Hi everyone,
Just wanted to introduce myself since I have a feeling I'll be posting here a lot. I'm a 24-year-old lifetime Windows user. Nonetheless I dabbled with the Mac off and on over the years. In fact, a friend of mine in middle and high school, a very vocal Mac user, had to agree to a truce with me under which we both agreed not to demean the other's OS/architecture preference.
When OS X came out I was very impressed by its ease of use and slick looks (I used Macs in college a lot and it was installed on the vast majority of them). When I was shopping for a new PC in 2003 I seriously considered an iBook or PowerBook but ended up choosing a small-form-factor custom-built P4 desktop. It's served me well over the past 3 years, but now that I've been out of school for the past 18 months (after obtaining an honors degree in Communication with a second major in Spanish), and realizing that the traditional work world isn't for me for various reasons, I've decided to go into business for myself selling stuff on eBay and writing. I'm a columnist for a local paper and also plan to start writing a novel in the next month or so with a very close friend of mine. Since computers will be my livelihood, I knew I wanted a stable system that wouldn't be prone to viruses and spyware.
When Apple announced Macs would switch to Intel chips, that, along with the release of Boot Camp, was the deciding factor for me. I'm an avid gamer and prefer old-school classic games and their modern counterparts, most notably adventure games and RPGs. That said, the native Windows compatibility is a big asset. That's also why I knew I needed a MBP instead of a MacBook, in addition to the fact that I'll be using it to replace my current desktop entirely and the MB's 13-inch screen seems a little small in comparison to my current 17-inch LCD. My dad had a 1.3 GHz PowerBook on loan from his office for a couple of weeks and I decided I could definitely see myself using its successor.
I bit the bullet on Monday and bid on a refurbished, factory-sealed 2 GHz stock MBP from an eBay Powerseller... and won it. Ran me about $100 less than the same refurbished system would cost direct from Apple. Should be here on Friday. I'm bidding on a factory-sealed copy of Office 2004 at the moment, and am winning it at a very good price. I also have my old copy of WinXP from college, slipstreamed with SP2 and reburned, ready to go. I'm excited. I should be able to get between a quarter and a third of the cost of the computer back by selling my current equipment, so the price isn't too much of a "hit."
I'll definitely buy the AppleCare plan (on eBay of course), especially now that I'm running into all these reports of whining, mooing MacBook Pros. When I get my system I'll be sure to let everyone know if I'm a victim too...
*crosses fingers*
Any initial advice you could give a "switcher" greatly appreciated.
Luke
Just wanted to introduce myself since I have a feeling I'll be posting here a lot. I'm a 24-year-old lifetime Windows user. Nonetheless I dabbled with the Mac off and on over the years. In fact, a friend of mine in middle and high school, a very vocal Mac user, had to agree to a truce with me under which we both agreed not to demean the other's OS/architecture preference.
When OS X came out I was very impressed by its ease of use and slick looks (I used Macs in college a lot and it was installed on the vast majority of them). When I was shopping for a new PC in 2003 I seriously considered an iBook or PowerBook but ended up choosing a small-form-factor custom-built P4 desktop. It's served me well over the past 3 years, but now that I've been out of school for the past 18 months (after obtaining an honors degree in Communication with a second major in Spanish), and realizing that the traditional work world isn't for me for various reasons, I've decided to go into business for myself selling stuff on eBay and writing. I'm a columnist for a local paper and also plan to start writing a novel in the next month or so with a very close friend of mine. Since computers will be my livelihood, I knew I wanted a stable system that wouldn't be prone to viruses and spyware.
When Apple announced Macs would switch to Intel chips, that, along with the release of Boot Camp, was the deciding factor for me. I'm an avid gamer and prefer old-school classic games and their modern counterparts, most notably adventure games and RPGs. That said, the native Windows compatibility is a big asset. That's also why I knew I needed a MBP instead of a MacBook, in addition to the fact that I'll be using it to replace my current desktop entirely and the MB's 13-inch screen seems a little small in comparison to my current 17-inch LCD. My dad had a 1.3 GHz PowerBook on loan from his office for a couple of weeks and I decided I could definitely see myself using its successor.
I bit the bullet on Monday and bid on a refurbished, factory-sealed 2 GHz stock MBP from an eBay Powerseller... and won it. Ran me about $100 less than the same refurbished system would cost direct from Apple. Should be here on Friday. I'm bidding on a factory-sealed copy of Office 2004 at the moment, and am winning it at a very good price. I also have my old copy of WinXP from college, slipstreamed with SP2 and reburned, ready to go. I'm excited. I should be able to get between a quarter and a third of the cost of the computer back by selling my current equipment, so the price isn't too much of a "hit."
I'll definitely buy the AppleCare plan (on eBay of course), especially now that I'm running into all these reports of whining, mooing MacBook Pros. When I get my system I'll be sure to let everyone know if I'm a victim too...
*crosses fingers*
Any initial advice you could give a "switcher" greatly appreciated.
Luke
