows has out there. Plus she's a beaut![/QOUTE]
> 
> It's a very pleasing OS. As of NOW I have used 3 Versions of Windows, 4 Linux Distros, and 3 mac OS's. The Best of Linux is either Lycoris or SuSe and both of thosse impressed me quite a bit. For PC hardware, Lycoris beatts OSX if for no other reasonn, than it can be installed! but yeah, I like how the OS has respect. I tell it what to do, not the other way around.
> 
> ...


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## CN (Sep 3, 2004)

This is really cool! I wish I could have read something like this before I switched, I think I would have been alot less scared of incompatibility etc.


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## steadfast (Jul 23, 2004)

Vexel said:


> Just start a thread


 Off topic but what happened to your picture


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

*iTiinkered with iTunes*

Day Two (edit added contents of table)
Net MD Minidisk and Sonic Stage VS Ipod and iTunes

before iGo very far let me say,iSee a pattern that iMarketing uses to sell iConsumer lots of fancy iProducts. Sony will win on product titles for this tag team event. So here’s a quick recap. I had expected to install Openoffice, Firefox and Gimp today to see if my favorite open source hat trick works well on the iBook. however like a hammer, a new media storage device asks to be used.

The first trial was using the ipod to ferry a few left over songs from my old desktop. The Ipod managed, but windows failed miserably. I plugged the ipod in, (just to use it as a flash drive) and windows would not budge. I had to fully install the drivers and ally my ipod. maybe there was a workaround, but I didn’t find it. At any rate I was able to move files around, but I could not change the contents of the ipod when it was hooked up the the book. Thus, I could not properly delete files. it was mysterious. I would chalk it up to either user error, or the inability for the iBook to alter Fat32 files systems. being the end user, I made the mistake or registering my iPod to the iBook and iCried. you see, I could no longer use the pod as a flash drive. if anyone has suggestions, I’m all ears.

I’m going to note here that my Minidisk player (as an older model) does not work as a USB drive. The new high capacity minidisks can be used in such a way (probably windows only). Mine just watched from the sidelines.

next up, lets play with itunes. now i have the stock iBook with Minimal space (30 gigs). this is enough for what I need, or should be. I installed my music last night, I could play it all was well, however itunes has a Bizarre system of making backups of all your songs in the itunes music folder. Why? I relay don;t understand this, and found it frustrating because I tried the drag and drop method I had used so many times to build a library or playlist in winamp and kept getting a bizarre error message telling me that I didn’t have enough space.

once i had figured out why iTunes was being... foolish... I was able to remedy the problem by doing a partial import, deleting, a partial import and deleting. This worked well enough, but seriously, I heard macs were golden wonder machines with no odd behaviors. Compared to windows insistence on making .ini files and downloading Album covers weather I want them or not, I can live with this. so we have files, next up, I realize I have a few duplicates. more than a few, like 50. This raised my anger as I was just getting yelled at for not enough memory, what a waste of resource! It’s okay though, itunes has a setting to view ONLY duplicated files. I was in awe, itunes had made restitution. I was able to quickly delete the duplicate files and carry no. it is not a perfect system it missed files that had a 1 after the original file, but i should be able to track those down in time.
now Sonic Stage, the program used for my Sony brand products allows me to create files in the ATRAC file format (or some such anagram). sonnicstage also makes permanent doubles of files, and it too gets my goat. with Sonic stage it’s harder to track. I find both sonic stage and iTunes to be horrible peices of software for music management. I would prefer ot be able to make the folders myself, and just create a play list. the Winner is winammp for listening, 

but both programs are more than crabby audio players, they are also used to send files to your digital pal. Sonic stage does the job well and quickly, and I like it. It also lets mme change the file quality when sending so the original remains the same quality, but I can send a lower quality file to the minidisk. Excellent. itunes worked well and once i stopped looking for an Ipod pull down menu (it was right there in iTunes below library) i was able to ship files over. I used the stock USB connection. the speed was faster than my desktops 1.1 USB port, but that’s not a fair comparison. On a new machine my minidisk would be USB 2 compatible.

The Problem is Thus, Sony did NOT make the minidisk mac compatible. This makes me more than irate. Not because i now own a mac, but because I would rather one of the wealthiest if not the wealthiest consumer electronics manufacturers would allow the consumer choice in their purchases. What I should buy a VIAO laptop with a half hour of batter life? Thanks but no thanks. release sonic stage for mac. 

Enough about the software. I could rant all day about it. the hardware, again I was left unimpressed by both. lets see if apple works can make a table. That was easy.

