MacBook Pro – I Will Not Gush.

I will not gush. I will not gush. Though I’ve been a Mac user for 15-years at work, this is the first Mac that I’ve purchased personally. It is hard to believe that this move has finally happened. When I noticed our family Dell laptop starting to lose life, and I’d been using the work MacBook a bit more frequently, it seemed time to give the Mac a closer look for the family computer replacement. The other thing that played a key role in the decision is my transition to cloud computing. My email and all my files are happily living in the cloud.

When decision time came, it became a choice between the iMac, the MacBook, and the MacBook Pro. Since this will be our primary family computer and also serve as our “television” when we watch DVDs, we wanted something that would last and meet those needs. The iMac was a brief consideration but we opted not to get it because we need flexability to move the computer around the house and the office. The primary difference between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro is about 2″ of screen real estate, a faster video card, and some extra ports. Oh, and $400. Even that isn’t 100% correct because the Apple Care will cost you more on the Pro version too. Nonetheless, we decided on the Pro because we really wanted the larger screen. We made two visits to the San Francisco Apple Store and finally made the purchase at the San Luis Obispo Apple Store.

What are we giving up? Comfort and familiarity. Leslie has been using Eudora for her email since the 90s and I’ve been trying to transition her to Gmail without success. I do use the Macromedia Suite, Adobe Acrobat, and a few other product “investments” but I can live without these tools (or buy them again for the Mac).

We decided we could make this change and Leslie would use Apple’s Mail application (I’ve migrated all her Eudora mailboxes and contacts successfully using Eudora Mailbox Cleaner) and we would invest in Microsoft Office for the Mac for Leslie’s work comfort and ease. Finally, our iTunes library was successfully migrated over to the Mac and we maintained our playlists and song counts. Whew!

What’s missing in terms of software? I need a good MS SQL application for editing a database. I’ve installed SQuirreLSQL and ThinkUI’s SQL Client but haven’t managed to get either working correctly. Small concern because we are thrilled with the computer, but I do need this to work at some point.

The kids love the new MacBook Pro. Leslie loves the new MacBook Pro. I love the new MacBook Pro. It is fast. It has Unix. My iPhone syncs way better with the Mac. The Spotlight tool is zippy. Nambu was released for Twitter. The buttonless, and 1-4 finger, track pad is cool and useful. Did I mention the built-in Unix? I’ll adjust to iPhoto, iCal, and the Address Book.

OK, so I’ve made the switch and this is my story. We’ve had it a week and all is well. Next step is to install Ubuntu on the Dell laptop.