I ordered my wife a uMBP 13" for Christmas.
After delivery I took a look at it, and decided to treat myself to a uMBP 17" (Vanilla).
Now, I appreciate we both have a bit of a learning curve, but I can see why a Windows PC is more popular.
I have been using computers in one guise or another since late 1982, so I'm definately not a novice. However, the MAC is not as intuitive as it's made out to be.
Apart from buying the MBP's I also purchased (one each for the wife and I) 2 x Magic Mouse, 2 x Verbatim 500Gb external HDD and
1Tb ForMac external HDD. Software is FCE4, Office for MAC and Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.
Christmas Day evening get to switch the MBP on, follow the instructions to register, download updates (for iTunes too). So far so good.
I had prepared for this day, and armed with my recently burned DVD's with all my iTunes music on them. I transferred my tunes across to the MAC iTunes Folder. On completion, I visited the iTunes store and made a purchase. OS X then displayed a dialog box telling me I don't have permission to download this purchase - eh?
Puzzled by this, I ended up going to the Internet to find out why. Opened Safari, clicked on the Green "plus" to maximise the window - window doesn't maximise? It just moves a bit. Try again, same result. Try the Green "plus" with another window - same result. Nothing maximises. Quick search of the net provides a solution, download and install an App called "Right Click". I do this, and after installation I have maximise - yay.
OK. So now do a search on why iTunes won't download my purchase. All to do with permissions says the search. I have to go and select my iTunes Folder, Get Info, open sharing and permission, unlock then change permission for Staff to have "Read/Write" access! (I only wanted to download a piece of music)! Do this, and on completion iTunes downloads my purchase - yay.
Time to plug in my 500Gb Verbatim external HDD. No problem here, OS X recognises it straight away. While I'm at it, I will activate my Magic Mouse. Reboot, and Magic Mouse working a treat. However, Magic Mouse has no "right click", it just does nothing.
Back to the internet - oh lordy I have to actually switch right click on via System Prefs (this includes the bloody track pad as well, because this is switched off by default too). (Whose flippin' idea was it to have right click switched off by default)?
By now the time is approaching midnight, I have spent more time looking up "how to's" on the internet than I have doing anything productive so far. Time for bed, and will have another go with a fresh pair of eyes tomorrow (Boxing Day).
The next day I wanted to save any downloads to my external drive. I also purchased SuperDuper (twice, so the wife had a licence too) so I could backup a disk image once I had sorted everything out to my liking.
The Verbatim drive was formatted as FAT32. SuperDuper recommended MAC OS Extended Journalled. No problem, I shall right click the drive and select Format. Wrong, Format is not listed as an option! Another internet search on "how do I format a MAC HD". Ah I see I use the Disk Utility App. The word "Format" is tucked away in the "Partition" section. But not only can you format it as MAC OS Extended (Journalled) you can also choose MAC OS Extended, MAC OS Extended (Case sensitive, journalled), MAC OS Extended (Case-sensitive) and finally, Free Space. If SuperDuper had not already pointed out that I should be formatting the drive in MAC OS Extended (journalled) I wouldn't have a bloody clue what to choose! Once again, a dark cloud was forming over my head.
I eventually got through the hard drive format (a process that takes about 2 seconds on a PC). I copied my "Right Click" download to my formatted drive. And also saved my disk image via SuperDuper. Great.
Time to install FCE4 (I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 on my PC). The wife got me a Canon HG10 videocamera for my Birthday last year. FCE can handle its' AVCHD files natively. So I was really looking forward to trying this out.
I inserted the disk, installed and registered the software. Eject the disk - grinding noise, click, click, click. Drive is trying to eject, but the disk isn't coming out. Back online to see if this is a common problem (hope not) or if there is a solution.
Found out that you can hold the track pad down when rebooting, drag the desktop icon to trash, or use Command E to eject a disk.
Eventually, after six attempts, a bit of the disk shows at the slot. There is enough showing for me to grip and pull the disk out. Is this the disk drive or the disk at fault? Only one way to find out. Insert MS Office for MAC, program installs. Eject the disk - grinding noise, click, click, click. Disk won't eject - sigh! Carry out the above procedure and eventually extract the disk.
Go online and via the Apple website book an appointment to see a Genius about the DVD drive on the 2nd Jan at 1000.
