3 posts tagged “macintosh”
This post discusses the eccentricities of my MBP and my hopes for Apple in the future.
Odd characteristics.
Electric shocks.
This freakiness reminds me of my father's Titanium PowerBook [an RM 16 000 machine that doesn't even run on OS X] which zaps my wrists when it's in contact with the edge of the notebook. Didn't occur when I had my Glaucon Fortran. But now, it happens with my MBP. Whenever it is plugged to a power source for a battery charge, my wrists gets zapped, which can be annoyingly painful. It even extends to my legs, whenever they touch my steel drawer underneath my desk. Does anyone have a scientific explanation? It's sucky!
iSight fear.
Knowing that there are so many lunatics in this world who'd do anything just to lurk into other people's system for fun, I have applied a square of duct tape on my iSight. This surprisingly has limited my time on Photo Booth, especially during those midnight hours when the online life is the last thing I want to live in. But don't worry, I have exercised the method of de-stickifying the duct tape [like how you'd stick masking tape to your clothes several times to lose its adhesive factor before taping it on your tracing paper to draw over your plan (flashback to interior architecture classes)], before it covers my iSight.
Nooks and crevices of rubbish.
Even though I try to avoid eating cookies, tuna puffs, crisps or kaya toast near my MBP, it's impossible to stop crumbs of food / microscopic mites / dust bunnies / glitter accumulating underneath the keyboard, the narrow gap by the click pad, the latch catchers, speaker grille and ventilation ducts. I wish I could just suck them all out of there but, is it OK to use a household vacuum cleaner [no, that would just suck out the keys altogether]?
MagSafe and its disappearing act.
Those who are familiar with power cords that existed before MagSafe, remember the detachable tubular plastic thingie that covers the plug when not attached to the portable? And three weeks into usage, the tubular plastic thingie disappears into oblivion? Now with MagSafe, there's no more tubular plastic thingie to protect the plug, but a different plastic thingie in an indescribable shape. I lost it two weeks ago. "Even the power cord is a feature". Hah! How about making the cover for it a practical feature, too?
Hm, oddly enough, the tubular plastic thingie is still intact with Glaucon's power cord, which I still keep.
Caps Lock forever.
I use the shift key to enter shortcuts, commands and type in characters like !, @, #, $ and so on. But never for capital letters!!! I am diehard caps lock user. So when I came across the caps lock key lag on my MBP, I had no choice but to either type slower, or type as normal before realising that my sentences turn into this:
mACbOOK pRO FOR LIFE!
before deleting the typotic sentence and construct it the right way. It's frustrating. I don't type blazingly fast, even, so I don't know why my caps lock key behaves this way.
What I want from Apple.
- Thanks for including a suede-like cleaning cloth, but what's more important is a case/sleeve/envelope to go with the MBP. I mean, like an official one, with an understated embossed logo of Apple on the same spot where the one on the MBP is at. Or maybe in gauze, so that the logo peeps through.
- Bring back Classic OS!
- Better resolution for iSight [might be revised in the next fleet of MBPs]. A dual-sided iSight would be great for producing live broadcasts, but then it would wreck the minimalist facade and go one step closer to looking like a gross non-Mac laptop.
- No need to look for third party apps like Undercover to trace stolen MBPs. Apple should have their own department for handling those cases!
- Make .Mac free for all Mac users.
- And after we all get our free .Mac accounts, there would be an official website serving as a portal for all Mac users. I mean... let me explain it this way. When you meet someone new, you'll find things that both of you have in common. Using Macs can be one of them. But you can't say the same about Windows users, right? It just doesn't sound right when you hear, "Fanny and Manny both are Windows users". And if this portal idea thing comes through, the Mac-utilising community won't be so fragmented like how it is now. But... well, with every other person saying that they want to switch to Mac nowadays [with the enticing ads, better-than-everything-else industrial design, the 'cool' factor] Apple will soon have a larger slice of the market pie and... Macs won't be something to get excited about when you learn that your idol/crush/stalkee uses the same OS as you. Hm... I am dreaming of an advanced search engine with my query reading, "MacBook Pro user, male, 14-17, IQ 140+, interests: Fritz Lang, geothermal energy, charting maps..." [I could go on for hours on this].
Excessively-incredible features of my MBP, in the fourth part of 'My MacBook Pro'.
Second post for the month of May and I am NOT DONE with my MacBook Pro, just yet. If I could write about the recent general elections for three posts long, I could probably write ten posts just on my MacBook Pro. It's better than young freckled Caucasian school boys, the colour green, Henrik Preutz's designs for IKEA, Tunku Abdul Rahman [not really]..... the only thing that's better than a MacBook Pro is [are] two MacBook Pros.
I have my Stickies open all the time to write in whatever I feel about my MBP since day one. This is the first essay:
First of all I would like to apologise to myself for not beginning my ownership of a MacBook Pro with an unboxing ceremony. I know it is the most crucial moment in an MBP's life, but it was spoilt by my own ignorance. You see, I thought that there would be a lengthy process of installing Mac OS X, like how it was when I got my Glaucon Fortran. I was too afraid to do it by myself [a regret] so I decided to unbox it half-heartedly at the store.
My mind was really furious, Q saying, "What the hell are you doing? Why are you introducing the MBP to the world in a lifeless shop like this? Shouldn't you and only you be the one to greet it in your own room? You'll lose the factory-fresh scent, you won't have the right to cut the sticker that seals the non-weave envelope which holds the MBP, you'll have other people's fingerprints on everything....." but A was in charge at that time. "I can always pretend that it didn't happen and stage a second unboxing ceremony in my room later". Q shouted, "It wouldn't be the same!!!" but its mouth was quickly duct taped.
