Bitten by the Apple

I never thought that the day would come that I would own an Apple product and then came the iPhone.  I was reluctant at first to jump to the iPhone because I was in such a comfort zone w/ my Palm Treo and I had concerns as to how it was going to sync up w/ Microsoft Outlook (which I have been married to for as long as I can remember).  Well, once I got the iPhone, needless to say, it revolutionized my life. 

Fast forward about 6 months and I am hacking away during a client meeting on my “less than 2 year old” HP Tablet PC making notes and it just dies.  Fortunately I was able to plug it in when I got back to the office to backup everything one more time before it died again, just sitting there, no one touching it.  I called HP and got the run around about how they couldn’t just replace the motherboard for me, which I knew was the case, instead they were just going to send me out a new one, for $400 of course.  Well, I almost did it, but then I got to thinking… All of my friends are moving toward the Mac, and for the most part I only see excitement in their eyes when they talk about their systems, and for me, well honestly it’s been the opposite.  Nothing but heartache and despair on my end.  So I decided to head to Best Buy to talk w/ an Apple professional who answered my questions (for almost an hour).

So, with the Rackspace conference coming up in a few days I decided to make the plunge and get a MacBook.  Plus, I have another side venture that I have been working on that I needed a tax write off for so I dove in w/ both feet.  I opted for the exact same model that my business partner Stephen had gotten about a year earlier since he had been very happy w/ his machine so far. 

Well, I brought the machine home that night and didn’t even bother unpacking it, thinking to myself I would wake up in the morning and it would have all been a mistake and I could take the thing back and never tell anyone I almost went Mac.  Well, long story short, I plugged it up the next day and downloaded a few programs that I had heard some friends talking about, one of these programs was Coda.  I spent a little bit of time playing around w/ it and I have to tell you, I was determined to keep the machine after seeing it.  It’s everything in a web development suite that a guy could want.  And, honestly it’s not only Coda, there are several other applications that I have downloaded that I see a lot of potential in down the road.  These are programs that I hadn’t ever seen before, it was like being at an all you can eat buffet with delicious foods from another country I had never heard of before.  (had to use a food analogy, sorry.)

It’s not only the applications and programs that are available, it’s also about the hardware.  With my tablet PC, and any PC I had ever owned for that matter, it’s always been about shutting down and waiting on the freaking thing to reboot itself.  Well, w/ this MacBook, I just shut the lid when I am finished and open it when I am ready to use it.  The reboot on it is very lightweight should I decide to do a shutdown too.  No more embarrassing 5 minute waits while sitting in a client meeting to open OneNote. 

In addition to the smooth operational aspects of the MacBook Pro, I also noted that the machine itself doesn’t get hot in my lap.  With my old Tablet PC I literally could not hold it in my lap, it got hot enough I could iron my pants with them on. Ouch, yeah. 

I am looking forward to familiarizing myself on this machine and learning a new OS, something I didn’t think would ever happen for me.  I am normally very resistant to change, but in the case of the MacBook Pro, I am making an exception. 

 

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