"if you do not tell me I will play this barrel organ for hours"
Yes I am now the owner of a stock spec 2Ghz MacBook Pro and yes, this machine is fabulous (and I have some comments about the Rosetta technology as well).
The build quality of this machine is amazing. The only other machines that I can think to compare it to are some of the Sony Vaio range. The feel of the keyboard is perfect, not being required to press the keys down too far like some Dells that I have used in the past, and the keys are nice and springy. The backlit keyboard feature and I can see it being used on an up and coming flight should I feel the sudden urge to write.
The performance of OSX is fabulous. I fell in love with OSX since I used it when I worked in a photography shop in Brighton. Of course, the OS is compiled for Intel either as universal binaries or Intel binaries so there are no issues with OS performance. As we were told “OSX has been leading a secret double life”.
I don’t really have that much of a need for Photo Booth and I don’t really see myself using it that much in the future but Front Row and the addition of the remote are two things that I am very pleased with. I can easily see myself using my MacBook Pro in classes for things like listening exercises. The DVI out is very nice because one of my schools has a 42” TV on a trolley that can be taken to any classroom and so this is going to make showing photos and PowerPoint presentations a very nice experience for both myself and the classes.
I have only used the iLife ’06 applications briefly but they all seem like they are going to be useful. From how rapidly you can create something like a webpage that looks good and all the ways that iPhoto allows you to tweak your pictures.
I bought MS Office as opposed to iWork because I need compatibility with other people at work and they all use Office. Although office is still a PPC application Rosetta does indeed make things seamless and it is just as responsive as Office on my Windows box.
Another thing I would like to mention is just how wonderful Rosetta is. The Maya PLE is still PPC but the view port is as smooth as on my PC. Dynamics run a little but slower and rendering is slower, but this is understandable. Both rendering and dynamics are quite processor intensive. Compared to my Windows box, doing single core rending using mental ray for Maya, rending took about four times longer, but uncomplicated single frames don’t really suffer too much of a performance hit.
I have also tried Darwine 0.9.9 developer preview and the basic applications that come with it, for example Notepad and Minesweeper, work without a problem. Today I will probably copy Freecell across because I am addicted to it.
Today is going to be a rather tame day. There are a few things that I need to do which are rather standard; clean, gym, shopping. There are also a few phone calls that I need to make, one of which has to wait until Monday.
Before I wasn’t really feeling too excited about going home but now that the time is only a week away I can feel the excitement building up in me. What’s the first thing that I plan to do when I land if my parents aren’t going to come to Heathrow to meet me? Go to Boots and get a huge meal deal of course!
Erm, there will probably be a lot more comments about my Mac and OSX to come as I find out more about it and get more used to it.
The build quality of this machine is amazing. The only other machines that I can think to compare it to are some of the Sony Vaio range. The feel of the keyboard is perfect, not being required to press the keys down too far like some Dells that I have used in the past, and the keys are nice and springy. The backlit keyboard feature and I can see it being used on an up and coming flight should I feel the sudden urge to write.
The performance of OSX is fabulous. I fell in love with OSX since I used it when I worked in a photography shop in Brighton. Of course, the OS is compiled for Intel either as universal binaries or Intel binaries so there are no issues with OS performance. As we were told “OSX has been leading a secret double life”.
I don’t really have that much of a need for Photo Booth and I don’t really see myself using it that much in the future but Front Row and the addition of the remote are two things that I am very pleased with. I can easily see myself using my MacBook Pro in classes for things like listening exercises. The DVI out is very nice because one of my schools has a 42” TV on a trolley that can be taken to any classroom and so this is going to make showing photos and PowerPoint presentations a very nice experience for both myself and the classes.
I have only used the iLife ’06 applications briefly but they all seem like they are going to be useful. From how rapidly you can create something like a webpage that looks good and all the ways that iPhoto allows you to tweak your pictures.
I bought MS Office as opposed to iWork because I need compatibility with other people at work and they all use Office. Although office is still a PPC application Rosetta does indeed make things seamless and it is just as responsive as Office on my Windows box.
Another thing I would like to mention is just how wonderful Rosetta is. The Maya PLE is still PPC but the view port is as smooth as on my PC. Dynamics run a little but slower and rendering is slower, but this is understandable. Both rendering and dynamics are quite processor intensive. Compared to my Windows box, doing single core rending using mental ray for Maya, rending took about four times longer, but uncomplicated single frames don’t really suffer too much of a performance hit.
I have also tried Darwine 0.9.9 developer preview and the basic applications that come with it, for example Notepad and Minesweeper, work without a problem. Today I will probably copy Freecell across because I am addicted to it.
Today is going to be a rather tame day. There are a few things that I need to do which are rather standard; clean, gym, shopping. There are also a few phone calls that I need to make, one of which has to wait until Monday.
Before I wasn’t really feeling too excited about going home but now that the time is only a week away I can feel the excitement building up in me. What’s the first thing that I plan to do when I land if my parents aren’t going to come to Heathrow to meet me? Go to Boots and get a huge meal deal of course!
Erm, there will probably be a lot more comments about my Mac and OSX to come as I find out more about it and get more used to it.