MacBook Pro

by Kieran

Let me admit something to you. The system I have now is something I bought when I was in college, taking in mind of course that I’m just about to finish my four year degree, so yes, it’s old, and it’s slow. Of course, it’s slowness is only relative to what I do on it, and some things I do are very application heavy. Running Eclipse with some larger applications causes a huge impact on the memory usage. Otherwise, for your general wishy-washy use of a system, it would run perfect. I’ve grown very fond of this system, though for my area of work, and especially the stuff I’m about to get into, it just won’t cut it.

Today my parents revealed to me that they would buy me a MacBook Pro as a graduation present (yes, they are extremely generous, so much so that I don’t quite know what to say other than “thankyou”). Fortunately I get quirks pointed out to me such as the glossy screen, and the new Multi-Touch on more recent models. I’m quite patient, however, therefore I will wait until after I get back to Guernsey most probably before I go and buy one. It’s probably a good choice as the price may slightly go down, and it’ll be more than likely that the newer models are in stock back at home in the Apple store.

I’ll be going for the 17″ screen seeing as though I have the choice available to me. The more space available on the desktop the better really, and the systems themselves aren’t actually that much bigger than the 15″, from what I’ve been told. Plus, it’s rare that I take my laptop out and about, but neither can I justify a desktop as it’s likely I would be taking it out of the house.

What can I say for the transition to Mac OS X? Well, as Mac are so oriented at key usability features (as I’ve previously studied in course content) then I can’t see there being a problem. Sure, I’ll have to learn new shortcuts and the use of the Multi-Touch mousepad etc., but it’s all a learning curve in using new things such as my GIMP woes earlier today.

In what way will it benefit me? Well, I’ll have more speed, but as for Mac OS itself, I don’t really know of any yet, but I’m willing to try, and I’m more than willing to stick to alternatives to what I currently use. MS feels more like bloat-ware every day, and the consumer market feels to me as if it’s being dumbed down further and further to the point that error messages are aimed at a five year old. Don’t get me wrong, MS is just about right for the consumer market, but for me personally, I simply can’t agree with everything.

Furthermore the use of virtualisation is going to be a great benefit as what’s held for me in the future is some lean, mean, cross-platform software development team. I’m aiming at releasing some software (OSS) with its first version being compatible on Mac OS X, Windows, Vista, and finally Ubuntu. Why Ubuntu? It’s all the rage, and I’ll get along with it quite well I’m sure. Hopefully I’ll get some tips, though ;)

Rss Commenti

4 Comments

  1. Damn, I’m going to be jealous of the 17 inch screen :) You’ll have Leopard too, I haven’t upgraded mine yet.

    OS X is great, I have Vista installed under Boot Camp but I very rarely use it. It’s a shame you missed MacHeist, I picked up a ton of great apps from there, but Eclipse, Adium, NeoOffice (or Open Office 3 when it’s stable), Firefox and Thunderbird are all very solid on OS X. And you get Java (5) preinstalled of course.

    #1 Steve

  2. Yeah, I’m just being careful as to where I get the MBP from, because locally it may not have the Multi-Touch stuff on it, so I’ll have to check first-hand. I’ll probably wait until I get back to Guernsey before I buy it, unless of course I order it online then it’ll be waiting for me when I get back.

    #2 Kieran

  3. iQ are great, they had the new MBP’s in pretty much as soon as they were available, and they can order them for you anyway, and you get the same price as if you’d ordered online. I’d definitely recommend getting from them, a couple of their guys are developers too and have come to our GSDF meetings on occasion.

    #3 Steve

  4. Excellent, there shouldn’t be a problem then. Cheers matey! :)

    #4 Kieran

Post a comment