Review: The iBook/AirPort/OS X experience

anjtc - 07:42am Oct 11, 2005 PST

I started a thread in August noting that I had never used Mac OS X, a laptop or wireless, and was considering jumping in with all three. I don’t know if Adam will consider this frivolous, but my request for advice spawned a lot of comments, so I thought I might post a follow-up about my experiences. Perhaps another switcher will find some of this info useful.

http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2672

iBook
I got the 12” iBook, as so many recommended, and not the 14” as I originally planned. And it turned out to be good advice — the 12” is an excellent combination of portability and usability. I’ve never used the larger, faster version, so I can’t say exactly how the speed compares, but it seems reasonably snappy.

Upgrades
I upgraded to a 60 gig HD at the apple store, and later added 512MB Samsung RAM from 1-800-4MEMORY. The Samsung memory cost me about $65, including shipping. I do wish I had gone for the 80 Gb HD, though, since it would give me a little more breathing room now that I’ve loaded my music collection on there.

Peripherals
I went to CompUSA and bought a Mad Dog Multimedia FW/USB2 enclosure for the NTFS-formatted 3.5” drive I was using to store MP3s and whatnot. It mounted no problem and worked fine. I took everything off of it, reformatted it to HFS extended w/journaling, and copied everything back. No problems to report.

Wireless
The Airport Express Base Station works great. I wish it had a wired Ethernet port, so I could add my B&W G3, but no biggie. It really is quite nice to be able to work on your iBook while sitting on the couch, laying in bed, etc. I haven’t tried streaming tunes to my stereo yet, but I’m sure at some point I’ll get around to it. About the only point of confusion came when I first activated it — it showed two networks available, and I didn’t know which was mine. But that was easily resolved. Also, I’m color blind, and I wish Apple would use means other than colored lights to indicate status.

Peripherals
My current peripherals work with the iBook just fine. I just plugged in my big ol’ ViewSonic CRT monitor (using the supplied adapter), my Logitech mouse, my speaker minijack and the G3’s USB keyboard, and I was good to go. I am also happy to report that the monitor-spanning hack worked beautifully.

Networking
Another success. Connecting the iBook to my B&W G3 was pretty simple. I bought a $15 crossover cable from OfficeMax, plugged it into both, turned on the G3’s file sharing, and that was about it.

Mac OS
So far, my experience with Mac OS X has been positive. There are some inconsistencies in the interface, though. For example, I use Spotlight, then arrow down to the item I want — why can’t I hit CTRL-R, and reveal that item in the finder?
I bought “Take Control of Customizing Tiger.” Great work — I highly recommend it.

Games
I tried out some older games on it – Starcraft, and the original Unreal – and they seemed fine. Quake I didn’t quite look right, but I didn’t haven’t had time to investigate it.

Web Browsing
Firefox is buggier than the windows version. It’s crashed several times on me. Most disappointingly, the current version crashes when I try to search bookmarks. (I normally do this quite a bit, because of a great trick I learned in Windows Firefox: Go to a bunch of different deal sites (DealNews, Dealazon, Ben’s Wallet, etc) and subscribe to all their RSS feeds. Then, if you’re looking for something in particular, open the bookmark manager and search through all the headlines at once for good deals.) Opera works, though.

Other software
So far I’ve installed Adium w/Growler, Eudora, DragThing, Little Snitch and Psuedoanacron. I also downloaded Quicksilver, though I’ve been trying to give the Finder a chance before I really use it.
The only thing I really miss from the PC is Exact Audio Copy. It is by leaps and bounds the best ripper out there, and it’s free. It works under Virtual PC, but is painfully, painfully slow.
I also somewhat miss Google’s Picasa. In some ways I like it a little better than iPhoto, but maybe that’s just because it’s what I’m used to.
iTunes is great. My only complaint is that it really should adopt a “tagging” approach to genres, as opposed to the single-genre label it uses now. What about a Ry Cooder tune from the movie “Crossroads”? It’s blues, it’s an instrumental, and it’s a soundtrack. Those aren’t exclusive categories! Also, if you tell iTunes to organize your MP3s, you’re going to have a problem if there are any supplemental materials — photos, ripping logs, m3u playlists, etc — you want kept with them. iTunes won’t copy those.
Apple should give you the choice of either the full iWork suite, or Garageband.

Security
This is the remaining area that I haven’t really paid as much attention to as I should. For example:

Since I use the iBook around the home, I don’t have it set up to require a password to log in. I guess that means I am the “root” user (or does it?) Is that a problem?

Also, I am only vaguely aware of what a “Firewall” is. Is this something I should set up? My Airport Express is connected to a cable modem, but I’m not controlling the iBook remotely or anything like that.