MacBook 5- Software Part 3, Dashboard, Spaces and Time Machine

Dashboard

Dashboard is a non-essential but cool aspect of OS X.  I would equate it to the Sidebar in Vista or Gadgets in Windows 7.  I wouldn't necessarily say that Windows ripped it off from OS X, but it could be likely.  Maybe Google Desktop and maybe Konfabulator? Who knows.

Dashboard is a graphical overlay that is the home to what are called widgets.  Widgets are little HTML/CSS/JavaScript/Objective C programs that perform a function.  Widgets generally only perform a single function, and are just fine hiding in the background not being seen.  These widgets can also interact with currently running programs, such as the notification program Growl.  Some of the default Widgets that are actually useful are:

• A pansy calculator (pictured)
• Weather
• Google Search
• iTunes controller
• Mini Calendar (pictured)
• A time-zone-changeable clock (pictured with Vancouver, no I don't know anyone that lives there)
• Unit converter
• ... and others

Dashboard with Finder

There are many third-party widgets available, since is all the widgets are made of is mostly HTML and CSS, they can be rapidly deployed by web programmers.  The best repository for third-party widgets is probably apples own dashboard widgets site.  About half of my currently-running widgets are third party, because Apple just didn't see the need, my favorite one is iStat Pro.

Installing widgets is fairly easy, once you download the file (which is a .wdgt btw) you'll double click on it and it will simply ask you if you would like to install the widget (pictured below).  Managing widgets is also pretty easy, and reminds me slightly of the iPhone's Mail/Messages interface (pictured below).  You can't delete built-in widgets, but third-parties are destroyed in a breeze.

Install Widget?

Widget Manager

The Dashboard is activated several ways: by a keyboard hotkey, by a mouse button or by visiting a hot corner.  The way that I am currently doing it is by a hotkey, because I don't see much sense in assigning a perfectly good mouse button to waste or using hot corners, they kind of bug me.  Oh, and Widgets is a stupid name.

Hot Corners (Active Screen Corners)

For those of you not familiar, if you simply move your mouse to a pre-defined corner (all four are free to use) you can make OS X do all sorts of cool things.

Hot corners preferences

Note that this is one of two places to edit the hot corners, the other place is in Desktop and Screen Saver > Hot Corners... button

It is not pictured here because I couldn't get a good screenshot, but the options are:

• Exposé All Windows
• Exposé Current Application Windows
• Show the Desktop
• Bring up the Dashboard
• Show Spaces
• Start the Screen Saver
• Disable the Screen Saver
• Put the Display to Sleep

The real problem I have with hot corners is I accidentally activate them constantly and when it does something annoying like sleep the display; it is very easy to disable that setting and not look back.

Spaces

Spaces are okay.  I enabled them a while back, only to find out that I only ever used on space anyway.

Spaces is OS X's solution to a virtual desktop manager.  I was first introduced to virtual desktops in the Windows XP era with the PowerToy called Virtual Desktop Manager.  This PowerToy allowed you up to four separate spaces that had their own start menu, task bar and desktop.

MSVDM

Spaces is similar in that it has its own desktop for different purposes, there are a few things that I am not okay with.  First: Each new space should have its own new dock, or at least the option to make it so. Second: If you have different documents opened by the same program in different spaces, when you cmd-tab to the application it will switch spaces to the one that has the most recently active document for that program.  The cmd-tab should have different selections for the different spaces even if it is the same program, although I understand that might confuse some people who are accustom to the OS X atmosphere of limited possibilities.

Everything else operates how I expect it should.  Exposé only works on the current space.  You are allowed to drag windows to the edges of the screen to switch that window spaces.  In the overview mode you can drag whole spaces around to switch positions of windows, also, you can grab individual windows and move them from space to space (as pictured, where I am dragging a picture of me and the Girl to the lower left space).  I would say that it is a fairly versatile piece of software, but I only use it with two spaces and have a VM is in full screen on one space and everything else is on the other.

Spaces overview, dragging

Now, on to my favorite topic of today...

Time Machine

This program is literally the coolest part about OS X.  Now, I might have said that before about some other feature in OS X, but this time I mean it.

Time Machine is an automatic backup feature that backs up your computer every hour.  The best part is automatic.  I have it set to back up to my Windows Server box (that was a nightmare to get Time Machine to accept an smb share) and it does a beautiful job.  I can only say that I have actually used Time Machine to restore one file once, but it was still a magical experience.  The best part about Time Machine (to me) is that it backs up your entire computer, programs, settings and all.  This allows you to wipe your machine and restore from a Time Machine backup without any extra work.

