My new MacBook arrived two weeks ago, and I felt that I had spent enough time with it to actually make some useful comments on the good, the bad, and the headbangingly frustrating.

The Finder

Dear Apple: Shoot the Finder development team. Thanks.

I have switched to Path Finder as a Finder replacement. Truly the finder is one of the most debilitating pieces of software I have ever used. Nautilus on Gnome is a far superior file management system.

Software, in general

On the whole, I have found replacements for most of the Windows tools I use on a regular basis. But, as I am not made of money, I am using GIMP for Mac, and that is just clunky in the X11 environment.

Living in the browser makes my life much more tolerable than those who require the Windows environment. I haven’t got the money to buy Parallels or VMWare Fusion right now, so I am using RDC to connect to my Windows box. Slap Windows in Space #3 Fullscreen, and no one would know the difference.

Haven’t found a good Mind Map tool. And BBEdit is also muchos dineros. So Smultron is the text editor.

Usability

I rate this very high. Other than adjusting to the lack of certain keys (DEL, Pg up/dn, etc), the transition has been seamless. The trackpad is a dream and I miss being able to throw stuff around on my Dell laptops’ trackpads like I can using the one on the MacBook. I do find I leave apps hanging, as I am still adjusting to CMD-q closing the app.

Dashboard. What can I say? It’s what I need – high-level data at a glance, including the Prem Tables!

Overall

After four years waiting for a MacBook, I can say that it has been worth the wait. Solid, dependable, and slowly becoming my primary computer.
The only concern that I have is the aluminum case. I have an aluminum sensitivity, and if my hands start to peel and otherwise be in bad shape, I will have to determine a solution to that issue.