One week with my first Mac

It’s been a week since I used my first Mac. Despite the narrow learning curve, I can say right now that I really like this little computer and I can’t wait to get rid of my old big PC tower.

The computer I bought is a refurbished Mac Mini, with a 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, a 80GB hard disk, built-in wireless, Ethernet connector, four USB ports, an Apple Remote controller, an internal speaker, and dual-layer DVD burner (known as a “SuperDrive” in the Mac world). Added bonus: even though my receipt says my Mac Mini is supposed to have 512MB of RAM, it came with 2GB!

The computer is really small, the reason why I gave it the name Kobako (小箱), a Japanese word literally meaning “small box.” Not only it looks great, but it’s also really silent. My ears thanked me when I turned off my big PC tower, with its three fans spinning almost round-the-clock, for an entire day.

Using the Mac is also great. Everything seems to go smoothly. There’s no lockup, freezes… You don’t even see the windows being drawn — something I see constantly on both my work and home computers since they’re so slow. You click an application’s icon and it opens in seconds. Booting the Mac Mini takes just around 10 seconds.

As perfect as it may sounds, to say that it never crashes would be lying. However, the few problems I had for a while seemed to be caused by the Google Desktop application I’ve installed. When I deleted it, everything was going fine again.

A few differences. Being a heavy keyboard user, I had to get used to a whole new set of shortcuts. I’m using a “Windows” keyboard with my Mac, so not only the name of some keys are not the same for that system, but the layout is a bit modified from the usual Mac keyboards. For example, the keys at the left of my spacebar are “Control,” “Meta” (or “Windows”), and “Alt.” On a Mac, “Alt” is called “Option” and “Meta” is “Command.” Also, the Command and Option keys on a Mac keyboard are swapped, meaning that PC keyboards have Control, Command, and Option, while Mac keyboards have Control, Option, and Command.

Even though the “Control” key has the same name in the world of Macintosh, most of the keyboard shortcuts involving that key on a PC will use the Command key instead of a Mac. For example, instead of using Control+C to copy, I need to press Command+C. Other keyboard shortcuts are quite different from what I’ve been used to. Instead of just pressing “Alt” to get the top menus, I need to press Control+F2. The menu commands don’t have an underlined letter for keyboard shortcuts — instead, typing a few letters of the command’s name will get you there for you to press Return to select it.

As for the operating system, Mac OS X shows a pretty face. Though, this doesn’t mean there’s no hacking that can be done (for one that likes to do it like me, that is). It’s “under layer” is Darwin, an operating system deviated a lot from BSD. Unix, Linux, and BSD users won’t get too lost when fiddling around the system within the terminal.

Mac OS X also has a lot of features borrowed from NextSTEP, another OS which its development was led by Steve Jobs, when he was not working for Apple. The most notable feature are the “packages.” For instance, every application is a package. From the Finder (the “Windows Explorer,” the “Nautilus,” or the “Konqueror” of the Mac), an application looks like a simple file. However, it is a folder, and doing a right-click on it (yes, Mac works with right-clicks too) reveals that package’s content. This makes it really easy to install software. Usually, you download the software, open it, and just drag an icon in the Applications folder. That’s it. It’s install and ready to run. To get rid of it, just throw it in the Trash.

Also, all the software that came with the Mac Mini, like iLife, Mail, the Safari browser, all work great by themselves and with each other. I can’t believe how fast the browser is. In fact, I never was able to browse that fast before.

The only con I have with my Mac Mini: the line-in audio jack. A microphone will not work in there, as I thought. The line-in audio jack is made to accept a sound input that has a certain voltage. For example, from a DVD player, or any other electronic equipment. For a microphone, the sound needs to be “pre-amplified.” I bought a USB audio device online which I’ll get Friday, so I can use my microphone and talk with my friends via Skype.

I glad with my purchase. Even though it’s a bit expensive, and I never thought I’d use a Mac one day, it was well worth it. My only regret is not having waiting to buy a MacBook laptop instead. That will probably be next!

There’s a reason why Mac users never shut the f**k up. It’s because it just works! (Besides, I think the writer of that linked page is now using a Mac too.)