Since Apple will say this much better than I can, here is what type of backups (incremental) Time Machine does:

Following the initial backup of your entire Mac, Time Machine automatically makes incremental backups every hour, every day, copying just the files that have changed since your last backup. And it does this all in the background, so you can continue working while Time Machine is busy copying your files. Time Machine saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month. -Time Machine explanation

The Time Machine program allows you to restore previous versions of not just files in Finder, but also in other first-party programs like iWork and iLife applications (although they are currently untested by me since I don't use them).  The interface is slick, once launched it hides all other windows and shows you the current Finder window with a cascade of previous versioned Finder windows slowly disappearing into the animation behind it (see picture).

Time Machine: Desktop folder

The screenshot is showing what my desktop looked like on Monday, Feb 1st.  I could easily restore the folder and its contents, which have been deleted, by selecting the files/folders and hitting the Restore button in the bottom right hand portion of the screen.  Off on the right hand side there are white tick marks that run up the side of the screen from the bottom to the top, this will let you select a specific day in history if you want to restore files from a certain point.  In the picture I have my mouse hovered over the Monday, Jan 25th restore date

I know it didn't get much screen time, but Time Machine is probably the greatest thing for regular users that are worried about losing all their kids pictures and baseball game memories, etc.  Windows has something similar as implemented by Shadow Copy but the interface of Time Machine is very slick.  What they need now is an online backup method (maybe as part of MobileMe?) like Mozy or Carbonite, except Apple.

MacBook 4- Software Part 2, Finder and UI

Finder, for all those who are not totally aware, is a core component to Mac OS X.  This makes it a pretty important program.  I would equate it to Explorer in Windows.  It shows the file system and lets you interact with it.  Finder controls the Trash, lets your access remote locations, removable media and built-in hard disk drives.  This can lead to many problems, because if you don't like Finder, you don't like a major aspect of OS X.  I will probably group things in here that don't necessarily belong to Finder, but are still part of the general UI.

Mouse

It's puny.

OS X mouse cursor

Image from Anil's Technica

You can't customize its colors or size without using some third party program, what gives Apple?  Windows has had this option since at least Windows 95!  Oh and it's still super small.

Windows 95 Mouse pointers

Image from GuideBook gallery

Why isn't this option in OS X?  Maybe Apple just wants complete control over their UI, even if it's extremely limiting.

Not being able to change the cursor really isn't that big of a deal, I guess, I just find that a black cursor gets lost on a screen much easier than a white one.  The thing that really drives me nuts is where OS X considers the "point" of the cursor to be.

OS X cursor, red "point"

Instead of the tip of the cursor being the point of the icon, it drops down a few pixels and drops right a few pixels to where the black actually starts.  This is less precise and leads to many, many missed clicks.  Try it, ctrl+scroll up to zoom in and try to accurately click on something, you'll find that the cursor don't provide as much precision as you would have hoped.

Window Management

I'll admit, the Close, Minimize and Maximize (or zoom) buttons are kinda cool, kinda.  The buttons look different if you are hovering over them, or not and the especially great part is that when the document is unsaved, the close button looks differently to represent that.

Window, neutral state

Window, hovered over

Window, neutral but unsaved state

I think they should be on the right side, but that's just me saying that, coming from a Windows world.  The close button works as expected, the minimize works as expected but the maximize (or zoom) button works like a third grader designed it.  For being so obsessed with having a consistent UI, the zoom button basically does the opposite of that.

In Finder it fits to the contents, which makes sense for some folders but definitely not all.  In Safari it tries to fits to the contents, sometimes... it is janky and doesn't work the same for every web site, try Google Maps, it goes nuts... with multiple clicks, for me, it resized the window for a total of four different sizes, none of which filled the entire screen.  PowerPoint didn't resize the window and all.  Firefox actually maximized the window, but upon a second click in made a little box, which was totally unusable.

Mini Firefox

Thankfully someone came up with a mostly-useful and free program called RightZoom to fix this problem.  It makes most of the dumb zoom problems go away and can be customized to only work for certain programs or so that it will work with all programs with exclusions.

Without this extension, all programs and windows are a pain to force them to fill the entire screen.  You can even manually resize windows so that they will go behind the dock... like that was ever a good idea.

iTunes resized behind the dock

Even if windows are maximized so that they fill the entire screen, it is possible and very easy to accidentally move it out of its position, effectively moving part of the visible window off the screen.  This is because the windows edges are not locked to the edges of the screen, like they should be when maximized.

