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View Full Version : Returning to the Mac: 1 Year Later


Vincent Ferrari
12-10-2008, 12:00 AM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://skepteye.com/2008/12/08/macbook-the-final-scorecard/' target='_blank'>http://skepteye.com/2008/12/08/macb...inal-scorecard/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"After being entrenched in Microsoft Windows territory for many years, due to professional necessity and excellent experiences with the IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad product line, I decided to take a leap back into the Mac fold in February of this year. At the time I was still sporting a nearly four year old ThinkPad as my personal laptop, and while this was an absolute workhorse system, it was time for something fresh. On February 5, I walked into my local Apple Store and purchased a 13&Prime; white MacBook, essentially the base model, for $1099. Certainly no beast with its low-end specs (by Mac standards), and only an 80GB hard drive, I was simply looking for a decent machine to take with me on trips, enjoy while not working, and primarily use as a way to "learn" Mac OS again."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1228855119.usr18053.jpg" border="1" /></p><p>Dave is a friend of mine who made the trip back to the Mac, and after a bit of a rough start he seems pretty happy with his Whitebook.&nbsp; I would say his experiences match most returning Mac users' experiences pretty well.&nbsp; A little bumpy at first (even with the occasional hardware failure) but after that, it's all smooth sailing.&nbsp; Mostly.&nbsp; Check out his article, though.&nbsp; Very well-written and well-thought out.</p>

crimsonsky
12-10-2008, 12:37 AM
Nice read and I mostly agree with his evaluation. However one thing struck me as - well, just stupid. What's up with the problem ejecting a disc? Old way - drag to the trash can. New and easy way - press the eject button. Did I miss something....?

DJJ
12-10-2008, 04:08 AM
Nice read and I mostly agree with his evaluation. However one thing struck me as - well, just stupid. What's up with the problem ejecting a disc? Old way - drag to the trash can. New and easy way - press the eject button. Did I miss something....?

Thanks for the kind words.

The eject button is ostensibly for ejecting, but has a success rate of less than 75% on my machine. Dragging to the trash is equally smooth. Luckily, I can usually find a 12 step key-press combo that works, or a series of shutdown/reboot/remove the battery scenarios.

:)

crimsonsky
12-10-2008, 02:50 PM
Thanks for the kind words.

The eject button is ostensibly for ejecting, but has a success rate of less than 75% on my machine. Dragging to the trash is equally smooth. Luckily, I can usually find a 12 step key-press combo that works, or a series of shutdown/reboot/remove the battery scenarios.

:)

Sorry for the "kind words..." but I was actually shocked to read that, although I see in the comments of your original article that someone else was experiencing the same issue. I have 3 Macs here including a 5 year old Powerbook G4 and that's one problem I've never had. My Macbook is a bit older than yours (I've had mine about 1.5 years) and the keyboard has been replaced and the battery (both under warranty) but the eject button has worked like a champ, although honestly I don't use the CD/DVD drive on any of my machines very often.

doogald
12-10-2008, 05:09 PM
Hmm, for me sometimes the eject key doesn't work with a press, but if I hold it down it always seems to. But I just usually click the eject icon next to the DVD in the Finder sidebar to eject disks, and that always works.

I hate to suggest it, but you might want to consider another trip to the Genius Bar . . .

DJJ
12-10-2008, 08:35 PM
Sorry for the "kind words..." but I was actually shocked to read that, although I see in the comments of your original article that someone else was experiencing the same issue. I have 3 Macs here including a 5 year old Powerbook G4 and that's one problem I've never had. My Macbook is a bit older than yours (I've had mine about 1.5 years) and the keyboard has been replaced and the battery (both under warranty) but the eject button has worked like a champ, although honestly I don't use the CD/DVD drive on any of my machines very often.

I actually was thanking for kind words, "Nice read," etc. I was not offended in the least.

Interestingly, I found a fun reference to this in this month's MacWorld thanks to a commenter on my post. In the 25th Anniversary retrospective, in a section titled "6 Things Apple Needs to do Right Now" there is this:

Don't Just Tell Me You Can't Eject the Media: Tell me which damned file is in use by which application. Either that, or give me a name, an address, and an appointment so I can slap the OS engineer responsible for this behavior, for a minimum of 40 minutes.

Seems this issue doesn't happen to all of us, but when it does it is quite maddening!

Vincent Ferrari
12-10-2008, 09:13 PM
Hmm, for me sometimes the eject key doesn't work with a press, but if I hold it down it always seems to. But I just usually click the eject icon next to the DVD in the Finder sidebar to eject disks, and that always works.

I hate to suggest it, but you might want to consider another trip to the Genius Bar . . .

Actually, after an update to Tiger, the eject button functionality changed due to people accidentally shooting discs out. They made the required action a press and hold rather than a tap. For a lot of people it was a very jarring experience ;-)

DJJ
12-13-2008, 02:21 AM
I think I also should point out, as an addendum to my review and after seeing V make a few comments about the topic, my MacBook had no problem sleeping and waking like a champ. Worked properly every time I closed the lid and reopened, amazingly.