*NetMD minidisc	
Pros
-I can change disks on the go
-Very Sturdily built	
-user replaceable batteries AND a huge battery life
Cons
-Limit of about 90 songs per disk	
-Can NOT use rechargeable

iPod
Pros
-I can cary 1000 songs
-the battery is rechargeable
-might work as a USB drive?
Cons
-12 hour batter life 
-Feels lightly built
-I need a computer to change my song list

excellent, that was quite easy. easier than Word Xp. So there we go, I belive I have room for both devices in my heart and lifestyle. I don;t want to take the Mini with me when i go jogging, or moving furniture. the Minidisk on the other hand has been dropped onto concrete from 5 ft and while it vomited out a disk, it was fine. So was the disk. For tasks where my “Digital lifestyle” requires any bodily action more rigorous than walking, the minidisk will be there. The ipod seems fine for shopping, driving and lounging around. tha t fact that it’s HD based, and i have heard of plenty of dead HD’s on these machines I will take my chances with the cheaper more densely built technology. 

I suspect on days going to the university when I won;t be stealing lunch money, the pod would be about perfect. it has a slimmer profile than the MD, and while i cannot change the songs on the go, I probably won’t have to. With 1000 songs that covers a third of my library, and lets face it, I don;t often want to listen to my classical music, or the best of brak.

As a member of the big earphone club, I have a rewired pair of Flight com pilot headphones, and they are a godly thing. It’s like putting the world on mute while i take a break and enjoy my music. the Ipod sounded much better. Why? higher quality files, and i suspect a better amp. Why not use the ear buds? I hate ear buds, plus I don;t want to advertise I used none product over another in my daily life.

For long distance traveling, the Minidisk player will win again. Why? 56 hour battery life. the ipod wet its pants when it saw that. I can fly around the globe without changing batteries. the ipod would give up before i hit the ground in Poland. 

one last complaint about the Pod (just for the sake of honesty). does it bother anyone else that like a video game most of the good things about an Ipod are unlockable secrets? Need an audio recorder? Cool, buy a microphone. Need more battery life? buy an expansion pack. Want faster transfers? buy fire wire. this seems a bit underhanded to the communist in me. I buy a product, I want it to work as well as possible. I don’t like needing a tool kit, a good product IS a tool kit. Just my complaint, though it is a rather minor one.




I think that has it covered for now, the big Winners were
Winamp!
Minidisk player for job sites and exercise. When traveling it also gets a nod.
Ipod when music quality is more important, when doing light activities.

Tomorrow I’ll discover something new!
-Aaron Myradon

PS. Yes a TRUE Post script. I added this 4 hours latter. I resized my MP3 files into AAC files. this saved me about 2 Gigs of space (And remember I seem to have NO space). The Project took about 6 hours, 1152 files were reformatted. the speed of reformatting is fair considering that’s one song per 20 seconds. While this is not my entire music library, it is a better part of it. Well done Apple.


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

steadfast said:


> Off topic but what happened to your picture


the Dancing Zoidberg or the pictures for this Article? I have them I have been to lazy/busy to resize and porst them. once the final version of this article is ready I will include all images.


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

CN said:


> This is really cool! I wish I could have read something like this before I switched, I think I would have been alot less scared of incompatibility etc.


That's why I thought making this article would be important. Lots of people will tell yuouto use a mac, no one records what is like when they first start  And as complaints come up, I will put them in to be fair. Thanks for the input


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## guytoronto (Jun 25, 2005)

What is the purpose of this journal?
How do you expect people to read it with all the spelling and grammatical errors?


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## sim.all (Jul 17, 2005)

guytoronto said:


> What is the purpose of this journal?
> How do you expect people to read it with all the spelling and grammatical errors?


Hey, he's just trying to make his story, I read it and I'm sure a lot of people do too. It's not negative and sarcastic comments such as this one that will make this thread go foward.


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## trump (Dec 7, 2004)

the errors in his journal are simply typing errors and defiantly do not make it impossible to read the article.


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## CN (Sep 3, 2004)

I don't find it difficult to read at all, in fact, I find it quite interesting. Sure, there are a few errors, but its not a published novel.

Its not like trying to decipher "KAYA"s crazy ramblings or anything (what a nutter)


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## steadfast (Jul 23, 2004)

Myradon said:


> the Dancing Zoidberg or the pictures for this Article? I have them I have been to lazy/busy to resize and porst them. once the final version of this article is ready I will include all images.


See what happens when you get old(me I'm talking about) It was Vexel's picture that I wasinquiring about. I kind of liked that chin scratching pose


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## Vexel (Jan 30, 2005)

Myradon said:


> next up, lets play with itunes. now i have the stock iBook with Minimal space (30 gigs). this is enough for what I need, or should be. I installed my music last night, I could play it all was well, however itunes has a Bizarre system of making backups of all your songs in the itunes music folder. Why? I relay don;t understand this, and found it frustrating because I tried the drag and drop method I had used so many times to build a library or playlist in winamp and kept getting a bizarre error message telling me that I didn’t have enough space.


Hi Myradon.. great thread. I just wanted to point something out to you. iTunes was designed to keep things really really organized. From the installation.. it's default.. is to copy anything you add to it, to it's "own" iTunes Music Folder. This is actually a great way for you to keep your music organized. All you have to do.. is delete the original files you dragged and dropped.

