Saturday, December 05, 2009

First Time Mac User - The Mac is growing onto me

Well, its been a week now since I started using my Macbook Pro. As you know it's my first time with a Mac... So this would be a continuation of my previous post - Previous Post - First Time Mac User .

As I do go to office already with my Macbook, I really am on the job with it. I installed Microsoft Office for Mac a few days ago and Entourage comes along with it (Entourage is the Mac version of MS Office). The look and feel was similar to Office except it did look better. I however chose at this point to stay with the native application - Mac Mail. It's not given me any issue till date.

I've just gotten used to the four finger thingi with the Mac - swipe the trackpad with four fingers and it shows you all the open windows/apps and you can choose which one you want to go to. Also if you swipe it upwards with four fingers, it moves all windows and shows you the desktop. This is very useful and cool!

The native Pages application (Equivalent of Word) is very simple to use and after i updated my entire software (Yes, you can install all software in the computer from one single interface - The update went on overnight), I can now export files as a Word document or PDF or many other options. These options are also available in Keynote now - which means I can export as a ppt or PDF or even a movie file. This is pretty cool. However, I must warn you that heavy PPTs take time to open on Keynote. It sometimes even Hangs while trying! This is one of the reasons as to why I installed Microsoft office for Mac. Just in case I need it to open some ppts.

I still haven't figured out an alternative to Microsoft Groove which we use at office. There is something called Microsoft Project Connection that installed along with the Office Package. I need to test whether that can connect to Groove to be able to access my workspace. Will let you know if that works out just fine.

I connected my iPhone to the Mac and they synced so beautifully! Picked up all the contacts from my phone and brought it into the Mac Mail.. Even got the pictures to be synced to the contacts. It was absolute brilliance! I do at times miss Winamp. Maybe they do have an app for the Mac. Will have to look it up. I just realised that I don't have iLife installed (Includes Garage band, Movie Maker etc). So will have to install that. To play movies with the drive, you need to set your region preferences - this is a little irritating for me coz you can only change it 5 times! That sucks! Anyways I guess most movies we watch nowadays are online or via a USB! So I'll let this one pass to Mac's benefit!

Some of the documents I transferred from my PC which were created using Microsoft Office 2007 for PC are not opening properly with Pages of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac! Don't know the reason but am still trying to figure that one out.

Keynote still has various unexplored options and I'm having fun trying to create jazzy presentations but it still is taking me time to work on. I was almost born and brought up with Microsoft Office - That kinda makes it my mother tongue! But I'm sure that over time I won't have to look Microsoft's way again!

The trackpad just grows onto you and you begin to love it! It is absolutely a fantastic bit of innovation from Apple. I just bought a netbook for a friend today and was trying to navigate using the old touchpad and it was absolutely a disaster! All of this just after a week of using a Mac! No kidding! The trackpad is brilliant! You have to experience it to even comment! I love it... Along with the brilliant battery life that this Mac is giving me. I get an easy 5 to 6 hours on my battery!

Have also gotten used to the Command + A for all actions similar to Cntrl +C in windows. So that's a good sign!

And I'm the kinda person who really spreads the good word about any product. I've been speaking to all my colleagues about it. So a colleague has already purchased a Macbook and there are another 4 of them from work who want to get one too! Awesome right! I think Apple owes me a commission on these sales!

I haven't been missing anything else from my PC over the last week. Hence, so far so good!


No comments: