Week(end) update (with Mac pics)

So its been a few days since my last post. Basically, that whole time I have been either at work (full days plus a much longer drive than I am used to), playing with the new Mac, or doing stuff around the apt.

As far as work is concerned, the the first week went well overall. I now have my new badge, have my parking situation figured out, lasted through a week of training on Guidewire, and have moved my PC to a new training room to prepare for this week's training (this room has normal desks!! :) ). Next week is another week of training, but now on the actual integration work we will be doing for the project. Should be good to get into stuff thats more directly related to our work and get a better idea of what I will be doing.

As far as other life stuff is concerned ... not a whole lot is new. We had our first noticable snow of the year last night / this morning. This weekend I played on the computer and did stuff around the apt. while Em gets ready for one of her two large tests she needs to take to graduate. Tonight we had some great cream of wild rice soup that we have made several times now. I may post the recipe later.

And now for what everyone has been waiting for .... pics/info on the new Mac :-D:

Oh the anticipation!!!!













Its finally here!























The birth of our new baby.














The new setup -->










The two desktops ... (switched left-right from what I was seeing, too lazy to move back)















So far, I have to say I love it. No real problems. Some things of note that I have found so far:

• If it wasn't for me taking pics and reading all the directions, I could have had it up and video conferencing in less than 10 minutes easy.
• We have TOO MANY photos. iPhoto has some cool was to ogranize and view your photos but adding labels and keywords takes forever when you have over 7K. :) But thats my fault, and I am up for the task.
  
• Home/End don't work the same ... still getting used to
• COMMAND (Apple key) + C/X/V for copy/cut/paste ... got used to, will be hard to go back to CMD+...
• Finder windows lack an "UP" button to go up to the parent folder (at least I haven't found it yet) which is annoying.
• Delete won't delete a file in Finder, draggin to the wastebasket is actually kind of fun, but I wish I could hit delete
• Enter to rename a file is different but I have gotten used to it.
  
• iChat is a really good program (assuming you use AIM and/or Jabber only) and with the Chax add-on, its everything I need
• Safari is pretty decent (better than IE) but not perfect. For example, Blogger's interface doesn't come up right. Thus, I am posting this with good old FF. No keychain support but I will survive.
• iPhoto is really cool and was easy to setup so that Em and I could both use the same library with our accounts.
• I can NOT get iTunes to work with 2 users and a single common library. However I have gotten it setup so that both accounts have the same music files, but diff libraries. It will have to do for now. I don't really blame it, it wasn't designed to do it. The people who say they have done it online, must be liars.
• Stickies are cool and work like they should
• Frontrow is nice but I don't know how often I will use it
• Installing apps on a Mac is something to be cherished. 1) Download .dmg file which safari automatically mounts if you say "ok its safe". 2) Drag applition icon over to "Appliations" folder on HD 3) PROFIT! (some have installers, but they usually start up and ask you 2 questions and then basically just do the above steps)
  
• Office 2k4 for Mac (PPC code via Rosetta) works but isn't perfect (crashed twice while printing something for Em ... but since its Mac OS X, only it died and it came right back up)
• divx and flip4mac needed to play movies .. but work fine
• Eclipse runs great (2GB of ram really helps)
• VLC is a pretty nice video player although I don't totally need it now that I have the other codecs installed
• I have downloaded SuperDuper but haven't set it up yet. Maybe later tonight.
• Internal speakers are better than people acted like online

Basically, I have run into only a couple small issues (most of which aren't problems just differences I need to get used to) and have loved everything else. The thing is really fast, clean interfaces for the most part, full of cool apps right from the beginning and is really easy to use. I just wish I had more time to play with it.

Next things up for me are setting up the backup software, putting all of our music into Em's iTunes, copying over the rest of our old data from the external HD, scanning bills/paperwork with the new printer/scanner, and continuing to work on organizing our music and photos. SO MANY PHOTOS!!! I will post more about it after I have done a few more things.