Nine Days With An iBook
Feb. 4th, 2004 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
major_clangerSo, was my new iBook worth the wait?
A week on, and I can definitely say yes. I have the horrible feeling that I am going to become an evangelical Mac bore, but yes, I really do love it. OS X is as powerful and friendly as advertised, the build quality and performance of the machine itself are superb, and the migration process has been (mostly) painless.
Getting connected was the first priority. That turned out to be pretty painless, with setting the iBook up to connect to the Internet via my CIX dialup proving very easy. I was also pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get online via a Bluetooth link to my mobile phone's GPRS account - far less hassle than when I set my Palm Tungsten T3 to do the same thing. Setting it up to access our wireless broadband router via the AirPort card was almost as easy, although I wasn't able to get WEP working (I now know what the problem was, and will try the fix next time I'm home).
The one connectivity problem I have had was trying to get my T3 to hotsync with the iBook. It just won't work, even after a re-install, iSync conduit update and trying all the hints on PalmOne's support page. I have a nasty suspicion that the best plan will be to reset my T3 and do a fresh setup from the PDA end... except of course the point is to backup the data from the PDA! In theory, I should be able to sync to both PC and Mac, but I suspect that in practice it isn't that simple. Oddly enough, straightforward Bluetooth connection between the two works fine, so I can move files about and even send address book contacts across, albeit one at a time. Connecting via (wired) network to my old PC was also very easy, so moving documents across didn't take long. Moving my library of digicam pics took longer, but only because I ported them one folder at a time from the web-based file structure that Casio's PC software uses over into iPhoto (and sorted/pruned a bit in the process).
I'm steadily cutting my PC strings. As of yesterday, I'm using Mac Mail rather than Ameol on the PC for email access. I'm sorry to see the back of Ameol, as it's been my sole email (and Usenet) client for the last ten years, and it has a lot of powerful and friendly features. Mind you, the latest version of Mail seems to catch up with a lot of them (e.g. threaded messaging) and the inbuilt spam-filter actually seems to work. I'm using Safari for web access now (does anyone know a quick and easy way to import bookmarks from Windows IE?) and am setting up Parlance for access to CIX conferencing. All I need now is a decent newsreader - again, any recommendations? - and I'll be pretty much sorted.
Well, for connectivity, at least. Having had the iBook for a week I'm already thinking about what to get to plug into it :-) To begin with, a mouse and external keyboard will be a must if I'm going to be using it extensively at a desk. I'll also be looking for a USB external sound interface so that I can get on with my tape-digitising project (the iBook having only a microphone rather than any line input).
In general though I'm more than pleased. I've still got a lot to learn, although the learning curve is pretty gentle, and once I've got the hotsync problem licked I think I'll be a 100% Mac Convert.
MC
A week on, and I can definitely say yes. I have the horrible feeling that I am going to become an evangelical Mac bore, but yes, I really do love it. OS X is as powerful and friendly as advertised, the build quality and performance of the machine itself are superb, and the migration process has been (mostly) painless.
Getting connected was the first priority. That turned out to be pretty painless, with setting the iBook up to connect to the Internet via my CIX dialup proving very easy. I was also pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get online via a Bluetooth link to my mobile phone's GPRS account - far less hassle than when I set my Palm Tungsten T3 to do the same thing. Setting it up to access our wireless broadband router via the AirPort card was almost as easy, although I wasn't able to get WEP working (I now know what the problem was, and will try the fix next time I'm home).
The one connectivity problem I have had was trying to get my T3 to hotsync with the iBook. It just won't work, even after a re-install, iSync conduit update and trying all the hints on PalmOne's support page. I have a nasty suspicion that the best plan will be to reset my T3 and do a fresh setup from the PDA end... except of course the point is to backup the data from the PDA! In theory, I should be able to sync to both PC and Mac, but I suspect that in practice it isn't that simple. Oddly enough, straightforward Bluetooth connection between the two works fine, so I can move files about and even send address book contacts across, albeit one at a time. Connecting via (wired) network to my old PC was also very easy, so moving documents across didn't take long. Moving my library of digicam pics took longer, but only because I ported them one folder at a time from the web-based file structure that Casio's PC software uses over into iPhoto (and sorted/pruned a bit in the process).
I'm steadily cutting my PC strings. As of yesterday, I'm using Mac Mail rather than Ameol on the PC for email access. I'm sorry to see the back of Ameol, as it's been my sole email (and Usenet) client for the last ten years, and it has a lot of powerful and friendly features. Mind you, the latest version of Mail seems to catch up with a lot of them (e.g. threaded messaging) and the inbuilt spam-filter actually seems to work. I'm using Safari for web access now (does anyone know a quick and easy way to import bookmarks from Windows IE?) and am setting up Parlance for access to CIX conferencing. All I need now is a decent newsreader - again, any recommendations? - and I'll be pretty much sorted.
Well, for connectivity, at least. Having had the iBook for a week I'm already thinking about what to get to plug into it :-) To begin with, a mouse and external keyboard will be a must if I'm going to be using it extensively at a desk. I'll also be looking for a USB external sound interface so that I can get on with my tape-digitising project (the iBook having only a microphone rather than any line input).
In general though I'm more than pleased. I've still got a lot to learn, although the learning curve is pretty gentle, and once I've got the hotsync problem licked I think I'll be a 100% Mac Convert.
MC
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 02:32 pm (UTC)Oddly iSync has been a real pain for me recently.
I can sync everything except my iCal files, and they don't seem to work with either my .mac account or my iPod. Most annoying!
no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 03:59 pm (UTC)MKK
no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 07:35 pm (UTC)I'd Switch in an instant if my ancient Mac were stable enough. Even a G3/400 is probably fast enough for all I need. I miss a lot of the polish and refinement of Classic MacOS - the OS X Finder is at best average by comparison - but overall I rate OS X as one of my very favourite desktop OSs. If only BeOS had more free apps, it's about the only thing I like even more...
no subject
Date: 2004-02-04 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-05 02:11 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-05 11:51 am (UTC)However in Win IE6, it's pretty straightforward to export all your favourites into a single HTML file (File->Import and Export, export favourites to file)
Which is useful, because that's the bookmark format used by Netscape (and mozilla) since the year dot - and I'll bet that Safari import menu will happily import Netscape Bookmarks...
no subject
Date: 2004-02-06 07:21 am (UTC)