As the iPhone 5s hits the public, the innards begin to be torn down in turn by the likes of parts groups and repair shops the world over. Today the folks at Chipworks and ifixit have confirmed a set of hardware manufacturers that are, indeed, behind Apple’s next-generation processor architecture. What they’ve discovered thus far […]
The Valve crew have made clear today – as if they’d not done so several times already – that they’ll be growing beyond the traditional deep-dark-basement model for gaming in the year 2014. Word today comes from a Steam space with “livingroom” literally embedded in its URL, with “The Steam Universe is Expanding in 2014″ […]
So you’re in the mood for playing games from 9 different consoles from the past couple of decades, but you want to do it all on one device – you’re in luck. There’s a device with just that set of features aimed at appearing on the 10th of December, and it goes by the name […]
This week the team at Omate have let it be known that they’re aiming to be one of the first fully-functional wrist-based boomboxes in the world, not just one of the newest smartwatches on the market this upcoming season. Here in the latest entry in our extended interview session with Omate’s top minds, we’re speaking […]
This article was written on April 28, 2008 by CyberNet.
Microsoft/Mac Monday
Last week in our MyFive article titled “Computers We’ve Owned,” we left out a “5th Generation” of computers that we’ve owned in the past because we hadn’t yet purchased them. In the article, we mentioned that we’ve been looking at different models and manufacturers to see what would be best. We finally made our decision after lots of research, and the purchases were made. So what kind of computers did we end up with?
After much contemplation and lots of going back-and-forth, we decided on MacBook Pros. Now, before the Apple fanboys start giving us high-fives and the Apple haters start saying “that’s it, I’m done reading CyberNet,” we wanted to point out that even after using the Mac computers for a week, we are still firm believers that both Mac OS X and Windows (whether it be Vista or XP) have strengths and weaknesses. That last sentence alone helps explain why we ended up with MacBook Pros: because with them, we get the best of both worlds! If we said one operating system was better than the other, we’d be ignorant. We can run OS X and have the benefits of using it, but we can also run Vista or XP using Parallels and take advantage of the benefits that they offer.
Today we thought we’d take the time to just let you know about our first impressions: what we like and what we don’t like, and what it’s like going from being a Windows user to an OS X user. After using Windows for so long, there have been lots of things that are taking time to get used to, so we’ll talk about those things as well. Just note that what we’re writing about is our “out-of-box” experience, what the computer was like before installing any applications.
Our first impressions started shortly after purchasing the computers. Without going into too much of the boring details, there was a problem with our order. It was our mistake, but a call to Apple had our problem taken care of within minutes. Later that day we received an email with a survey that Apple wanted us to complete for calling their Customer Service line, so we completed the survey. The next day, we received a call from an Apple Manager checking up to see how our experience was. He even gave us his direct phone number so if we had any questions or concerns in the future, we could call him. We were impressed at the level of customer care that they offered.
Once the computers actually came (we ordered online through the Apple Store online), our first impression of the appearance was “wow, these are pretty slick computers.” Apple did a great job with the design. It’s slim (compared to our previous computers) and really feels durable. Of course we knew there was only going to be one mouse button, but it was still weird to see one long button instead of two shorter buttons.
Set-up
Setting up the computers was easier than I ever expected it to be. Overall it’s not that much different from Windows — you go through a couple of screens and it’s ready to be used. One nice thing was that there weren’t a bunch of 3rd party applications that had to be uninstalled like what would happen if you purchase a computer with an OEM version of Vista on it. We always started with a fresh install of Windows in the past, so the 3rd party apps were never a problem for us anyways.
Keyboard
Another first impression was that we’re not a huge fan of Apple keyboards. Why you ask? Well, the positioning of the keys is different and the Alt and Command keys are flipped. Another “problem” is that instead of using the Ctrl key for shortcuts like copying and pasting, you use the command key which definitely takes getting used to.
We’ve always plugged-in a keyboard to use with our laptops at home because we type for hours on end everyday and need something ergonomic. In general we just don’t like Apple keyboards and so we decided to stick with our Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboards.
On the keyboard that we’re used to using, there are keys for print screen, page up, page down, and more. On an Apple keyboard, those keys don’t exist. Things like that can make transitioning between a keyboard on a PC and a keyboard on a Mac a little more difficult.
