As I have documented in the past few months I have had interest in moving away from the world of Windows into either Mac or Linux. I gave Ubuntu/Kubuntu/PCLinuxOS a far chance but in the end the experience was less than wonderful. As you can imagine I have driver issues, the applications lacked style and for the most part I ran into random errors that I couldn’t fix, or had the patience to.

Last summer I bought a G4 iMac with Tiger and began to use that almost exclusively for a month, the computer was great but I mostly use my laptop and I prefer it to any desktop, so I upgraded my XP laptop to Vista. I could go through and talk about all of my problems but that could take a little while, so just read my previous post.

Last week I bought a refurbished Macbook for $850 from Apple.com, this Thursday I received the computer. I can honeslty say this is the best computer I have ever used. I appearnce, the speed, the ease of use is making me wonder why I ever used Windows. I have had a great experience so far but I have hit some brick walls,

So here are the 5 things I live and don’t like about Mac so far.

1. SPEED! My computer boots up in about 30 seconds and programs launch almost instantly. When my computer starts there aren’t any annoying programs that start up like with Windows, *cough* MSN messenger.

2.iLife iThank you- I have had so much fun with my pictures, movies and even making crappy music, I lack any talent, with the great iLife suite. GarageBand can keep me busy from school work for hours at a time and iMovie is easy to use and iPhoto is starting to take over Picasa for me.

3. Iwork 08- Great programs but I don’t like the fact that I can’t use my Pages files with Office, seeing as I am a student in a Windows only school. Keynote is awesome and I can’t wait to start making presentations.

*Update, thanks to my readers I now know how to use my Pages files in Word, thanks guys!

4. Weird random issues- Sometimes my Macbooks screen will flicker with movies playing in Quicktime and times the screensaver freaks out and goes from black to my desktop over and over.

5. The cost was amazing- For $850 I got a Macbook 2.0ghz, Apple Remote, and iLife 08, pretty good deal right? Oh wait I get a full 1 year warranty and 90 days of phone support, thanks Apple.

That’s right I just but my first new Mac, kind of. I bought a Macbook from Apple’s web site as a refurbished machine for only $850! This is a great price for any new/refurbished computer with the specs that I will list. The computer comes pre-installed with Leopard and the great iLife 08 suite of software. The computer is a 2.0ghz intel Core 2 Duo with 1 gig of ram, but I already own 2 gigs that will work with the computer, it only comes with a 80gb hard drive so I will be buying a external drive soon. I am so excited to receive this computer because it will be my first real Mac, I own a G4 iMac and its getting a little out of date now.

So if you own a Macbook or have any thoughts on the computer please leave it as a comment!

Also a full review will be coming soon!

After buying my G4 iMac I knew instantly that their was going to be a problem wtih me not being able to upgrade a lot of the components like the video card so now I am looking to buy my next Mac, a G4 Powermac. Now I know its not a “stunner” these days but I am broke and cheap so it fits my needs perfectly.

So why buy an old machine like that?

Well I plan to use it for soft gaming like playing some of my favorite older games like Warcraft 2 and 3 and also play newer games like World of Warcraft, as you can tell I am a Warcraft fan. So I plan to spend around $100 on the system itself and then another $100 or so on a powerful ATI 9800 video card to get the most out of my games.

Why get a Mac instead of a PC for gaming?

Well I am starting to convert over to Mac full time and I would like to start to work with the insides on them and learn all of the in’s and out’s on the older models, plus its fun. I also like using OS X for “heavy” programs because I know that it doesn’t use that much CPU and RAM and runs smooth with big programs.

So when I get my new Mac in a couple of months I might do a video on me upgrading the beast. If you know of any places online that has these machines for cheap let me know via a comment.

One of the best things within in OS X is the dock. Its a great way to keep all of your favorite applications in an organized way right at your finger tips. Sometimes it gets a little crowed on that dock to have all of your programs on there, but with the recent addition of stacks its now easier than ever to get all of your apps on the dock in a great organized way.