However, you can turn this feature off. If you go to your iTunes preferences, and go to the advanced tab. Deselect the "copy files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library" tab.

I think iTunes was designed this way.. because a lot of people import from CD's/External drives which aren't hooked up all the time. This way.. they copy and it adds the songs to the iTunes music folder.. which is good for some


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Vexel - Thanks for the iTunes info. I won;t be making any changes to the settings at this time, but it's good to know i don;t need to be confused and stifled by my computer 

Guy Toronto - Is that an offer to be my chief editor? I'll pre submit files to you, and you can edit them. Thanks 

CN, Trump, sim.all glad you guys are enjoying the write ups 

Elias26 - I'm your Biggest fan, send me an Autograph!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

today the battery life received a work out. it wasn't a big day for playing with mac specific features. Rather today I had to organize a blood drive, create an advertisement, and organize some of my existing files.

The battery life on the iBook is outstanding. I worked the whole day without plugging in (about 4hrs) and was able to move easily fro move location to another as desired, or needed. The sleep mode kicks in as soon as the lid closes, and I loose very very little battery life. That demonstrates to me that there ill be more than enough juice to keep the ibook running once September rolls around. 

other key design based features that I've noticed are the noise level of the machine. The fan is silent, and the heat is very low. I have not come close to burning my legs yet, and the fan has never been a noticeable source of noise. my television makes more ambient noise when it's on mute. the keys are silent as well. not silent, but there is no clack, more of a light click. I didn't expect to care so much about key stroke volume but it was just such a pleasant surprise. It's as though I'm a character in some cool movie, where the focus is on me, not on how much ambiance the computer provides.

The Size is very pleasant, and while i had some initial misgivings about the 12inch size when Ii initially opened the box, it is perfect. the keyboard area is just about correct for my hands, and the machine is so easy to transport, it is joyous. having seen my friends move and set up a 17 inch wide screen Toshiba I marvel all the more at the perfection of this size. 

The White coloration bothers me. I knew that it would, but I'm not sure how much it bothers me. IF I could remove the casing and paint it without affecting my warranty I would in a split second. The appearance is nice, but I want something a bit darker, to match my evil humor and tepid heart. The older iBooks had a painted inside surface, and that would be desirable. but sadly it's 2005 and I would have to resurface the whole unit. 


Appleworks did the job quite well when it came to building a poster and writing postcards today. The lack of a live font view seems unnecessarily primitive, almost as if it's a ploy to sell me on iWork. Whatever, I know my fonts well enough. 

not a great deal to talk about today, just the general lack of buyers remorse. My wife stole the iBook for about half an hour to "help" with my projects. I think she too desires a new computer. Well a small usable computer. she was upset by the complete lack of CTRL+ commands (CTRL+A). I told her to hit apple+A (perhaps Celtic knot+A would have been more amusing) and she continued her use.

until tomorrow,
-Aaron Myradon


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## mac_geek (May 14, 2005)

Again with the Appleworks? Get the educational package of iWorks and make life easy for yourself!


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## Vexel (Jan 30, 2005)

Myradon said:


> The White coloration bothers me. I knew that it would, but I'm not sure how much it bothers me. IF I could remove the casing and paint it without affecting my warranty I would in a split second. The appearance is nice, but I want something a bit darker, to match my evil humor and tepid heart. The older iBooks had a painted inside surface, and that would be desirable. but sadly it's 2005 and I would have to resurface the whole unit.


If you pay an Apple Tech to take it apart.. you actually can paint it and keep your warranty. Or so I am told. MacDoc or Lars or anyone at Carbon should be able to help you out in that regard. But.. if it bothers you enough.. it's worth the shot 

I forgot to mention in the last post.. this is a great thread.. It's wonderful to read your experiences as they come. Keep it up.. GREAT job


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

mac_geek said:


> Again with the Appleworks? Get the educational package of iWorks and make life easy for yourself!


Alright Mac Geek, tonight I'll write my installment uving th iWork trial edition that came pre installed. The funny thing is some time ago I asked what the primary difference was between the word processor in Appleworks andIwork andthere was no clear answer. Perhaps Open offfice will do the job for me as well 

Ona side note I have found out where I can change the options to allow live view of fonts, however any time I do, Appleworks crashes. Now unlike windows it does not take my system with it, but it is frustrating.



VEXEL said:


> If you pay an Apple Tech to take it apart.. you actually can paint it and keep your warranty. Or so I am told. MacDoc or Lars or anyone at Carbon should be able to help you out in that regard. But.. if it bothers you enough.. it's worth the shot
> 
> I forgot to mention in the last post.. this is a great thread.. It's wonderful to read your experiences as they come. Keep it up.. GREAT job


The pint job may be an issue latter, not sure how much I want to spend making it pretty, maybe I'll just buy some stickers  I'm glad you're enjoying the journal, it demonstrates that people are willing to sit through more than one of my editorial posts


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## CN (Sep 3, 2004)

I can't believe you don't like the white, its actually one of my favourite things about the design of the iBook!  I thought that it was possible to remove the outer shell, strip the paint off the inside and then paint it (not for the faint of heart, methinks) but that might have been the earlier ones, as you mentioned. There are also companies that offer a painting service, but I think its pretty expensive.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

.


