I, too, made the switch to a MacBook Pro

... and I'm never going back! I just got a ThinkPad T60p (2.0 GHz Core Duo, 160GB drive, 4GB RAM) in April, and I "upgraded" it to Vista, and it finally pushed me over the edge. I think Vista can (and will) be used effectively in the enterprise, but too many applications don't yet fully support it. And even among those that do, there are some problems that aren't being fixed (e.g. Picasa and Java applets consistently caused my display driver to crash). So I just got tired of having to depend on MS Vista.

So I got the smaller Macbook Pro with a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 160 GB drive, and 4GB of RAM. The whole experience looks, feels, and functions nicely. The specific things I've noticed and like:

1. I copied my FireFox profile folder from Windows, and EVERYTHING just works - all of my plugins, my history, etc. And it works faster than it did under Vista (or XP, for that matter).

2. It resumes from sleep mode almost immediately. With Vista and XP, it never woke up as quickly - sometimes it woke up "not so slowly", but other times it would take several minutes.

3. I installed VMWare fusion, and it's just crazy fast. Suspending a VM (running XP, ironically) with 512MB of RAM assigned to it only takes 30 seconds. Resuming that same VM takes SECONDS - it's really almost immediate.

4. The USB ports transfer data at higher speeds. I plugged a thumb drive into the T60 and copied a file that took minutes. I then plugged the same drive into the Mac, and copying the same file took SECONDS. Don't know or care why this is - I'm just happy as hell that it works better now.

5. Configuring wireless connections is easy, and it just works.

6. On the down side, I have a Treo 700w on Verizon's network, and I love it. However, there is currently no way to tether this phone with OS X. This is the reason I have the XP VM installed - I can run PDANet in this XP VM to connect to Verizon's network, then just route the Mac's traffic through that connection.

That's all I've got for now - I'm having no problems at all, and I'm happy as can be with OSX.

My favorite blogs

This is a list of the blogs that I read every day, and which seem to keep me pretty well informed about stuff that interests me:

http://www.engadget.com
http://www.gizmodo.com
http://slashdot.org
http://www.autoblog.com
http://www.jalopnik.com
http://www.toolmonger.com

Enjoy.

EA finally releases games for the Mac

As promised, but late, EA has released some of their more popular games for the Mac OS X platform. Supposedly Tiger Woods 08 and Madden NFL 08 will be out in the September timeframe.

Everybody keeps asking what will drive people to the Mac platform, software is it. When the OS doesn't matter - the most stable OS will prevail. Right now, BSD based Mac OS X is the most stable end user OS available - Linux will catch up.

Why bluetooth needs work.

I admit, I have a bluetooth headset for my phones and I like it. Headsets are the one standard in bluetooth that seems to be implemented consistently.

I have 5 devices I have used recently, a Treo 650, Treo 700p, Tmobile Dash (HTC S620), Blackberry 8700g and a Blackberry 8300. ALL of them have different bluetooth profiles. ALL of them will do phone as a modem via USB. The Treo 650/700 need a wing and a prayer to get working via bluetooth - it is implemented so poorly on these devices that regular resets are required. The Tmobile Dash is the most stable of them all, it creates a PAN (personal area network) over bluetooth - this is the CLEANEST and most straight forward connect of any and it works the same on Windows and MAC OS X - I've tried it on Linux and gave up after 6 beers and 43 new swear word combinations.

The Blackberry 8700 won't do phone as a modem over bluetooth -why, I don't know. The 8300 will do it, but again it was very cumbersome and I always had to reset something - it never just worked.

Blackberry is missing the boat.

I love Blackberry devices, the email integration is awesome. However, one thing they built a fan base on was the trackwheel. They have replaced it with this Pearl/Trackball and frankly - it sucks.

Not to mention, using it as a bluetooth modem is very painful. So painful, I have sold my Blackberry Curve 8300 and am using a Tmobile Dash. The Dash isn't my favorite, but it pairs incredibly easily with my Macbook Pro and is very simple to use as a modem over bluetooth.

I still have a Blackberry 8700, the last of the "good" blackberries in my opinion.

Medison Celebrity - $150

Is this thing for real or not? I hope so, I ordered one - luckily the 2Checkout.com people are reputable - that have a good reputation are really do protect the consumer. If this thing is for real, my family is getting laptops for Christmas.

Don't know what I'm talking about - http://www.medisoncelebrity.com/

It's a $150 laptop that comes with Fedora preinstalled.

New Laptop - Macbook Pro

I finally "switched". My last laptop, an ASUS Z96JS has had so many problems that I have given up on it. So I had narrowed it down to the Thinkpad T60/T61 and the Macbook Pro 2.2GHz. I wanted 64 bit support and Mac OS X has it - Vista and XP have 64 bit support, but finding driver support is nearly impossible.

So, I moved to the Mac. The first thing I did is put 4gb of RAM in it and install VMWARE Fusion. From a speed perspective, VMWARE is performing faster than a Core 2 Duo 2.14ghz using a stop watch to time boot up.

I'm running Firefox with zero problems. iPhoto and iMovie - where have they been all my life. These are great applications with simple and complex options. Microsoft has a remote desktop client for the Mac - that works great. And as soon as I opened the terminal prompt, I checked and SSH is preinstalled and so is PERL.

This is the most usable system (out of the box) I have ever had. From a performance aspect - it smoke everything else I've got. Susposedly the next revision of Mac OS X (Leopard) will even make better use of the 64 bit CPU.

VMWARE got it right with this version, called Fusion. Not only is it cheaper than the Windows and Linux cousins - it has a new feature for some guest OS'es where it will automatically set them up if you give it a password and the license key.

More to come on this.

New Blackberry

Ok, so after I swamped my Blackberry 8700g in local creek - I got a new Blackberry 8300 Curve. I wasn't sure I would like it since RIM took away the trackwheel and put a little trackball (they call it the Pearl). Overall, I am very pleased. It is very light and the screen is very bright and clear. This model has a 2mp camera with a flash built-in and a micro-SD expansion slot. The data services are good and the email integration is still better than the Palm 650, 700p and any Windows Mobile 5 or 6 device I have used.

I'm excited to see that Dataviz is releasing Documents to Go for the Blackberry so I can have full document support on the go without sacrificing the extreme email efficiency.

Jason's Tech

So, many of you have said that I should start a blog because I am an early adopter with technology - hoping that I review something you may want to buy or use.

OK - I'll give it a whirl.