GooSync's Blog

The GooSync competition has now closed!

At the beginning of June we launched our GooSync giveaway, offering you a chance to win one of our great prizes. We have had an overwhelming response, with iPods, Nintendo DSi’s, PSP’s and GooSync subscriptions up for grabs.

There are 26 prizes to be won and winners will be picked at random no later than 17th August 2009. Please read the full details here.

I’m replacing my Windows Vista laptop with a MacBookPro, and for your insight and amusement I’m going to detail the process here.

It’s on order and should arrive around July 15th, I won’t get much done til my return from vacation on Aug 2.

Here’s the spec I went for:-

3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRM-2X4GB, 256GB Solid State Drive, SuperDrive 8X DL MBP 17 HiRs AntiGl WS Display.

I’m reading “Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition” recommended by Danita

Love to hear of your experiences of switching too, Do’s and Dont’s would be great….

Update: August 4th

Still getting to grips with this shiny new world of Mac, I just about worked out the basics and loving the speed, I have a few “won’t work on Mac issues”; legacy M$ access db, websites needing ActiveX (thanks LloydsTSB); I have added M$ Office 2008, most of my docs are word or excel and I’m to use to it to change.

I did struggle to add a ip address to the hosts file (where is the hosts file); good job I cut my teeth oh Unix, I found a shell (Terminal), and cd /etc and wow the mac has a vi editor, so I was well sorted.

Getting to grips with Safari, I love Chrome and its ability to startup with loads of open tabs, no Chrome for Mac yet!

Update: August 6th

I cracked, can’t do without some windows stuff, I installed VMWare, now I can run IE and Access in a Windows XP VM.

Also installed IShowUHD, a great screen recording app, and the iPhone SDK (that’s the delveloper in me)

Update: Sept 7th

Another month of MacBook usage, it’s been a Joy, it just works, I needed to print some stuff out at a friends house, I just plugged the printer in and it was available to use, wow! that was easy, no drivers to load, nought.

I was on site doing a presentation, under windows I always needed to set the resolution to fit the display device I was attaching, again the Mac magic was great, just plugged in this huge 52in sony display and it worked like a charm, my customer commented on how slick the setup was, all credit to the Mac.

I also discovered “Spaces” – for the uninitiated its more to do with screen layout and control that green fields, in short it allows you to configure up to four views of your desktop; again great for customer visits, switch views in a whiz.

Wow! I’m sounding like a Mac geek now

Update: Sept 30th

I missed Photoshop, so purchased an upgrade form my windows version, I also purchased a Time Capsule (a 1Tb wifi backup device), this backups up all my data daily without a thought from me.

As you can tell I’m a complete Mac geek and would encourage anyone to switch, the Mac Book is a tad more expensive than its windows equivalent but hey! “you get what you pay for”

CONCLUSION – buy a Mac today

Chris.

This cartoon was inked by Howard Tayler for our Calendar, and placed here for your amusement.