MacBook - I'm in love

It's been a while since my last post. I've travelled half way around the world to visit family and at the same time pick up my new baby - my MacBook - and I'm in love.

I bought a white MacBook, 2 GB processor, 60GB hard drive, 512k RAM. I also bought 2GB RAM from OmniTechnologies on eBay which I installed myself. The installation was a piece of cake except that I had to push those babies in there HARDer than I though I needed to. It's not an obvious "feel" when you have them seated in far enough. But second try was fine and now this thing SCREAMS.

What do I like about it?

1. The feel of the keyboard. It's a perfect feel as far as I'm concerned. The sound is also nice, no loud clicking noises. I was actually afraid that I'd find the return key too far away but I hit it correctly every time so no problem there. This new type of key is a huge improvement over the old iBooks. A+
2. The glossy screen. I wasn't sure about this change since I'd never worked with a glossy screen portable before. I'd never even seen one in action. But I really really like it! I haven't had any problems with glare and I've used this thing outside already. The colors are gorgeous. Also the resolution of 1280 x 800 is a perfect combination of visibility and ease on the eyes. Even though this scree size is smaller than my old iBook, and smaller in height than my ugly Dell work portable, what I can actually SEE is more and brighter and more defined. A+
3. Speed. I haven't yet used this machine at work with my huge Excel files, but I'm sure, with what I've seen so far, that it will blow away my Dell piece of, well, you know. I must warn you though that you have to upgrade the RAM from 512 if you want to get anywhere. With 2GB this thing is FAST. With 512 I tried to watch a ripped DVD movie which was saved on my hard drive (using VLC) and it just couldn't show a smooth video. Now with 2GB of course it's fine. This has to do with no dedicated video RAM in this machine, but as long as you pump up the standard RAM memory it's not a problem. I'm not really a gamer so I don't have any info on whether it will run video intensive games with this much RAM installed. A
   
4. The usual Apple small touches that make the experience great. Like the magnetic power connection. Like the larger and easier to use trackpad. Like the snap close of the lid. Like the look and feel of the power button. It's just all so NICE. A+

I haven't mentioned anything about the ability to also run Windows here because although I've bought Parallels software, I haven't installed it yet, and I haven't installed Bootcamp (which I probably won't do). Once I get time to install Parallels I'll write some comments about that. It was necessary for me to get this software in order to have a hope in hell of using this machine at work (need to run some Windows only software daily).

So here I am in California, visiting family, but all the time wanting to spend more time with my new love. I'm anti-social. I'm a jerk sitting in front of a computer while my parents are talking to me. What can I say? I'm in love.