On the Saturday arrive at the Apple store early (and end up spending another £200 on must have's)! I report to the first red t-shirted chap I see. He calls my appointment up on his iTouch, and confirms the time with me. Two minutes later he is back, for some reason all the appointments have now disappeared from the system. Hah - no problem. I have my iPhone with me, so I can retrieve my appointment timings as sent by the Apple automated system when I booked it on the 27th Dec.
I see the Genius, explain the problem. He then has a chat with the manager. To cut a short story long, I leave the store with a new uMBP. They decided to swap mine with a new one. I leave the store happy. All the staff were very nice to deal with. So no drama there. On the way home, drop in Waterstones and pick up Mac OS X Snow Leapord for Dummies (my new best friend).
After arriving home, I set about setting up my uMBP again (things are a bit faster this time, as I now know what to expect, but more importantly know how to do it).
Today. We have a Lexmark X7550 MFD (WiFi) in the lounge. My wife wanted to use the printer. So, back online, I did some research, and visited the Lexmark (UK) website to download their latest (10.6) driver. Installed the driver on her uMBP, finds the printer, go to print test page - error message "color (Yank spelling) table problem. Uninstall then reinstall the software". OK, uninstall, then reinstall - same problem. I then check Apple software update - Lo, there is an update for this driver. Download and install, but problem not fixed, problem remains. (To be fair, there are a few people on the Apple Support forum with the same problem). A couple of people on the Apple support forum suggest some fixes. These "fixes" entail that you, dear user, start delving in to the Library folders deleting various Lexmark refs - I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DO THIS FFS! I follow the instructions, but at the end of the day none of the suggestions work. We still can't print (I tried installing the drivers on my uMBP too, with the same result). The document sits in the print queue, happily doing sod all. While the driver says "problem with the color table .... yada, yada, yada". Instead I will print the document from my Windows 7 PC that has no problem (and never has) connecting to the Lexmark over the wireless LAN. (Oh, neither have my daughters PC upstairs, or my other daughters Vista laptop. I can even print without any snags from my bloody Archos 705 WiFi).
I'm not quite loosing the will to live yet. However, any Mac fanbois should step away from my thread and refrain from posting how great life is. Thank you.
First impressions of the "all singing, all dancing" mac? Not very good.
After delivery I took a look at it, and decided to treat myself to a uMBP 17" (Vanilla).
Now, I appreciate we both have a bit of a learning curve, but I can see why a Windows PC is more popular.
I have been using computers in one guise or another since late 1982, so I'm definately not a novice. However, the MAC is not as intuitive as it's made out to be.
Apart from buying the MBP's I also purchased (one each for the wife and I) 2 x Magic Mouse, 2 x Verbatim 500Gb external HDD and
1Tb ForMac external HDD. Software is FCE4, Office for MAC and Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.
Christmas Day evening get to switch the MBP on, follow the instructions to register, download updates (for iTunes too). So far so good.
I had prepared for this day, and armed with my recently burned DVD's with all my iTunes music on them. I transferred my tunes across to the MAC iTunes Folder. On completion, I visited the iTunes store and made a purchase. OS X then displayed a dialog box telling me I don't have permission to download this purchase - eh?
Puzzled by this, I ended up going to the Internet to find out why. Opened Safari, clicked on the Green "plus" to maximise the window - window doesn't maximise? It just moves a bit. Try again, same result. Try the Green "plus" with another window - same result. Nothing maximises. Quick search of the net provides a solution, download and install an App called "Right Click". I do this, and after installation I have maximise - yay.
OK. So now do a search on why iTunes won't download my purchase. All to do with permissions says the search. I have to go and select my iTunes Folder, Get Info, open sharing and permission, unlock then change permission for Staff to have "Read/Write" access! (I only wanted to download a piece of music)! Do this, and on completion iTunes downloads my purchase - yay.
Time to plug in my 500Gb Verbatim external HDD. No problem here, OS X recognises it straight away. While I'm at it, I will activate my Magic Mouse. Reboot, and Magic Mouse working a treat. However, Magic Mouse has no "right click", it just does nothing.
Back to the internet - oh lordy I have to actually switch right click on via System Prefs (this includes the bloody track pad as well, because this is switched off by default too). (Whose flippin' idea was it to have right click switched off by default)?
By now the time is approaching midnight, I have spent more time looking up "how to's" on the internet than I have doing anything productive so far. Time for bed, and will have another go with a fresh pair of eyes tomorrow (Boxing Day).