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## Elias26 (Apr 19, 2005)

Great stuff Myradon, especially about me. Gotta love free publicity! 

Anyway, I wished I did this for my G5 tower because man I have had I could say about switching over from G3 to G5. Sure enough, it's not a switch like your's, from the Wintel world to the Mac one... Alas, it's still a switch and a good transistion in a great direction.

Guess it shows just how creative you are. Although you wouldn't know it from talking to the guy on MSN. Just kidding! Nah, it's always great to see someone make such a happy transistion into the world of Macs. Further proving that people are happier living in a Macintosh world.


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## macsackbut (Dec 15, 2004)

Myradon said:


> Guy Toronto - Is that an offer to be my chief editor? I'll pre submit files to you, and you can edit them. Thanks


Very nice comeback  I'm enjoying this thread too. 

MacS


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Day 4
Movies, address books, printing and Sorting files

Today was another active day, but not for the laptop. I cleaned up my music files a bit (made some play lists to keep everything orderly). This is nothing new, at least not terribly different from any program I have already used, so no diatribe today. the Ipod preformed well, it took up less space than the minidisk player, and allowed me to listen to songs I might not have other wise chosen. An unexpected bonus.

I watched the last hour of a DVD today. the movie was terrible, but the playback and audio was very good. I may have mentioned this earlier but the inbuilt audio out does the audio on my friends 17 inch toshiba. Also the battery life again surprised me, on battery the ibook reported it was ready for 4 hours of movie viewing. That’s bloody insane.

I set up my address book. That is to say for the first time in 10 years of computer use i am using software rather than a TXT file or an old note book. setting up the address book was amazing! The program understood that enter and tab both meant “let me fill in the next field please”. A program that doesn’t do crazy things! it took about 30 minutes to put in 26 names. I have a few more to enter but this covers most of the important ones. A very well built program and easy to use.

I realized at 4 PM that my deadline for a simple project was due. Since I have between using it for almost a week, and am comfortable in it, I used appleworks and put the info together. OH NO my printer is out of ink! I snuck over to my roommates computer and crossed my fingers. Would it work in the 5 minutes i had? I plugged the USB cable in, Selected the printer and printed. Outstanding. it takes more effort to insert a DVD in windows. I was in awe, and pleased that I could run the signup sheet to my club. Thanks to the portability of a laptop and the quick connection of the mac, The JAMS club will be donating blood.

Finally back to sorting files. The fact of the matter is I have been using the same photoshop imitator since 2001. as a result all my saved files are in an unsupported format. I can pick up virtual PC or a similar program, but the reality is, I probably will not need these files anytime soon. I may need to remake or tweak a photoshop of George W bush as a muppet, or Ultraman going on a picnic but I seriously doubt it. As a result these files will be archived and in time forgotten unless GIMP can open them. All my really important files, saved as either HTML, RTF or JPG are 
compatible, and i can edit them with the included software. Excellent.

So that;s it for today. I can watch 2 dvds on one battery charge, the address book was designed for people like me, the laptop worked on a unplanned printer in a pinch and my key files are as compatible as ever, but some of the proprietary software formats are unsupported. 

OH , and too comrade mac_geek. I used Pages to write todays article. I like the live font view, seems like a nice program.

Until Tomorrow,
-Aaron Myradon


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

CN said:


> I can't believe you don't like the white, its actually one of my favourite things about the design of the iBook!  I thought that it was possible to remove the outer shell, strip the paint off the inside and then paint it (not for the faint of heart, methinks) but that might have been the earlier ones, as you mentioned. There are also companies that offer a painting service, but I think its pretty expensive.


The older G3 models have the painted interior. from what i have gathered the new g4's have a dyed plastic. the painting services as ghastly eexpeensive (some are more expensive than painting a car!). I think I'd probably ffint a tech and do it myself. .. if I do. it's not sso much I don;t like white, but rather I REALY like Orange on black 



HowEver said:


> OP, don't paint your iBook! You'll grow to love the whiteness. Look for the sad attempted re-sale tales on this site.
> 
> Has any of your keyboard lettering faded away yet?
> 
> Do you miss not having CoreImage? So far as I can tell, the only difference is not having an effect when you initiate Dashboard. Speaking of Dashboard, is its data loading in the background for you, or not until you call it up the first time?


I noted that selling a custom requires time, but I have enough family that it would probably be passed along rather than sold outside. in four days the keyboard is still fully intact (thank god!). Let's hope that stays true for some time. I do wash my hands before each use, because I'm crazy.

