KipBond.com

Well... I've finally done it. I've been thinking about it for a while, and finally the time was right. Yes, dear readers, I've gone to the dark side: I bought an iBook. A few things finally persuaded me: I support 2 Macs at work, Mac OS X is Unix (FreeBSD) based, I wanted to get a small laptop so I could work away from my desk, and Amazon.com had a $100 rebate on a 12" iBook G4.

I didn't have upgrade options buying from Amazon - it came stock with 256MB (hard-wired) RAM, an AirPort (wireless) NIC, and no (NO) bluetooth. The memory was no problem, I upgraded the RAM (to 1.25GB) myself for less than half the price. I found where someone added an internal bluetooth module, but it looks like quite a PITA (pain in the butt).

I plan on upgrading (for $10) to the new Mac OS X release (Tiger). I can't believe they charge for OS updates, though. It'd be like Windows charging for SP2 for Windows XP -- and from what I hear, SP2 has just about as much new functionality as the Tiger release. Oh well, we'll see. I'll be getting it shortly.

So far, I really like two things about the OS: 1) it's Unix-based, so I can open a terminal and hack away, and 2) the magnifying Dock is really cool. Other than that, I've really missed having a 2nd mouse (touchpad) button. Having to hold the Option key down to simulate a right-click is just retarded. I mean, come on Apple, surely people are computer savvy enough to handle a 2nd mouse button these days?

Other than that, I'm not really WOW'd by the OS. Now, if I had gone to this from Windows 2000, then, yeah, I'd be impressed. But, Windows XP seems just as user-friendly (more or less in some areas) as OS X. Oh well, overall I like it so far... and I'm sure it'll grow on me the more I use it.