1. Open up the finder
2. Click on your hard drive, it should be the first icon under Devices
3. Now you should see the Applications folder
4. Drag and drop that folder next to the Downloads and Documents stack.

Now you should have an icon on the dock with an application on it, its going to be organized alphabetically, now click the stack and you will see all of your applications. While this sounds simple it makes a huge difference and saves you time from having to locate and open the Applications folder.

I at one point was a big Microsoft fan, still am on a few things, I lived by the newest release of Windows but recently that has changed. A few years ago I started to use Ubuntu as a hobby and it turned into my secondary OS to Windows XP. Also in that time I bought a G4 iMac and started to use Tiger and really started to like it but once again I still used Windows XP over the Apple OS, but all of that has changed. With the release of Vista I was so excited to get my hands on a copy and I ignored all of the early reviews because of my excitement for the new release.

But like many others Vista left me saying why?

After two days of use I had to downgrade back to XP because things just seemed so unstable to me and I refuse to use anything that doesn’t work right. After leaving Vista the first time I have been back a few times and each time leading to frustration and just asking why? Finally after the final uninstalling I decided to step back from the Windows world and I installed Ubuntu 7.10 on my laptop. I am still using it and I have had minimal problems but its problems that I can over come because Ubuntu just feels more stable then Vista does.

I have made the switch.

During this time I have also bought a copy of Leopard for my Mac and it has just blown my mind. Everything works just as described and is worth the $129 price tag. So I have moved about 80% of my computer needs to Mac and the other 20% on to Ubuntu. So now I am officially off of Windows as my operating system, I am sure that within the next few weeks I will install XP within a virtual machine on the Mac, but my days with Windows is over.

Sorry Windows its been a great 10 years but I have met someone new who understands my needs.

So my question to you is why are you still using Windows? Thats if you are running Windows! If you are a recent switcher like myself please leave your story as a comment.

FIRST OFF: Let me say that this is illegal to do and please don’t ask me to how to do this. I do legally own a copy of Leopard and no, this is not running on my laptop now; I did this purely to show that it is possible to run OS X Leopard on a PC.

Okay, so as you can tell by the video, I had the new Apple operating system OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, running on a Dell E1505 laptop. I installed it using a method called iATKOS. The installation was fast — it took less than an hour — and once the installation was done it booted right into OS X.

I do have three issues with it, though.

1. Putting the computer to sleep seems to knock it out cold! I mean, there is no way to unfreeze it; this also includes closing the computer lid.

2. I have an Intel 950 video card and sometimes there is graphics tearing. For example, sometimes in iTunes I will have two mouse courses — one is just a dud that is stuck.
3. My sound card did not work out of the gate. I had to use a method that allowed me to patch the system to use the HD audio card.

I have been a computer user since Windows 3.1 and since then have used many different types of Operating Systems. Its been a little over two years since I started to adventure into different OS’s like Linux and Mac. I have used many great OS’s and some really bad ones but here are my 5 favorite of all time.

 5. Ubuntu 6.04- The first Ubuntu version I ever used. I loved everything about 6.04 except for the fact that my wireless card was not supported in my laptop. When I built a computer for my senior project in high school last year I made sure to install Ubuntu 6.04 and Beryl to show off the machine. 

4. Windows 98- I used this OS longer than any other. From games to writing school reports I basially lived with 98 for 3 years and didn’t use any other operating system. 

3.  Windows XP- One of the greatest releases of all-time to me. It was the first Windows operating system that had a great slick look and was powerful enough to handle anything at the time. With its built in Internet features it was so simple to connect online. Also with the later release of Windows XP: Media Center Edition it changed the way I watched movies and TV. 

2.  Ubuntu 7.10- This release got everything right! My laptops wireless card was picked up instantly, the installation was fast, and the desktop effects are amazing. I am still not a big fan of the brown and orange look but of course with Linux you can change what ever you want.  Right now I would suggest Ubuntu over Windows for a first time computer user.

