Last week, I received my MacBook Pro (running OS X Leopard) and have ‘enjoyed’ setting it up over the past few days. Below are my initial thoughts, both positive and negative:

• iTunes is more tolerable than I thought it would be. Whilst it did frustrate me initially by copying all my music, I managed to find the setting which stops it copying all music into the iTunes music folder (preferences>advanced>detick ‘Copy files to iTunes music folder…’)
• The Apple remote is amazing for productivity. I can continue typing/clicking but skip through a song. I wish more non-Apple applications, such as VLC, supported it though.
• My major frustration is with Boot Camp. Unless I format it with the Windows installer (and not Boot Camp Assistant) I get Disk error. Press any key to restart and in fact pressing any key besides the power button renders no effect. Then, when i format it with the Windows installer (as either FAT or NTFS) it says that hal.dll is missing. If anyone could tell me how to fix this I would be eternally grateful! Oh, and I can’t get into recovery console as I’m using a streamlined OEM version of XP Home.
• Parallels Desktop is great… at least for everything besides 3D graphics. It doesn’t support DirectX 9.0 and consequently most 3D games won’t work. I find it laggy even trying to handle the pre-2000 Theme Hospital! It does integrate remarkably well with OS X, though, and I’ve set Publisher files to open in MS Office Publisher through Parallels.
• I’m extremely challenged when it comes down to choosing a graphics program. For several years, I’ve been a PSP guy but the main OS X graphics program seems to be Photoshop. I dislike the idea of paying several hundred pounds for a licence and decided to give Seashore a shot which to be honest I’m very disappointed with… and The Gimp 2.0 doesn’t like my MacBook Pro much!
• Time Machine is great - really great - but is fairly demanding on disk space having used nearly 50GB on my external partition… and that’s after excluding folders like Movies!
• I’m also very impressed with the degree in which Adium, Mail and the Address Book integrate. The OS X address book is so far beyond Windows’ Address Book I’m amazed. I’m actually using my Mac Address Book whilst I didn’t ever bother with the Windows one!
• iDVD is very impressive and puts Nero 7.0 to shame. It did, however, take several hours to encode a 100 minute long film.
• I’m fairy disappointed with the DVD drive. The lack of a hardware eject button makes some situations hell and I find OS X is very fussy with optical media. Roxio Toast refused to write much onto some dual-layer DVDs I bought from eBuyer.
• Mac games are very expensive! Sims 2 for Mac costs about £30 whilst the PC version costs £10… hence my desperation to get Boot Camp functioning!
• Installing software is splendidly easy… twice as easy as installing software in Windows and infinite easier than under Linux.
• Skype seems buggy, refusing to open on the first boot after its installation (resulting in many reinstallations of it).
• Stacks and Exposè are awesome!
• I love the compose key (⌥)which allows me to easily add accented letters and other foreign/obscure characters. Ubuntu had a similar feature and both are about equally as efficient.
• The ambient keyboard provides hours of endless fun by covering up the sensors and watching the keyboard light up. The sensors are in the speakers
• Despite what most people say, Firefox runs smoothly
• Transmission is the coolest torrent client ever… beating μTorrent by far!
• Photobooth is cool too. I like the ‘flash’ it generates by making the screen go white for a short burst of time!
• The ease to add podcasts into iTunes has finally got me listening/watching them!
• Mail produces a lot of false positives for spam.

If someone could help me with my Boot Camp problem and my DVD writer one I would be REALLY grateful. Just comment or email me at computerjoe@gmail.com .

Tags: apple, os x, leopard

Please people, stop using the dollar. I’m not an economist so I’m sure my arguments flawed… rebuttals appreciated!

It’s a weakening currency and it is fairly frustrating receiving AdSense and TLA payments which are growing smaller and smaller even if the actual amount is rising. For example, in October last year a pound was about $1.87… now it’s more like $2.08! Quite a difference! Whilst changes in exchange rate are very normal, I think in today’s world of global trade it is especially inconvenient.

We Britons are a stubborn people being one of the few European nations to opt out of the €. Many Europeans moaned that the switch to the Euro saw prices rise but I think our prices are already inflated well above their American equivalent (a copy of The Sims 2 for Mac will only set you back $45 (at today’s exchange rate about GB£21) on Amazon.com but will cost you GB£30 (about US$62) on Amazon.co.uk). It’s interesting how the weakening dollar doesn’t lower British prices!

I’m tired of advertisers using dollars to pay. I’m happy that several of the advertisers I do business with directly pay me in dollars or Euros. I think Euros is a more sensible choice for websites to do business in as nearly half a billion people use the Euro or a currency pegged to it!

Would it hurt companies such as Google or TLA to offer advertisers and publishers the option to use currencies besides the dollar? Obviously, they would have to do some conversions (for example if the advertiser paid in US$ but the publisher wanted GB£) but if an advertiser paid in sterling, could the publisher not be paid in sterling?

Tags: economics, dollar, euro, pound