Why is there only one place on a resizable window to actually re-size it?  The bottom right corner, a very annoying place.  Why can't it be whichever side I want to resize, I can just grab that side and resize it?  Can't use the top, can't use the bottom, can't use either of the sides.  Only one measly corner.  In Windows you can resize 8 different sides, the top, the top right, the right, the bottom right, the bottom, the bottom left, the left and the top left.  What happens if that one magical corner flies off the screen because of a resolution change? How convenient Steve, how convenient.

Corner Resize

While I'm looking down in the corner, take a look at the default setting of the scroll bars. Grouped arrows.  I think Apple likes to make their users work as much as possible, by making you move your mouse to where they think the scroll arrows should be, together.  The logic escapes me of why anyone would want this turned on by default.  What I mean is that if I want to go up in a document the natural instinct is to look towards the top of the document to find some sort of control to force the content to scroll upwards.  Not in the world of OS X, they would rather you look to the most unnatural place, the bottom.

Grouped scroll bar arrows

Thankfully it can be turned off in Preferences>Appearance.

Place scroll arrows: Together

Finder

There are a few things I like about how Finder operates.  First, the four main views can be switched to/from very easily.  Either as CMD+1,2,3,4 or by pressing the buttons in the toolbar.  I'm going to show the same folder of pictures in the four different views to display some of their differences.

Icon view

I don't like icon view and almost never use it, mainly because the icons get moved around too easily and don't automatically align to some sort of grid without explicitly telling that specific folder to act that way.  It is nice for looking at pictures, since it shows thumbnails, and you can easily size the icons to different sizes with the slider in the bottom right corner of the window (or the top right when in mini mode).

Icons gone crazy!

This is my downloads folder about two months ago, why are these icons totally disorganized when I never come into this folder, except through stacks?  Oh well, let's clean it up and make it nice and pretty.

Icons are still pretty crazy..

Pictures in Icon view

List view

List view is my view of choice for pretty much every type of file except pictures.  It allows you to quickly see what is in a subdirectory without much commitment; by using with the tree-like arrows next to every folder (as seen by the indentation on images 0031-0038-1) you can drop down a file structure very fast if you know what you're looking for.  Plus, in list view, icons are not spread all over the place however they feel like arranging themselves that day.  In the various columns it shows pertinent information, such as the modified date, the file size and what type of file it is (if you can't tell by the visible extension, which I have turned on quite recently).

Pictures in List view

Column view

Column view was probably the single coolest thing about OS X, until I actually used it.  It looks neat, it looks functional... but the truth is, it really isn't.  It feels slower than any of the other views and doesn't display any useful information like the other views do; small thumbnails, no file size or modified date makes this view virtually useless to me.

Pictures in Columns view

Cover Flow

Since the Preview.app doesn't have an effective way to show an impromptu slideshow, Coverflow is the best you're going to get with OS X.  Coverflow works in Finder the same way it does in iTunes, it shows big ol' pictures of what you're looking at on the top half and a list of the files on the bottom half.   This is useful for quickly finding a file just by scrolling through the folders contents, but most of all I find it just gimmicky without a whole lot of actual practical use.

Pictures in Cover Flow view

Quick Look

The single most useful thing in a file management program I've ever seen.  Want to look at a picture without opening a picture editor or even Preview.app? Hit the space bar and all your dreams will come true.  Pictures and PDF's are the most useful thing to look at, but they work for a myriad of file types: Pictures, PowerPoint presentations, PDF's, Word documents and others.  It's much faster to find out specific information on a folder or file than going to the context menu and hitting "Get Info".  As a bonus, if you want to view it full screen option(alt)+Space will do the trick.

Quicklook on Siblings dog

Gripes

• The Enter (Return) key does not launch a file/application, instead it initiates a file-rename.  CMD+downarrow launches a file/application.  Even though in iTunes, the Enter key starts the playing of a song.
• Most of the time, my other Windows computers don't show up in the shared section on the sidebar until I CMD+K and smb:// to them.
• Trying to find out information on more than one file at a time is kind of a nightmare, see what happens when you select multiple files and click "Get Info".  Why can't I get one window that has the aggregate information contained in it?