1. OS X Leopard- Its only been a week but its been the best week of my computing life! If I was to give a computer to someone who has never used one before it would be Mac running Leopard. Everything is simple and fast. There is no better way to install software than just dragging and dropping an icon into a folder called “Applications”. Need to upload pictures? No problem iPhoto will do it with ease and no looking for drivers online for your camera.  

So what’s your favorite OS of all time? Do you think my list sucks? Do you agree with it? Let me know via a comment here at the bottom of the page. 

One of the best things within in OS X is the dock. Its a great way to keep all of your favorite applications in an organized way right at your finger tips. Sometimes it gets a little crowed on that dock to have all of your programs on there, but with the recent addition of stacks its now easier than ever to get all of your apps on the dock in a great organized way. 

•  Open up the finder
• Click on your hard drive, it should be the first icon under Devices
• Now you should see the Applications folder 
• Drag and drop that folder next to the Downloads and Documents stack.

Now you should have an icon on the dock with an application on it, its going to be organized alphabetically, now click the stack and you will see all of your applications  

Last night I finally received my OS X Leopard in the mail from Amazon. After a quick installation I was running the newest version of OS X without any seeable issues, and the experience so far has been extraordinary! With over 300 new features its hard to name them all but here are the 5 best things about Leopard to me. 

1.  Quick Look- Not sure what that song or video file is? Don’t feel like opening up Quicktime or iTunes?  Just press the spacebar to preview it! I never would of that that this would be a big feature but it serves its purpose well. 
2. VMware Fusion- I have been a big supporter of VMware for a while now and  I can honestly say that this is their best work to date. You can now run your Windows programs, I have to use Live Writer, Notepad( I take XHTML in school) and the Zune software, along side the Apple programs in perfect harmony. You can also have it in full screen on a different space, I will get to that in a minute.
3. Stacks- Not only the stacks here because the new new dock is stunning! I love how all of my downloaded files are in one place and with a click of the mouse I can view them all.  I also like the documents section because I am always editing work for class.
4. Spaces- As  I mentioned before I use spaces to keep my virtual machine in a different section, so with the press of F8 I can easily move between them. I also like to keep a lot of windows open so its nice to be able to separate them into different work spaces. 
5. EVERYTHING! Thats right I love everything so far, subject to change, in OS X Leopard. I  seriously cannot find one thing that I find annoying or just dumb, flip 3d for example in Vista. It seems Apple put there best people on the new operating system. 

Here is a few other things I like.

• Help, its almost impossible not to get the answer you are looking for via help. 
• iTunes, I guess this counts as part of the Leopard experience, renting movies is fun and easy to do. 
• Share Desktop, I can now manage my iMac from my laptop across the house, and I can now tell when someone is using my iMac without my permission :)
• Web Clips are fun and useful to make and use. 

With all of this said I dont think I will be running Windows ever again outside of a virtual machine.  So what’s your favorite things about Leopard? Are there things you hate? Let us know via a comment! 

One of the perks to being an early buyer of most tech products is that you have the opportunity to get the new features when they become available, meaning that if you bought an old Zune like I did then I can, with an upgrade, you can do the same thing that the new ones can, makes sense right? Well apparently Apple didn’t get this memo because in order to get their newest updates for the iPod Touch you are going to have to fork out $20 for a few apps.

Why are they charging us this fee? I would love to know the answer to this, because it is just baffling to me. I upgraded my Touch to 1.1.3 today thinking that I would have all of the new apps and effects but I was wrong, so right now I am in the process of downgrading it back to 1.1.2 and re-adding the jail broken apps back on to there. I was excited to get the new effects like adding web sites to the spring board and being able to rearrange them how ever I wanted but apparently it makes sense to allow iPhone users to do that for free but not us iPod Touch users.

I am sure in the next week or so the new apps and effects will become availably in some form, like the iPod games did, and people won’t have to worry about paying $20 for a few cheap programs.

Apple there is no way in Hell I am paying for these, sorry but it makes no sense. Are you going to pay, have you paid for these updates? Do you think its worth the price? Please let me know via a comment!