I don;t know what CoreImage does or is. I realy am not clear on it. All I know is that this is the prrettiest OS I have ever worked on and the only prettier one I have seen was in LAIN. Some OS called copland.  Dashboard updates when I hit it and does not seem to run in the background or in startup. So it seems dashboard waits for me to acccess before using system resources.

Thanks for the interest in the articcle


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## HJS (Sep 12, 2003)

mac_geek said:


> A great synopsis of day 1... a really enjoyable read. I can feel your excitement in your prose!
> 
> ...but Appleworks?! You're drinking the Kool-Aid...


Appleworks is a fine program-at least it has a spell-checker. 

Spell-checking is almost universal in X; look under Edit menu in Safari.
Myradon, you don't need an editor(much)-just take a bit of care before you hit the submit button


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Quick time and Safari are unsatisfactory
-Problems installing quick time codec
-Safari display problems and no tabs
-Grrumpy old Ichat would never quit

last night I tried watching some video files i downloaded form the interweb. Thankfully I had Quicklime to do nothing at all. No sound, no video. Okay, I've done this on my windows machine, I'll just update the codec and off I go. Hah. I tried a few different codecs from legitimate sites. I had difficulty installing them, if I even got that far. Frustration turned to herculean rage and UI struck Quick time from the dock and installed VLC. It worked straight away. The only thing Quick time will be doing aside from my laundry is displaying files in the web browser.

And, Speaking of Web browsers, Safari has gone on an African sight seeing expedition. I don;t like the lack of Tabbed browsing, or pop up blocker. No tabbed browsing? I felt like I was using IE. And I have not used IE since... 2003? My good friend Fire fox came to the rescue, and worked exactly as expected. Again all was well. I like the look of Safari, but it doen't have the teeth I need. Also I can;t view pages like live journal, everything was jumbled and fore what? I get RSS, I'm not even clear on what that provides other than up to the minute news. No big deal though, I don't mind using it. Safari better understood a URL file, Firefox just crewed on them and gave me a confused look. so I have two web browsers 

next up. I can't really afford Iwork and pages, so I decided to STOPDRINKING THE KOOLAIDE and sup from the wine of open source. Neo Office. Oh I was in heaven. For those of you who have used Open office or neo office, the programs are very complete and intuitive. It also helps that I had been using Open office on my PC for a very very long time. On the PC it crashed less than word, and opened more quickly. I tell you no lies when I'd say I have opened a document in both word and OO, finished a paragraph of work, and closed OO before word even opened. 

Allow me to rant about neo office a bit more. Of the files that I found were incompatible with the mac, some were open office files. Thanks to the neo office, I can again access those archives. Neo office also has the live font preview i have been complaining about for two days. I can select the 1979 
font and see what I am going to get. I advise anyone who wants an excellent word processor to give it a go. It is compatible with all MS office files.

I tried to install GIMP and the official open office releases, and both of those events irritated me. Sadly the open source community has a habit of thinking I know what binaries are or how to compile them. I don't and don't really want to learn. Desire to not learn is what brought me to a mac, so I could stop mucking around with chunky programs, or viro-adware-spybot combos. So I might have to pick up adobe elements or some other picture editing software, and as for the OOo binaries, skip them and go straight to neo office. Unless you're smarter than I am 

lastl in my freeware extravaganza I installed Adium, a instant messengering program that unifies ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and pretty much any other chat protocol. I haven;t had a chance to test it yet, more on that tomorrow. I thought the install instructions “Drag the duck into your application folder” was unique and original. Never have I had a program so clearly explain to me the steps involved in instillation.

One more thing, I managed to crash my iBook. How? Well lets chalk it up to quicktime and iChat not force quiting they way they should. My dock froze, I waited 10 minutes then I did a forceful power down. Now to put this in perspective, this being my first crash, while i had 8 programs open on a ram depressed computer, I can dea l with that. That was the first and only time the iBook has chugged in the last week, and now that everything is installed, and the programs I keep accidentaly opening are off the dock, I don't expect to see another. If i do... Somebody gonnna have a red bum.

Programs that Installed easily
-VLC (video playback program)
-Neo Office (complete office suite)
-Adium (instant messenger program and duck icon)
-Firefox (web browser with benefits)

installed horribly or not at all 
-Quick time third party codecs
-Open Office.org binaries
-GIMP (image editing software)

if anyone can suggest a freeware photoshop style program that I can install, I would be pleased to hear about it 

have a great day,
-Aaron Myradon


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## CN (Sep 3, 2004)

Myradon said:


> it's not sso much I don;t like white, but rather I REALY like Orange on black


Does that  mean you're joking? I am not going to reflect upon the resale value of a pumpkin iBook...

