Devauld.ca

In part of my digital lifestyle revolution, I made the switch. I ordered a Mac Mini from the online store about a week ago, and it finally showed up. The box was absolutely massive when I picked it up from FedEx, and when I finally got it home, I opened it up to find the bulk of the box was filled with air, to protect the small box inside. The actual packaging for my new toy was no larger than a grade school lunch box.

The mini is appropriately named. It's hard to believe when you take it out of the box that it's a dual core computer with all the bells and whistles. I plugged 'er in, turned 'er on and right away I was Mac-in.

My initial impressions are very good. Installing applications is as easy as dragging them into a folder called: Applications. If you want to 'uninstall' them, you simply drag them from that folder into the trash. It's as easy as that. It was very nice change from the Windoze Next, Next, Next, OK, Next, Accept, Next, Finish type installations.

I waded out into the internet (which I didn't need to configure, it just worked when I turned the computer on), and started grabbing some programs. Of note was Quicksilver, a program so basted in awsomeness that I don't think I'll survive without it. A context sensitive search of everything on your computer, accessible through a hotkey. It is so nice to use, and so very useful, that I'm having problems figuring out why it isn't on every operating system on the planet.

Next I had to spruce up my Dashboard with some snazzy widgets. Now, with a simple click of a button, I have access to a load of information, and portals to my e-mail and most commonly used websites.

There has been a couple of problems. Out of the box, my Mac won't play all the video formats that my Windows box does, but I'm sure the solution to that is only a google search away. The other large issue was that my mouse defaulted to the one button approach for which Apple is known. It took me longer to figure out what was going on than it took me to fix it, and it gave me a chance to try out the Spotlight functionality that is built into OS X.

I'm very glad I made the switch. I was beginning to get frustrated with Windows, and I noticed that more and more of what most consider to be hard core nerds were moving in the same direction. I found myself doing more and more to my computer, than I was doing with my computer. I find the Apple innovations like the Mighty Mouse scroll thingy to be really nice. Furthermore, their software is really, really easy to use.

I'll keep you updated on my Mac adventures