KWPro.net

I ended up giving in and getting a Mac finally. This time a MacBook Pro 13" and it was for my birthday. My desktop started to sound funny and I was thinking about getting a new laptop in case I hit Japan in spring so that I can handle non-Linux stuff (i.e. games). While my Netbook can dual boot, it lacks a lot of power to handle things like Eclipse or World of Warcraft. Also, the screen real estate on my Netbook is nearly non-existent and is better off as a night time reading computer. However, I also wanted to find something with a better video card. Most desktops just weren't priced right at my local Best Buy for my liking. I did become slightly intrigued by the All-In-One Dells, but heard from a friend about overheating on the memory, which forced one to send the whole unit back to Dell to fix. Not wanting that situation and having bad experiences with Dells, I decided to take my friends' advice and go with the Mac.

I look at my Mac not just as a toy, but as a potential investment. It seems to run virtualization software fluidly so that you can run Windows side-by-side with Mac or even Ubuntu. That means, I potentially can save on physical real estate and power by only having one active device at a time. Another reason is that I needed something for testing my websites. The Mac was the last device I would require to double check my work. Having three potential OS's on one system running parallel sounded like the way to go in the long run. Most of all, I could start looking at developing iPhone/iPad applications, something that I could not do before. With this machine, I can solve all my problems simultaneously on the surface.

So I've had my MacBook Pro for less than a month but decided to start moving my stuff over from a few days ago. Got the adapter to DVI connected to my 23" and it looks great. I'm using an external USB mouse and keyboard but now am examining options for another USB-to-DVI cable so that I can utilize my second 23" monitor. Of course, that would mean finding some solution so that I can run more than two USB devices from my Mac. Of course, I want to utilize my external drives, one which is a Windows one and the other running ext3 (I believe). I know that Mac can read Windows drives so the question is how easily can it do so? After that, then it's a matter of connecting my Linux drive and checking the fluidity on that.

Things are still awkward for me since my fingers are mapped to the PC style keystrokes. There's also little nuances that I'm learning like installing applications, tabbing through applications, etc.

However, as I'm delving more into this device, it looks like a good bargain. Things work nicely out of the box. I'm going to be able to consolidate my data and applications into one environment potentially. I ran some tests like watching The Dark Knight, playing Starcraft 2 and constantly playing World of Warcraft Cataclysm. Thus far, my only issue has been heating whenever I play World of Warcraft. It seems that the graphics are a bit intense and cause the video to foobar, forcing me to reboot. Still, compared to my desktop, World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2 look fantastic and can run at a higher resolution.

I think overall if I'm able to consistently be productive with this machine, I'll probably just convert over completely. I think once I move over more of my files and am able to read my external drives, that would be the final tests of approval.