The next day I wanted to save any downloads to my external drive. I also purchased SuperDuper (twice, so the wife had a licence too) so I could backup a disk image once I had sorted everything out to my liking.
The Verbatim drive was formatted as FAT32. SuperDuper recommended MAC OS Extended Journalled. No problem, I shall right click the drive and select Format. Wrong, Format is not listed as an option! Another internet search on "how do I format a MAC HD". Ah I see I use the Disk Utility App. The word "Format" is tucked away in the "Partition" section. But not only can you format it as MAC OS Extended (Journalled) you can also choose MAC OS Extended, MAC OS Extended (Case sensitive, journalled), MAC OS Extended (Case-sensitive) and finally, Free Space. If SuperDuper had not already pointed out that I should be formatting the drive in MAC OS Extended (journalled) I wouldn't have a bloody clue what to choose! Once again, a dark cloud was forming over my head.
I eventually got through the hard drive format (a process that takes about 2 seconds on a PC). I copied my "Right Click" download to my formatted drive. And also saved my disk image via SuperDuper. Great.
Time to install FCE4 (I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 on my PC). The wife got me a Canon HG10 videocamera for my Birthday last year. FCE can handle its' AVCHD files natively. So I was really looking forward to trying this out.
I inserted the disk, installed and registered the software. Eject the disk - grinding noise, click, click, click. Drive is trying to eject, but the disk isn't coming out. Back online to see if this is a common problem (hope not) or if there is a solution.
Found out that you can hold the track pad down when rebooting, drag the desktop icon to trash, or use Command E to eject a disk.
Eventually, after six attempts, a bit of the disk shows at the slot. There is enough showing for me to grip and pull the disk out. Is this the disk drive or the disk at fault? Only one way to find out. Insert MS Office for MAC, program installs. Eject the disk - grinding noise, click, click, click. Disk won't eject - sigh! Carry out the above procedure and eventually extract the disk.
Go online and via the Apple website book an appointment to see a Genius about the DVD drive on the 2nd Jan at 1000.
On the Saturday arrive at the Apple store early (and end up spending another £200 on must have's)! I report to the first red t-shirted chap I see. He calls my appointment up on his iTouch, and confirms the time with me. Two minutes later he is back, for some reason all the appointments have now disappeared from the system. Hah - no problem. I have my iPhone with me, so I can retrieve my appointment timings as sent by the Apple automated system when I booked it on the 27th Dec.
I see the Genius, explain the problem. He then has a chat with the manager. To cut a short story long, I leave the store with a new uMBP. They decided to swap mine with a new one. I leave the store happy. All the staff were very nice to deal with. So no drama there. On the way home, drop in Waterstones and pick up Mac OS X Snow Leapord for Dummies (my new best friend).
After arriving home, I set about setting up my uMBP again (things are a bit faster this time, as I now know what to expect, but more importantly know how to do it).
Today. We have a Lexmark X7550 MFD (WiFi) in the lounge. My wife wanted to use the printer. So, back online, I did some research, and visited the Lexmark (UK) website to download their latest (10.6) driver. Installed the driver on her uMBP, finds the printer, go to print test page - error message "color (Yank spelling) table problem. Uninstall then reinstall the software". OK, uninstall, then reinstall - same problem. I then check Apple software update - Lo, there is an update for this driver. Download and install, but problem not fixed, problem remains. (To be fair, there are a few people on the Apple Support forum with the same problem). A couple of people on the Apple support forum suggest some fixes. These "fixes" entail that you, dear user, start delving in to the Library folders deleting various Lexmark refs - I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DO THIS FFS! I follow the instructions, but at the end of the day none of the suggestions work. We still can't print (I tried installing the drivers on my uMBP too, with the same result). The document sits in the print queue, happily doing sod all. While the driver says "problem with the color table .... yada, yada, yada". Instead I will print the document from my Windows 7 PC that has no problem (and never has) connecting to the Lexmark over the wireless LAN. (Oh, neither have my daughters PC upstairs, or my other daughters Vista laptop. I can even print without any snags from my bloody Archos 705 WiFi).
I'm not quite loosing the will to live yet. However, any Mac fanbois should step away from my thread and refrain from posting how great life is. Thank you.
First impressions of the "all singing, all dancing" mac? Not very good.