Just joking...it could probably look cool...maybe. I'm just too big of a white fan to see your vision


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

CN said:


> Does that  mean you're joking? I am not going to reflect upon the resale value of a pumpkin iBook...
> 
> Just joking...it could probably look cool...maybe. I'm just too big of a white fan to see your vision


I have a mock up I made in photoshop, time to figureout how one posts to the gallery . The thing is CN, I have a jacket that I have been accesssrising. Ny wallet, my hat so a matching laptop and minidisk player just seemed the natural next step  

EDIT

Here's the LINK , LMK what you think


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

Myradon said:


> -Safari display problems and no tabs


WRONG! Go to Safari menu, Preferences. Click on Tabs, and check on "Enable Tabbed Browsing"

I love Safari, I always imagined I would use Firefox when I switched to the iBook but so far it's been Safari leading the way.


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

dona83 said:


> WRONG! Go to Safari menu, Preferences. Click on Tabs, and check on "Enable Tabbed Browsing"
> 
> I love Safari, I always imagined I would use Firefox when I switched to the iBook but so far it's been Safari leading the way.


Wow , who would have thought to look there  
Well I also managed to fix the problems with LJ's display, so looks like Safari might get a second shot 

Thanks Dona


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## Vexel (Jan 30, 2005)

Myradon said:


> if anyone can suggest a freeware photoshop style program that I can install, I would be pleased to hear about it
> 
> have a great day,
> -Aaron Myradon


Myradon. Seems like you had a rough day  There are a few things you must know first. Quicktime has never had full support for 3rd Party Codecs like Windows Media Player on the PC. That's why we restort to VLC or another program.

As for the Gimp. This is a great piece of software.. it's very powerful. Thing is.. you MUST have Apple's X11 installed to use it. There is no other way. The binary for the Gimp is a precompiled version... which will install if you want to. Much like any other OS X App. The reason you didn't have it work.. is probably because you haven't installed X11.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/x11formacosx.html

Alternatively, it is included in your installation disk too.. just not installed by default. If you pop in your disk, and choose Optional Installs, you can find it in there and install the package 

I have The Gimp running perfectly on my machine.. It was only a matter of having X11 and the Gimp Binary installed.

HTH


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## macsackbut (Dec 15, 2004)

Myradon said:


> > [no] pop up blocker [...]?


Since dona83 didn't mention it, and in case you didn't see it there, you can enable the pop-up blocking under the Safari menu too. 

There's one person on ehMac (I can't remember who off hand) who often gripes about these two functions (pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing) not being on by default. I must say I agree.

Keep the posts coming. This is a fun thread.

MSB


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## Paul O'Keefe (Jun 3, 2005)

> (And remember I seem to have NO space)


Do you have little space on your iPod, or little space on your iBook. Your comments aren't clear.


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## Paul O'Keefe (Jun 3, 2005)

dona83 said:


> WRONG! Go to Safari menu, Preferences. Click on Tabs, and check on "Enable Tabbed Browsing"


It might be better to welcome new mac users by politely showing them the solution rather than yelling how wrong they are. Catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all that...


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## Paul O'Keefe (Jun 3, 2005)

macsackbut said:


> There's one person on ehMac (I can't remember who off hand) who often gripes about these two functions (pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing) not being on by default. I must say I agree.


I think Pop-up blocking in on by default and Tabbling is off in Safari.

This is a great thread.


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## CN (Sep 3, 2004)

Hey, that mock up actually looks pretty nice! Its not too gaudy or anything, and pretty cool because it looks like a black iBook with orange racing stripes  I might go a bit thinner on the orange stripes, buts its just a mock up, so its hard to tell. Cool!

Keep the write ups coming...when you're writing in such detail about everything you do on your mac, you're bound to make some oversights. I shall try to avoid yelling "WRONG" at you


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Vexel said:


> Myradon. Seems like you had a rough day  There are a few things you must know first. Quicktime has never had full support for 3rd Party Codecs like Windows Media Player on the PC. That's why we restort to VLC or another program.


Glad to know it's not just my limmited abillities that have caused this trouble. Both programs work well,and I much preffer the interface on Quicktime. Thanks 



> As for the Gimp. This is a great piece of software.. it's very powerful. Thing is.. you MUST have Apple's X11 installed to use it. There is no other way. The binary for the Gimp is a precompiled version... which will install if you want to. Much like any other OS X App. The reason you didn't have it work.. is probably because you haven't installed X11.