We’ve always been Firefox and Opera users, but we decided that since the computers came with Safari, we’d give it a try. All I can say is that we only lasted a few hours using Safari. It’s not that it’s a bad browser, it’s just that we’re used to Firefox and we’ll be using both Windows and OS X regularly. Because we don’t like Safari for Windows, Firefox will be better to use from a consistency and bookmarks standpoint.
For casual browsing, Safari works great. We did notice though that once we started our “heavy” browsing and pulling up lots of sites, the short-comings of Safari started to show.
Switching Operating Systems to us is just like moving to a new city. If you’ve moved, you know that there’s some fun and excitement to exploring new places but there’s some discomfort because it is unfamiliar and it might take you longer to get to where you need to go or you might get lost on occasion. We’re excited and having fun exploring Mac OS X, but we can say we’ve gotten “lost” every now and then trying to figure out how to do something.
When you live in a city for 10 years, you know where to find the best deals and you know all of the back roads to get from point A to point B. Similarly, when you’ve used Windows for 10 years, you know all of the best software that’s available and you know all of the shortcuts to get tasks done as quickly as possible. We’re starting fresh in a “new city” and things are good, but a little confusing too.
Another nice thing is that you can drag and drop the Dock/Menu Bar to the screen where you’d like it displayed. At one point Ryan wrote about a “trick” that could be used on Windows computers for choosing a primary monitor and all kinds of people said that it was so helpful. If Microsoft made managing monitors as easy as Apple, tricks like that wouldn’t be necessary.
There’s a whole list of things that are taking time for us to get used to so we’ll just bullet them out.
We’re not giving-up on Windows entirely – we still have a Desktop computer running Vista Ultimate. It serves as our Media Center machine and will continue to back-up all of our important files and documents from the computers on our home network. We’ll also be running Vista using Parallels for certain things on our MacBook computers.
Overall, the out of box experience with our MacBook Pro computers is pretty impressive, but with the price you pay, you’d expect that. We’re happy to now be able to bring unbiassed news and tips from both sides of the spectrum This leads me to the next bit of information we wanted to share. Starting this week, our Microsoft Monday will now be Microsoft/Mac Monday and we’ll end up talking about both Windows and OS X.
In the past we’ve been called “Microsoft Fanboys” so this should go to show that we are open minded about how we view different operating systems. We’re sorry to anyone who is disappointed that we are now using Apple Hardware but we’re sure if you stick around, you’ll notice that we’ll still be covering plenty of Windows news and tips as we always have. Nothing has changed, other than the fact you might see a Mac article sprinkled into our daily writing every now and then.
This is all so new to us, so if you’re using a Mac computer, let us know of any tips you might have, or must-have apps!
Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com
If you’re the sort of hardware geek that enjoys playing with the Raspberry Pi or building projects using Arduino, a new product is available for the Raspberry Pi that you might appreciate. The product is called the Raspberry Pi chipKIT expansion board. The expansion board provides 3.3V Arduino compatibility. The chipKIT is said to be […]
When Adobe unveiled its first attempt at building hardware tools—a stylus called Project Mighty and a digital ruler called Project Napoleon—last April, the company was careful to describe the devices as experimental projects, dancing around whether we’d ever be able to, you know, buy them. But today, Mighty and Napoleon are real: Adobe has announced that both devices will likely ship in early 2014.
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Being a relatively new company means Myth Labs needs to come correct right from the get-go with their premiere pair of headphones: the Eclipse. Here we’ve got what could easily be called the first customizable over-ear headphones* – if you’re talking about the band, that is – with heavy sound and a burn-in app that’ll […]
Supposing you saw the iPhone 5c and didn’t find Apple’s own official cases to be appealing as you’d wished, this week you may be in luck. Industrial Designer and 3D illustrator Martin Hajek has created a set of NURBS models for customization of this basic case, allowing users to get creative as they please. The […]
Though it’s not immediately clear what Microsoft and HTC are doing with the devices they’re taking in trade, they’ve both made clear this week that they’re not about to let Apple have all the fun with an upgrade program for devices. Microsoft has launched a program specific to iPads and their own Surface tablets this […]
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