I liked the Mac Mini so much that I bought a Apple MacBook 13.3
Before I did any “real” work with it, I used BootCamp to partition the hard drive and installed a copy of 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate. It took a couple of months after I bought the MacBook for Apple to release the 64 bit Windows 7 drivers for the wireless network adapter and for the dual-use (both optical and eighth inch stereo) jack, but after installing the drivers the MacBook is a really nice Windows 7 PC. The reason I installed Windows was because all of my clients use some version of it (WinXP, Vista, Windows 7 or Server 2003) and I wanted to be sure I wouldn’t have any problems with remote desktop or other networking issues. If I had been a little more familiar with Mac OS X at the time, I might not have bothered – OS X has an SSH (Secure SHell) and an RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol, Microsoft’s solution for logging on remotely to a PC or server), and it very easily mounts Windows shared network drives. I don’t remember the last time I booted the MacBook into Windows 7, so I should probably do that today and update Windows and the anti-virus software!
Speaking of anti-virus software, I found a nice, free package available for OS X called iAntiVirus from PC Tools (I use it on the Mac Mini as well). So far so good on that front, but then aside from the anti-virus software OS X always asks before making any system changes (Windows Vista and Windows 7 now do this by default as well – probably the single best additional security feature that Microsoft added). Also, I’m very careful where I click, I have my email client set to not show a preview of unopened emails, and I use Google’s Chrome browser whenever possible (some brain damaged web sites require “features” only found in some “other” browsers that will not be named here ;-)
I like the MacBook a lot. I installed OpenOffice for word processing and spreadsheets, GNUCash to handle accounting chores, and Skype for video calling to friends and clients. I installed TunnelBlick, which is the GUI (Graphical User Interface) for OpenVPN for Mac OS X (several of my clients use OpenVPN for secure, remote access), and I installed VirtualBox for when I need to run Windows or Linux in a VM (Virtual Machine) to do some specific task or another. The MacBook makes a great RDP client for logging into Windows servers and I can open a terminal window and run some useful network diagnostic tools or connect to a Linux or Unix server. The “Spaces” feature built into OS X provides seamless virtual desktops which I don’t think I could live without but also can’t explain in the context of this post (if you’re a heavy computer user and don’t use some type of virtual desktop utility, check out the included link to the Wikipedia article ). Yeah, and I also downloaded and installed a game called Avernum, but I don’t get to play it very much.
I ordered my MacBook on November 12, 2009, along with a be.ez 100572 LA robe Sleeve for 13.3-Inch Macbooks (Black/Wasabi)
So, would I buy one today given the same requirements? Maybe; but I’d take a close look at an iPad, which I think would do everything I need in a thinner, lighter package with better battery life, not to mention more geek factor.