So I let that store guy unravel my gift. I got to open the lid and press the power button, and soon, a pleasant montage of the word 'welcome' flew by in all sorts of languages. When it ended, I immediately ask the store guy if it is possible to start all over again. He blankly said, "No, it only comes by once. Another way to see the 'welcome thing' is when you reformat the whole machine and that would take a very long time". I stare at the space between a display of iPod accessories and me, with the duct tape on Q's mouth peeling off, hearing it go, "You suck at life". Almost immediately, A went, "I'll make sure I have my own private unboxing ceremony the next time I get a Mac".
After that, there was no fun at all. I registered my details and saw the first glimpse of my desktop. Then, it went back to its packaging. This was nothing like December 2004. The man [named Hisyam, if I remember] who sold a 15-inch PowerBook G4 to me delivered to my house and helped me installed the OS and we had a Q & A session. At that time, the price of that said notebook was at least RM 2 000 more expensive than the cheapest MBP model today. Not including the price of an Adobe CS software, adding a thousand plus Ringgit. When I received it, I felt that life was unbelievable. I waited for this machine for a year, and even hung PowerBook G4 pamphlets all over my bookshelf to welcome this machine. I named it Glaucon Fortran.
But on Sunday the 13th of April, 2008, I felt nearly nothing. It is like... you know, life goes on. It's just a Mac. I'm going to use it to play music, store digital images, write notes on Stickies, proof-reading my VOX posts, watch DVDs in very rare cases... the things I can do on my iMac. So the latest mystery in my life would be: where's the excitement?
Though, figuring out that mystery is pointless, so I started to have fun with my MBP.
Speaking of 'pointless' and 'fun', the first thing I thought of downloading is MacSaber. Finally! I heard of this hilarious application around the time when the earliest MBP [or was it the latest version of the PowerBook] models are equipped with Sudden Motion Sensor technology [it works to protect the hard disk from getting damaged from falls and knocks]. Some person developed MacSaber, which works with that technology, so that those with nothing better to do are able to have a lightsaber fight by swinging their MBPs around, creating the crazy hums, clashes and 'wwweeuunnggg!!!' sounds a lightsaber would make. This was very very fun and entertaining for the first 2 minutes, before I realised that I am putting my MBP in danger, and it gets boring when I have no one to play it with.
I installed iWork '08 with ease and thought, "I can now make slideshows..... I mean Keynotes, that look better than anyone else's in the world". Then I downloaded Firefox, because I can't accept Safari just yet. I tried out iPhoto by importing some pictures of my latest I Got Shot post and snickered to the coolness of 'pinching', 'sweeping' and other finger movements that my Multi Touch trackpad can detect. After that, I made my first VOX post on the MBP.
Now, march on to Part III!
Mac fans, you know what will happen tonight [or this morning, depending on where you reside]. Somewhere in San Francisco, Steve Jobs and his friends will be introducing several new things like... I'm not sure what they will be this time, but the most anticipated announcement shall be the release of the so-called MacBook Air [which I will own by the middle of this year (I hope!)].
When will it happen? The time is 9 a.m. PST [plus sixteen/fifteen hours for those in GMT+8]. That should be around midnight. Where to check it out? Naturally, everyone will be hanging out at macrumorslive for almost real-time updates [pictures included, I believe]. Be sure to have the Apple site open, too, and refresh it once in a while to confirm that the existence of this 'MacBook Air' is real.
Update: MacBook Air is for real.
Initial responses, first impressions and comments [so far]:
• How the hell is it so confoundingly thin?! Will it crack easily?
• Glossy screen? Not my cup of tea. Glare is rarely my cup of tea.
• Where are the speakers? No speaker at all? It says in the Tech Specs page that there is a built-in mono speaker, but where is it located? Could the little holes beside the iSight serve as the speaker and the microphone?
• No optical drive. OK, great, I rarely stick in CDs into my computer. This won't do well in Malaysia because we don't have an iTunes store, so we can't buy any music and download / rent movies. And even if we did have an iTunes store, it would take hours to download a movie, thanks to the amazing broadband speed we have.
• About the whole 'access another Mac or PC wirelessly / install a programme from it' feature. That's only possible when both computers have wireless capabilities, right? Like which regular desktop PC have a built-in wireless card?!
Conclusion: It's a beautiful machine, more soft curves, or should I say, slopes. In my opinion, its future might be like the Titanium PowerBook because the design will be more polished eg. the keys will be in silver colour, improved hinges. Will I get it? No, not really. It's more of a want than a need. A MacBook Pro is better for me because I still need the ports and optical drive.
A little odd note: I've noticed that the PC guy from the Apple ads have slimmed down [judging by the latest ads], just like a MacBook Air. Nevertheless, I am amazed by both of them.
And just to add a little relevant additive to this post, check out this visual commentary based on observations of an amazing illustrator called Peter Arkle [his latest design for graniph is high on my wishlist, currently].
Not to forget, my visit to the alleged three-storey Apple store in Lot 10 [it's just two-storey; the third level empty]. Machines wasn't quite open yet, but I think by the time this post is published, they have sold dozens of Nanos and some Mac Pros.
OK. One thing I don't fancy at all. Why are they using the Arial typeface for the shop's name?! Machines have been using the standard Myriad for the rest of their stores. I hope that these are just a stand-in while the Myriad ones are still in the making.
Another sad sight. Why are the 'i's capitalised?!
Now that Machines will be the most-visited shop in Lot 10 [its entrance is right after the mall's entrance], they should keep their visitors in the store for as long as possible by not having the WiFi turned off or Safari on block.