Multiple Information windows

• The fact that items are sorted alphabetically no matter what (folder or not) used to really bother me and now not so much.  Why isn't this an option?  I don't want to have to sort by "Kind" every time I want folders on the top, then files. From the ever springing fountain of knowledge that OS X forums bring:

making os x more like windows SHOULDN'T be doable. nor should anyone want it to be. -edX, from this thread.  How rude.

Sort by...

• Icon transparencies shouldn't be treated as if the icon isn't even there.  For example, in the GarageBand picture, you can see that the cursor is well within the bounds of the icon, yet if you decide to click there (not on a tangible part of the icon) you will simply be clicking on the background. Why why why would you ever want this for any reason? WHY? In Windows (XP, Vista and 7 at least) once you enter the boundaries of the icon, you are fair game to click.

GarageBand icon Fail

VLC icon Win

• This might not be part of Finder, but why isn't there a hotkey to lock the computer like Win+L in Windows?  If you are so concerned about security, Apple, why wouldn't that be a first-party solution?  I don't want to download another third-party application to get OS X functioning the way it should be.  Through the depths of the keyboard shortcuts, I managed to get the hotkey set, but it doesn't respond when I press them.  Oh well, more mouse exercise for me.

Hotkey all set up...

Even shows up here, still no dice

There has got to be many other things that bug me about how OS X inefficiently works...  I'm sure I'll complain about them later.

MacBook 3- Software Part 1

I at first got this idea from Lifehacker, that is, to compare something that I know and love with something fairly new. Since they did not cover that much information, I will try to be a little more comprehensive. I do not really want to set up some of the scenarios that I am going to describe, so I am going to lift pictures (with in-explicit permission) and attribute it to them. I have broken this post into parts so it doesn't get too long, although I fear with all the pictures it will end up being quite lengthy.

The Battle

Well, I don't know if I would call it a battle, more like a comparison. This is the opinion of a Windows lover on a brand new OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) installation. Since I have never really used another version of OS X I can't compare it to anything else but Snow Leopard.

Installation

Since the MacBook came with fresh Leopard install and the Snow Leopard DVD in the box, I was forced to do the install all by myself without any experience, if you subtract my Hackintosh days, which didn't last very long since it was a pain in the neck back when Tiger (10.4) was fresh.

After inserting the Snow Leopard DVD it brought up the second picture, which is pretty self-explanatory. From there it was a simple Next, Next, Next button mashing. I left for about two hours, and when I returned it was done so I'm not really sure how long it took. Although the word on the street is that it doesn't take all that long. I was greeted with a happy "we finished installing your OS now you should do some other things" screen. Windows 7 is almost identically easy, except with better colors.

Leopard before Upgrade

Screen after DVD was Inserted

First Install Screen

First stages of Install

Finished Install Screen

The Verdict: A tie. OS X took one click less; Windows 7 looks prettier. I'll claim a draw.

Software Installation

What the weird. I am fairly accustomed to double-clicking an installer file then pressing- Next, I agree, (Choose Location...) Next, Next, Wait.... Finished. This way I know the terms of which I am installing the program, I can deselect certain unwanted features, choose where I want to have the program go and so forth. The over-simplified process of installing a program is too effortless for me and I don't like it. Fortunately for Apple you only install a program once or twice and forget that you had to go through such a mind-numbing installation.   For those of you are not familiar, the process of installing a program consists of dragging an icon into either the Applications folder or a shortcut to the Applications folder. The Firefox example below shows a shortcut to the Applications folder.

There are a few programs that I've found which still use a "normal" installer, for which I am thankful. It shows that there are still at least a few sane people who prefer options over simplicity.

After you (probably) download the program you are looking to install, you'll notice it has an extension of .dmg which is an Apple Disk Image. These are similar to ZIP files, because they allow for compression and encryption. They differ in the fact that when you execute the .dmg file it will "mount" the image instead of extracting it, which essentially adds a drive which contains the contents of whatever is stored inside the .dmg file.

Mounted Flash Player DMG

Since the image is auto-mounted and the contents are auto-opened you are presented with either the installer or more likely just an icon, such as the case with Firefox.

Firefox Install

Honestly, if I had not seen someone else do this before I would be totally confused.  Since the only directions given are a single arrow.  What you need to do is drag the Firefox icon to the Applications folder shortcut like this:

Firefox Step 1

Once the dragging and dropping is finished, a copy dialogue box appears briefly which copies the contents of the .dmg file to your Applications folder.  Like I said there are a few actual installers I have found, Adobe's Flash was one of them.  My guess is that when you need to install something like a plugin or a program that changes system files or anything else that isn't just an application, you will need to have an installer.