Tiger claimed to have X11 installed. So instaalled that when I attempted to Dl the update from apple it refused to install because i already had "newer software" 
This is a tad frustrating. Late last night I was working on the gimp issue, I love the program and I have used it in Linux previously. A bit more tinkering, or perhaps, uninstalling whatever tiger thinks is X11 

Vexel, you'ere a handy guy to have around thanks again


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Paul K - Dona83 would have come off harshly had he and I not communicated in other threads. I took no offence from his help  I'm glad you'r enjoying the posts. As for thwe "lack of space" I have 8 Gigs of space on the Ibook, and 400 megs one the pod. The issue is that I neeed to load files (say 5gigs) then convert them into Itunes (10 gigs) then delete what is left over. I can do it, but Itunes has a funny way of organizing my files 

Macsackbut - I agree, having both on by default would be impressive, but I understand why even fire fox does not have pop up blocking set automatickly. Sitges like Neo pets and POGO.com will not display properly, as will some other sites. The reasoning behind allowing pop up is that some users wil want to access sites there the pop up is your friend, and they should not be hindered. But no excuse for not having tabed browsing inabled 

CN - See I'm not that tacky! Besides apple has come out with what i consider some abominable designs of their own 
http://www.lowendmac.com/archive/010302.html

I think a bit more investigation is required, but it seems an easy task....


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## CN (Sep 3, 2004)

Blue Dalmation and Flower Power...lets not even discuss that  I'm sure you'll be able to find a "How-to" on how to do your iBook Flower Power if the orange and black thing doesn't work  Hey! Flower power would be the best security device imaginable, you would have to PAY someone to take it!

Looks like you'll need to invest in an external drive soon


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## someone (Jun 14, 2005)

Myradon, try MPlayer for OS X as well. It has a more elegant interface.

As for browsers, Camino is your best bet between style and compatbility. After all, its motto is "Mozilla Power, Mac Style". Try the newly released 0.9alpha2 first as it contains many important improvements.


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## Suite Edit (Dec 17, 2003)

What about the classic 2 racing stripes? Just a thought... Great thread BTW.


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Suite Edit said:


> What about the classic 2 racing stripes? Just a thought... Great thread BTW.


Wow, that looks sharp... So much to think about. Thank you very much for doing a mock up, that is realy awesome.
the crazy thing is my propritiy order.
1. paint ibook
2. Buy Ram.

Style over Function, I'm acting like a consumerist Jerk! Perhaps my communism is fading as I get older  One stripe or two.. time to put on the thinking cap...


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Day 6

Not a lot to report today, I haven’t even touched my iBook except to play some music while I did the dished. The Ipod however… that little bugger.

I dropped it! Not even a week in and I drop it, during the techno version of the German national anthem no less! Alright so I pick it up, and.. the Click wheel is partly under the case! Oh god! I knew this thing was fragile, how will I explain to my woman? So I take a deep breath, press down and to the right, and it pops back to where it should be. I press play.. Nothing happens. I try menu, forward, back! OH GOD IT”S BROKEN

I took hold off, and tried again. Everything is working fine, and my heart restarted. 

As an aside, the worst that has happened to the minidisk player was a 5ft drop onto cement, and it popped open, spat out it’s disk, and once I put the disk back , and closed the hood, everything was fine.

Hopefully I have something of value to post tomorrow


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## CN (Sep 3, 2004)

Myradon said:


> I took hold off, and tried again. Everything is working fine, and my heart restarted.


When this causes me to have a heart attack or an aneurysm (sp?) some day, Apple better give my family some compensation. That hold button is a demon...but very good for conserving battery life


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

*Day 7 -Faster users switching and The wifes experience*

So I played with fast user switching today and boy, it is fast. So cool, and so.. fast! Foghorn longhorn has a thing or two to learn about this user switching thing. Nothing much I can say other than the wife and my good friend Isaac were awed. 

Spotlight wowed Isaac. I typed 2 letters and started getting specific results. TWO LETTERS! I hadn't even hit enter. Wow, that is a search tool. This is a system designed for the user, and for efficiency. I don't even need fast user switching on a laptop (it's a one person machine) but so cool.

My Wife decided she wanted to do some typing while Isaac and I were out getting coffee, and she managed to get Neo office open , and logged on. She also set her own password (previously her account was not passworded).

Let's see what she has to say?

“it was easy to start up. It was a little hard navigating around and finding programs to find a program to write a document in. After I found it, it was very easy. Neo office is just like word, and the program was easy to navigate around. I made a new folder, and it was really easy to do. It only took me a minute to find out how. 

Changing my password was also easy. All in all, it was a positive experience ”

Thank you wife  (for dictating this at 2am as you're passing out)

So she it seriously thinking about buying her own iBook, and that's after an afternoon of using mine. Something to be said about such a user experience. Prior to today she hated laptops, as the previous ones she used at work (dells!) put her off the hardware.

On a final note, curiosity killed the keyboard, and I opened it up. I pulled back the two tabs , and lifted the keyboard forward. Hello little airport card! I think this is how laptops should be designed. I can see opening that, changing ram and leaving. Nothing too scary back there 

So that's day 7 in a nutshell (help I'm in a pecan shell arg!).

Pardon the shortening if the posts, but there is less i am learning about, and more i am just getting down to work 

have a great day,
-Aaron


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Day 8 and Beyond

I think this article is over. Yesterday I used my computer. I played a game one it, I wrote some e-mails and organized my photos and songs, but really, this is minor. Minor not in that I made little use of the computer but minor in that to cover what I do now would be redundant. The computer is fully set up, and I've found my way around most things. I still don’t have Gimp installed, but aside from that the machine handles everything, and masterfully.

