Apple newbie, can't wait to get hand on it

[wheresMYcar]

Hi All,

After playing a lot of mind games for the past few weeks , I finally decided to order myself a Mac, and along came the new iBook model, as I'm much a PC person along the way, but I feel the need to expand my knowledge for this newly emerged force (everybody talks about iPod... then along came Mac mini... what will be next??).

Anyway, this morning came email from Apple australia, that the product was shipped yesterday, and will come within 1-5 days..

I will use the iBook for testing my visual Basic application using virtual PC and also possibilities to do programming with RealBasic software. any help would be appreciated if you have experienced wih these software.....

Then a sacrifice needs to be made... I have to sell my Dell, to make room for the desk, and much for the wallet and credit card....

[wheresMYcar]

Forgot to add the order description:

Product # Product Description Qty Ext Price
__________ ________________________________________ ____ ________________

_________________________________________________________________________
M9846X/A IBOOK 12.1/1.33/512/40/COMBO/APX/BT-AUS 1 1,453.64
With the following configuration:

Memory 065-5749 512MB DDR333 SDRAM built-in.
Hard Drive 065-5750 40GB Ultra ATA Drive
Optical Drive 065-5751 COMBO DRIVE
iWork Software Preinstalled 065-4683Not Applicable
Keyboard/Mac OS Language X065-5753 Keyboard/Mac OS-X
Country Kit X065-5752 Country Kit-X
_________________________________________________________________________
T9722LL/A MICROSOFT - VIRTUAL PC 7-USA 1 271.82
_________________________________________________________________________

[jk_baller23]

What dell do you currently own that you have to sell? Enjoy your new toy? Maybe you can take pics of your office and new lappy and post them up for everyone to see.

[wheresMYcar]

I've posted the picture here:
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=99889

I'm currently selling my Dell 510m, it's not a great machine, poor battery life, but I bought it last January with $500 coupons, so still good enough for the price

And the truth is I really like this Apple machine, never thought that it'll be a very easy switch from die-hard Windows users to OS X...

Love the screen, love the keyboard pitch, love the white looks, except it leave a lot of finger print marks, and with 40 GB HDD, actually I only got 25 GB left, so it's a very little space to store files.

Easy to setup the airport and for me it's a really good investment....

[jk_baller23]

Yeah it was really easy to get it up and running when you first get it. Though I had to reinstall Tiger because I messed up on the shortname. Anyway, nice pics. Yeah, I would watch out for the dirt on the palm rests. I have seen many used iBooks and they are really dirty on the palms and trackpad. I would clean it at least once every two weeks or more. I need to find my camera so I can take some pics, lol.

[triadone]

...and with 40 GB HDD, actually I only got 25 GB left, so it's a very little space to store files.

i'd actually recommend that u reinstall the OS. u can shave off a bunch of space by doing a custom install of what u need. as i have the musical ability of a tree stump, do u think i kept garageband? nope. there's also a boatload of printer drivers that u won't need, and u can simply select which language packs u want, assuming that u don't want the entire planet installed on yer system.

[wheresMYcar]

thanks for the tips triadone, I will try to reinstall the OS once I get used with the system..

[shazza]

Congrats on the new iBook. You probably already know this, but you'll have better luck with Virtual PC if you add more memory - at least another 512MB. I dabbled with Virtual PC, but found it too slow for anything but basic stuff.

A 40GB hard drive will fill up fast, but the good news is you can get an external hard drive these days for a reasonable price - and you can set it up so it also has a bootable backup copy of your iBook hard drive. This is a nice feature to have in case anything ever goes wrong.

[Jacmert]

So you like the 12" iBook screen, eh? How are the viewing angles and the icon/text size on that screen for you?

[triadone]

IMO viewing angles are pretty narrow (not unlike a 15" 1400x1050 4:3 LCD). let me ask u a good question...who in their right mind buys a 12" notebook to watch DVD's w/ a crowd of ppl? that's what the s-video/composite adapter is for. i also tend to fall in the camp that if i buy a small notebook, to be my personal workplace, w/ size as part of that equation, why would i care if ppl sitting next to me in a coffee shop etc, see what i'm doing on my system?

IMO text and icons r fine, i haven't changed a thing on the size issue. the only thing i changed was the antialiasing levels of text in the system preferences, to suit my own interests. maybe 1 time in 100 webpages visited i'll find the default text to be too small. i simply hit command/apple & + and i'm all set, much like any other browser.

[wheresMYcar]

Originally Posted by shazza

Congrats on the new iBook. You probably already know this, but you'll have better luck with Virtual PC if you add more memory - at least another 512MB. I dabbled with Virtual PC, but found it too slow for anything but basic stuff.

You're right, after installing Virtual PC and XP Home, the speed sucks... I might have to add extra RAM.

Originally Posted by Jacmert

So you like the 12" iBook screen, eh? How are the viewing angles and the icon/text size on that screen for you?

The viewing angle is far grom great, some more if I compared with my Fujitsu, but still pretty decent if you have a straight focus.. anyway I do agree with triadone, when we sit on Starbucks, read mail or chat, we don't want other people to look what we've had or looking at your bank details

[Jacmert]

Lol, yeah. I think that the viewing angle thing might be a little more obvious with the 14", because it's a bigger screen and you might have to be more careful that you're sitting directly in front of it? Because I'm more concerned for the user having to be careful to sit DIRECTLY in front of the screen.

But it's good to hear that you guys are enjoying your 12" screens.