Classic Installation

One thing that people seem to be complaining about with Windows Vista and Windows 7 is the UAC (User Account Control), which is the idea that users run without administrative rights unless a program requests access to perform an administrative action, with which you are asked to either click Continue/Yes or type in an administrators password in order to continue the process. If they don't, the program or action will not be executed.

Windows 7 UAC Prompt from ecj

Picture from E-commerce Journal. While doing "administrative" things is OS X, such as installing a program I was greeted with such a prompt. I am not complaining, because good security is in order here. I just find it silly that Mac lovers are attacking Vista/7 for security-based prompts when their operating system does the exact same thing.

OS X UAC?

The best part about installing a program is that since there really isn't a menu which you can cascade through to find the program you just installed you have to use the Spotlight search to execute your program. The other option is to open the Applications folder and find what you are looking for in there... then for quick access you can drag and drop the icon into your dock... which fills up very fast.

The Verdict: Windows 7 is the winner! Easier to customize, easier to find after installation and don't have to mount anything. Not to mention that Windows has an uninstaller utility, what is Apple thinking? Why would I install something then never uninstall it? That's just plain retarded.

The Dock and Multi-tasking

I've been using Windows 7 since the 10th or 11th of January this year (2009), so I am very accustomed to the new taskbar which is probably the greatest idea added to Windows 7. To spoil the end, the Dock is vastly and frustratingly inferior.

The dock is a icon holder that chills at the bottom of your screen (by default, although it can be moved to the right of left sides). It stores not only applications that you launch frequently, but also the applications you have open. If an application is currently running, it will have a little blueish dot below it.

Dock, nothing opened

Dock, hovering over Firefox icon

Dock with Firefox, VLC and Terminal launched

There are several settings associated with the dock which include the Size of the icons when in a rested state; whether or not you want magnification turned on or off when hovering over it and how much that magnification should be; the position on the screen (left, bottom, right); what type of effect you want when minimizing icons to the dock; whether you want minimization to take place into the applications icon or not; turn on or off the animation associated with launching a program; and finally if you want to auto-hide the dock that's an option too (not stated in the preferences but you can also press CMD+Option+D to hide/unhide the dock from any application).

Dock Preferences

The most useful feature of the dock I've found is the thing called Stacks. Basically it is a quick way to access folders and contents within folders. This feature is not very customizable, but it works for the most part.

Stack in Grid view

Stack in Fan view

Stack in List view

Things are fine and dandy if you only have one program open and one window within that program. When you start wanting to multi-task, that is where things become problematic. I would suggest that multi-tasking on OS X is sub-par at best. I'll try to list a few things that drive me nuts about just the Dock and multi-tasking.

I have three Firefox windows open; I want to switch from window to window. Let's go click on the dock..Which is the most logical place to go since that's what manages my programs and windows, right? Wrong!

If I currently have Firefox launched and I click on the Firefox dock icon in attempts to access another Firefox window hidden behind the currently visible one, this click will get me nowhere. This click is in vain. What is my next reaction? Minimize the current window to get to the one behind it. Inefficient, since now when I want to get back to the first window I have to come down to the dock again to find my minimized window, but this time it's in a different place since the dock does not group icons (minimized and/or maximized) next to anything its related to.

Minimized Firefox icons with VLC between

For whatever reason the minimized icons are put in a separate section of the dock: between the Trash and my Stacks. Not grouped with their original Firefox icon, not even grouped with each other, since it allowed VLC to butt between them.

Next, another experiment- lets right-click on the dock icon. Since right-click requires two fingers or a special section of the trackpad dedicated to just right-clicking, I will ctrl+click the Firefox icon, which is a lot of work if I am trying to quickly switch between windows. This brings up this fantastic little menu which shows the <title> of the page so I can select the window I want. Yay, my heart jumps a little bit because I accomplished my task, even if it took me more clicks that I was willing to sacrifice.

ctrl+click on dock icon menu

Another idea, Exposé! There are three modes of Exposé, All windows, Application windows and Show Desktop which are all accessed through the keyboard or partially through the trackpad.

