Feeling the need to ...

Accessorise !

First blog post on the new Macbook :-)

I thought I'd say a few things about the migration process. I have to be honest and say that in some ways, it's actually easier than going from one Windows PC to another Windows PC. As part of the first time setup, there's a Migration Tool that runs which can grab all of your info from your old machine and will copy it across to the new one. So, all my documents and pictures have come across without me having to do much. My email accounts are set up, although they needed the passwords putting back in (this is not a Bad Thing).

I'm quietly impressed with Firefox too, it has a facility called Firefox Sync which transfers bookmarks, history and addons across to any other machine. So I'm back to a reasonably familiar browser and tab set up (VR forum, Blogger, Facebook!) and the others that I look through like once a day (Register, Tomshardware and a few others) are there through the history.

One thing about the Migration wizard however - it takes time (can be lots of hours) and you only get the option to do it once (it may still be available, not gone looking !). It's worth preparing ahead of time, deleting stuff you don't want from the old machine before you start the process.

The Macbook (which desperately needs a name to join Nighthawk and Pumpkin) was pretty good about be taking off Itunes 11 and replacing it with the superior iTunes 10.7 (the removal of DJ was a crime). I'm just finishing off transferring the library (yep - it's taken a couple of evenings!) using a feature called Homeshare. If you've not used it before, this is an exceptional tool built into iTunes that allows you to back up your library simply.

Applications wise, I have no complaints. There's a built in Mail client which appears superior to the very weak Windows equivalent (the Windows one was cripple-ware). And MS Office will not be touching this system, even though I can still get it cheap from work. Don't know what's happening there, we got an announcement a couple of weeks ago saying that the arrangement was coming to a close, that we were no longer permitted to use it and could we kindly uninstall it ? (Ha ! Likely ? Not) But anyway, MS Office turned into an unusable piece of trash a few versions ago and has been digging downwards since. I'll look at an opensource alternative.

Keyboard ... Hmm. It's an Ultrabook, which means it's missing a bunch of keys. Apple also use just one button, there's supposed to be a context menu like the right-click but I've not intentionally found how to get it yet. For the context commands, it's off you go to the menus and that means a lot of mouse movement which can be bad for an RSI sufferer. Things like page-up/page-down and using the cursors to move and select word by word are different and take some getting used to.

It's early days so far but I'm definitely appreciating the change. It's a lot more responsive, which has a lot to do with the SSD hard disc that it's built on. These devices will speed up any machine because they remove all the wait time.

Hold on.

Accessories ????

I need 'em.

My old laptop travelled in a fairly big bag that could hold its 17", 4.5kg frame. If I put the Macbook in there, it'll rattle and disappear into the void. However ... I will also need space for :
Airport Express (want to upgrade)
HDMI cable - need an adaptor
Monitor cable - need an adaptor
Audio cable - to plug into the Airport Express
Power cable - 12 hours battery life is great but it's not infinite
Cables for iPhone and iPod Nano

I also need to play with apps. I've made a little selection which I will need to check out but any ideas ? Drop in a comment :-)