I used iPhoto touch up some pictures, and it was terribly easy. It was the most advanced editor for photographs I have used, and it was impressive. iTunes has grown on me, although the file management still baffles me  

I'm not one for a point counter point comparison, and to place this in comparison to the windows computer in our home would be futile. The OS has been easy to navigate, the preferences are easily set, and the computer responds quickly and intuitively to tasks I set before it. I am able to move files from a web page by dragging them back to my desktop. The wonder of this laptop is partly cleverness of size, but primarily in the use of the user interface. A computer that out of the box could recognize voice commands! I can CTRL+Click on any word in almost any application and have a spell check pop up. This is a well designed and complete machine, and I doubt any user would have difficulty getting work done with it.

The ability to organize and index my files was excellent. The searching was faster. I can see this being an excellent computer for someone who wants to maintain a library of Digital Photos, or use other digital mediums. There is nothing I have used on windows that comes close to the iPhoto program, and if there is such a program it does not come included in windows XP.

So after a week, I have found not circumstance where I have missed the windows operating system, the machine, or its ability to pick up spy ware. In the time I have written this article the other machine started running slow, for some reason. Just a generic spy ware infection, so I had to update the definitions and scan it again. Mean time my wife had already set the computer to defrag thinking that was the problem. The fact we have to use guess work to diagnose problems, the time wasted defragging, downloading spy ware removal tools, and the lack of personal security is sickening. What a terrible terible machine. Before I learned more about windows, I would have spent money buying more ram, or having a professional address the problems. Even now I have to spend my time to catch problems.

If I had a toaster that needed tuning up every week, just because that's the way those toasters work; I would buy a new toaster.

The iPod did not rate so well against the Minidisk player; however the minidisk player is not fully compatible. I can load songs; however I can not use the proprietary software to achieve the 5 hour limit. I have 5 blanks disks; I'll be loading them, and then logging off windows in my home. While I love the stability and battery options of the minidisk, I will probably be using it as my work or travel only player. 

My wife also desires a smart computer, and thus, we are going to be selling her kit and buying a second iBook. Perhaps we'll make hers a powerbook for the greater video out capabilities. Either way, we are finished with windows, and it took a week. If you should decide to use an Apple computer, I don’t believe there is much to be afraid of, and it has been an easy transition for me.

I hope you have found this journal helpful and interesting. If you have any questions or comments about the article feel free to e-mail me or PM me, and I hope you have a great day, whatever computer you use 

All the best,
-Aaron Myradon


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## thejst (Feb 1, 2005)

way to go aaron! thanks for the hard work! great thread!


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## CN (Sep 3, 2004)

:clap:

Great write ups! This could definately be a great resource for soon to be switchers. Way to go!


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

Despite the nagging thought in the back of my mind that all of this is merely really well-disguised viral marketing (dispensed only because myradon is preaching to the converted, nailed-down die-hard opposite of those who need it), I have read this thread through to its conclusion.

But I hope the OP searches for the "favourite freeware" thread that appeared here a few months ago. There is a lot more out there, so the learning process continues. We don't have to write about every discovery, but it would be interesting to see progression in a few months or later nonetheless.


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## Myradon (May 13, 2005)

Thejst - Thanks, I'm glad yoiu enjoyed it 
CN - I hope this does help someone some where  I would have liked to see this guide before I sent my money to Steven A. Jobs 




HowEver said:


> Despite the nagging thought in the back of my mind that all of this is merely really well-disguised viral marketing (dispensed only because myradon is preaching to the converted, nailed-down die-hard opposite of those who need it), I have read this thread through to its conclusion.
> 
> But I hope the OP searches for the "favourite freeware" thread that appeared here a few months ago. There is a lot more out there, so the learning process continues. We don't have to write about every discovery, but it would be interesting to see progression in a few months or later nonetheless.


Well disguised nothing  I don't intend to keep my "preaching" amongst this choire , rather I hope people , like my wife, or my commrade Brennan who need or desire new computers and aare tired of windows can look fully at the alternatives. Don't be surprised if I do the same with a Linux OS one of these days 

It'll probably take a while before I can be pried away from my mac though. I will update over time. Lets set the Calculator widget for 6 months eh?


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

*claps claps claps*

That makes many a new happy iBook users here. 

And I just got a new toy for my iBook, see my sig.


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## Vexel (Jan 30, 2005)

Great thread Myradon. Thanks for your time.. I'm sure there will be many appreciative people who will read you comments. I think it was great.. especially the times when you were frustrated with some things.. this really points out that nothing is perfect. But.. with time comes experience.. and experience doesn't seem hard to achieve with the Mac. 

Again, great read.

:clap:


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