Exposé settings in Preferences

So, I want to see my entire collection of windows.  Okay, fn+F9 or fn+F10 shows me this gory mess, but at least they are in lines and have titles:

Exposé All Windows

Exposé Application windows

So that's going to cost me pulling my hand off the mouse and pressing fn with on hand and F9/F10 with the other. Inefficient, again, a terribly flawed idea designed by Apple when it comes to multi-tasking. Thankfully the trackpad four finger swipe down will open the Exposé for all windows, it saves me moving my hands around a lot but it still looks like complete trash when I have more than one application open.

Since I am only a user of Snow Leopard, I am not sure if this next part is new or not. The only reason why I know this is because I saw it as a tutorial on a website (meaning the idea is not very intuitive). To activate Exposé for just one application you can go down to the dock and hold-click for about a half second the application icon. Whew, with mouse gestures I am finally able to switch between windows within an application! It only takes me a half second every time I want to do it. Inefficient again! Especially since it is making me click. I sure am being forced to click/tap a whole bunch of buttons in order to get something very easy done.

The only other option left, which I found on accident by pure dumb luck, cmd+` keyboard combination.  This switches blindly between windows in a seemingly random order.

Now let's try to accomplish the same thing in Windows 7:

Windows 7 Taskbar; Firefox 3 windows

Wow, that was intuitive, effective, simple, clean and not to mention pretty.

There is one more treat, in case you are willing to sacrifice a click. The jumplists, when right-clicked they spring up a list of places to go such as folders or things to do such as launch a specific game from Steam.

Windows 7 Jumplist- Explorer

Windows 7 Jumplist- Steam

The Verdict: Windows 7 wins all the way to the bank. If 7 "stole" the idea from Apple, I'm okay with that because they dramatically improved the idea. The dock is clean eye candy but not very functional at all.

MacBook 2- Internal Tech Specs

What Lies Beneath

I have tried to lay these sections out similar to how Apple lays out their Tech Specs, so it should be easy to follow.

Communications

• 802.11n Wireless card-  I am glad to see more and more computers coming installing with n wireless cards.  I've had a draft-n router in my house for 18 months or so and have not been able to take full advantage of it, since the drivers didn't work properly on my last one.  The wireless transfer speeds are incredible, and even rival some 10/100 Ethernet speeds.
• Bluetooth 2.1 EDR-  Thank you iPhone for not supporting file transfers via Bluetooth.  And I couldn't get any other computer to find it, so this couldn't be tested.  Oh well, I never use it anyway.
• 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet- Ditto for the wireless n card, I am glad to see this actually being used for notebooks.  Granted, this is a premium notebook so I would only expect it to have premium features.  Wired transfer speeds between me and a complimentary gigabit-connected Windows Server are blazing fast.  Exactly what I would expect.

Wireless Transfer

Gigabit transfer

Audio

• Stereo Speakers- I am not an audiophile by any means, but I like good and loud sounds.  Especially music.  I don't know all the ups and downs of terminology when it comes to speakers, but these are nice speakers for a laptop.  Music sounds awesome for coming out of invisible holes beneath the monitor, where the speakers are.
• Built-in microphone- Meh, its a microphone.  It works.  Hardly use it, but it works.
• 3.5mm headphones/microphone jack-  As I said in the first hardware-related post, they work.  What else could you ask for?  I personally would prefer to have the microphone and headphones separated into two different jacks, but I never have used a 3.5mm microphone anyway.

Display

I couldn’t decide whether to include this in the internal or external portion of my personal review since I would say half is internal and half is external.  Look where it ended up.

13.3" LED-backlit glossy screen

I couldn't have asked for a better screen (except maybe in a different size).  I am accustomed to a glossy screen, and actually very much like it.  I believe it makes the blacks darker and the colors more vibrant. I hear that since the 13" got the MacBook Pro title they have given inherited a better screen from the MBP family.  This does not surprise me, all of the colors are gorgeous and things truly look better on this screen than any laptop I've been on recently.  The LED-Backlit portion is impressive and effective, I'm glad that the screen is sucking less of my precious battery than it used to, and the screen looks very evenly lit.

Screen

Update: I have recently placed my laptop next to another MacBook 13" (the unibody before it was dubbed "Pro") and my screen is very noticeably better.  Viewing angle, colors, blacks and whites all look significantly better on mine.  We loaded one of the Aurora backgrounds that comes with Leopard/Snow Leopard on both of the machines at the same time; it looked almost like a different picture because the colors on his screen looked washed out.  Don't get me wrong though, his screen looked fantastic and he was perfectly satisfied with it.  You could only tell the difference if you were 1) Looking for it. 2) Had them side by side.

1280x800 native resolution

It is kind of a sad story, but my last laptop had a 15" screen and had the same resolution.  For such a small screen, it is a fine resolution.  If it got any larger, I think it would get to be hard to see some of the icons, and I am by no means old.

Ambient light sensor

This could technically be part of the display since it controls the displays brightness.  The sensor is a fantastic idea, but not as useful as I would like it to be.  Since my gripe is with the software and not the hardware, I'll leave it for another time.  For now, it's a good idea and I am glad that it is there.

iSight

640x480 is okay.  I don't have a real use for an iSight because I don't do a lot of video chatting right now.  It looks like a regular cell phone camera took the shot.  Colors are mostly terrible, but it's better than not having anything at all.  I am no camera connesuir so I don't know how many megapixels this is or if you even measure "webcams" in megapixels.  I heard that the the camera is capable of shooting 1280x1024 but the software dumbs it down, but oh well, I don't use it anyway.

Ambient Sensor, iSight and indicator light

PhotoBooth

Graphics and Video

nVidia GeForce 9400M

What a grand selection!  When I heard that Apple in late 2008 was going to be putting nVidia graphic cards into their new MacBooks is nudged me a little closer to wanting one.  Finally a laptop worth having.  It isn't as good as my desktop graphics card or even my old laptops graphics card, but it is something, and isn't really that bad.  I wouldn't have settled for anything non-nVidia, sorry Intel and ATI.  Since OS X isn't notorious for having real games, I have not really had the chance to test it, but I certainly have not had any video-related lagging while going about my daily work.  Since I am a hardware person, everything has to be perfect.  A discreet video card in a laptop isn't really all that important, but just think if I actually wanted to use it, then I can.  It connected it to the 62-63" HDTV in my house and it pushed that with native 1920x1080 resolution just fine.  No complaints about the video card at all.  The picture is in the Processor and Memory section.

Processor and Memory

When someone sits down and starts using a computer, besides the screen and the input devices, I believe people notice the processor speeds and amounts of RAM installed.  It might not be a cognitive recognition, but still recognized.  The processor is the overall speed of the computer how quickly "thinking-intense" tasks are performed by the applications, such as computing formulas.  It is literally the brains of the system.

RAM is where temporary information is stored for fast access.  So when you open a program, it is loaded in to RAM, and probably stays there until you close the program.  The amount of RAM you have decides how many programs you can have open at a time, how well those programs will perform and how well at multi-tasking the computer is.  You could compare the amount of RAM you have to the number of hands you have.  The more hands you have, the more things you can actively work on and the more things you can handle at the same time without setting anything down.  If we had eight hands, we could get a lot more done... That's if we were any good at multi-tasking, like Operating Systems are.

About This Mac

Hardware overview

This is where the griping will begin, with the most important specs of the computer.  This might be my own fault, but I got the default 13" configuration because I didn't want to get robbed by the Apple store and their high-priced upgrades.  To bump the processor up (2.26 to 2.53), you have to jump to the other configuration of the MacBook and that was at least $300. No thanks.  Ditto for the ram, in order to get two more gigabytes of ram, you'd need to fork over $100 in upgrade fees.  I will note that the upgraded configuration of the 13" also already has 4 gigs of ram and a larger (250 GB) hard drive.

2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Even for an entry level laptop this is slow.  Sorry netbook lovers, but 2.26 GHz is just not enough of a powerhouse for me.  This is almost the slowest processor that Apple offers their OS X loving customers.  The White MacBook (at the time of writing) has a 2.13 GHz processor and the Mac mini has a 2.0 GHz.  Especially while waking up from sleep and booting for the first time I notice huge hang times, which I blame squarely on the processor.  For regular and every day tasks like cruising the internet, listening to music and editing pictures in Picasa, it's fine though.  Running VMWare Fusion because Word for Mac is terrible beyond belief really makes the processors lack of oomph really shine.

2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3

Hardware-wise, 2 GB is probably the perfect amount.  It lets me get things done and it being DDR3 (at 1066 MHz) I know it is very fast.  My real complaint I have with 2 GB of RAM is that it seems to be eaten up by the OS very quickly.  I won't rant about it now, I'll wait for a more appropriate time, since I am strictly talking about the hardware here.

Logic Board, inc. Video and Processor

Back of Logic Board + RAM

Storage:

160GB 5400 RPM Hitachi 2.5" SATA Hard Drive

This is a bit of a soft spot for me because the hard drive in my first MacBook went kaput after just three days.  Thankfully I live near a few authorized Apple Retailers and even an Apple Store.  The whole story will be posted later with pictures, but the Apple Store took my "old" MacBook Pro and swapped me straight up for a new one.  Good thing I didn't upgrade my configuration at all, or else they wouldn't have been able to do even that.  Lost a few screenshots, but nothing I couldn't take again later.

Anyway, to the topic at hand.  I am not your typical computer user, 160GB hard drive in a laptop, for me, is almost un-necessarily large.  I could not possibly imagine what anyone would be doing with 160GB of space on a laptop.  For me, a laptop is something that you use "on the go" and not something that you would ever store files on.  Laptops are much more likely to break down or be stolen than a desktop and therefore should not be trusted for safe file storage.

I use Dropbox to keep my files in sync across my computers, I use a free account with 2.5GB of space available to me.  Music is manually copied over (using a synchronization program or by hand) from my main machine and ditto for Pictures.  Installation files, DVD and CD images, patches and most of everything else is stored on my desktop which has a much larger capacity and are significantly cheaper per gigabyte than laptop hard drives, not to mention faster.  If I need anything, I will copy it across the network or just mount the file across the network.

Hard Drive

SMS, Sudden Motion Sensor

This is somewhat related to the hard drive, so why not include it here?  The sudden motion sensor is an accelerometer-based sensor that can detect which way the laptop is sitting.  I believe it is called the SMS because when you suddenly pick up or drop the computer it detects it is moving fast; which sends a message to the hard drive that it needs to put its head away so it doesn't damage the spinning platters if it drops too violently.  I have quickly picked up the computer and heard the hard drive head putting itself into a resting place, which makes a click sound.  It can be used for gimmicks as well, like LiquidMac.

LiquidMac- Flat surface

LiquidMac- Tilted

8x slot loading "SuperDrive", DVD±RW/DL and CD-RW

I didn't think that I would like a slot-loading drive when I first got this guy.  My opinions went from stand-offish to neutral.  It essentially does the same thing as a regular DVD drive, except there isn't a tray that comes out, whoop-de-do.  It makes a LOT more noise than I have ever heard any DVD drive make when it is preparing the disc to be ready and when the system is booting.  While spinned up, the sounds are not that noticeable.  Despite what I said before, I actually did burn a few CD's for a co-worker, all music CD's and they burned fairly quickly through iTunes without any hitches.  I'll give it a 9/10 because I didn't find anything to complain about.

SD Card slot

Works just fine, even with SDHC.  Fast transfer rates; can't complain about having an SD built right in.  Sorry previous MacBook owners.

Battery

I recognize that my previous laptops battery really wasn't that good.  I knew that before I bought it, since I had used it extensively (purchased it from the place I worked at, a retail computer store).  I didn't mind, since almost all of the places that I use my laptop at, there is a plug right next to where I sit, so nbd.  Apple claims that this 10.95v 60Wh battery should have "up to 7 hours of wireless productivity" which as most people have come to find out isn't entirely accurate but it sure is much longer than I am used to, so I can't complain.  I've seen usually 4-5 hours without plugging in, but I have my screen brightness settings a little bit higher than standard.  It isn't user replaceable, which is fine, because they claim a long, full life.

The built-in battery in the new 13-, 15-, and 17-inch MacBook Pro is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at up to 1000 full charge and discharge cycles. -Apple

Also, AppleCare is about $250 which extends the warranty from one year to three.  To replace the battery is a $129 fix, so I might as well just buy the AppleCare... right?

Battery

Inside the box

Since this section doesn’t really belong anywhere, I’ve decided to include it here.

I bought my MacBook online (Apple Store), one day before Snow Leopard came out and I was ensured that Snow Leopard was going to be included.  Well, it was thankfully, I just had to install it.  What was included:

• MacBook Pro 13"
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 CPU Drop-in DVD, Full install or Upgrade I am not sure, but I assume you can do both
• Little pamphlet about Snow Leopard labaled "Mac OS X Snow Leopard-  Installation, features and refinements"
• AC Power Cord Extension and Power brick
• Black box containing:
  • Users manual labeled "Everything Mac"
  • White box containing: Software EULA, Leopard Install DVD and Application Install DVD all labeled "Everything Else"
  • Black Microfiber rag
  • Two white Apple stickers (same as the ones you get with an  iPod)

Shipping Box

MacBook Out of the Box

Unboxing

What else is in there