[RE-wrenches] A Wrench's computer

Fri Apr 10 10:56:14 PDT 2009

I also segued to a mac last fall and installed VMWare to bridge the PC experience. Overall, I would recommend the transition.
There is also incentive, if you live in a metro area- to get training at the Apple store- it is $100 for the year and if you can carve out time, you can take 1 lesson a week on a host of topics to get up to speed rather quickly.

I believe in the next 5 years, we will be agnostic on platforms, and we will be primarily web based, as we want everything on the go. It (wireless) will be inexpensive and ubiquitous in larger populaces and my vision for larger mesh networks will cover all of us to connect more readily. It is amazing, Get Smart's shoe phone to where we are today is extraordinary and the innovation will only accelerate..............................
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY

Back to the mac- very robust machine architecture and relatively simple to use and setup anything from wireless networking to installing a printer. Their time machine feature also deserves mentioning- it does incremental backups- meaning, it will take, like a video of your activities and save the activities as they occur. So, if you are working on a proposal, and doing alot of revisions, it will archive them on a time line. If you ever wonder what you where working on, lets say Monday, you can go back in time, and find it. Very slick, as PC's, I believe, don't have this functionality to date.

Lastly, on the backup and if you still have a PC- I would highly suggest subscribing to www.mozy.com for your laptop and office server. Same theorem as above- incremental backups, when you are not working on your machine- to the web. I did this a few months ago- have almost 100GB of data archived there. Did take alot of time (weeks) to upload, but it is all there, in a directory to grab anything when I need it. Lets face it, when we do backups, like at the office, we take either some DVD's or a hard drive, back and forth every week. This eliminates this completely. Also, I found a coupon code for their service- type in the word NEXT into the box before you subscribe and it is $46 a year to back up everything for one machine. The office/server flavored subscription is alot more, but this also frees up your time to focus on your business.

Another great wrench tool list addition!

________________________________
From: Kurt Albershardt <info at es-ee.com>
To: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 7:19:16 AM
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] A Wrench's computer

As yet another long-time PC veteran (after IBM SNA and PDP-11s) with way too much Windows internals experience, I also just purchased my first Mac.  Installed Parallels to support Quickbooks (still no integrated payroll on their Mac version.)

I have a maxed-out MacBook Pro as a desktop replacement but I will say that the integrated graphics (9400M) is quite adequate even for large SketchUp models - so the plain MacBook looks like a heckuva deal given its monoblock case design and low price.  The MagSafe power connector is pure genius.

If you click on the new trackpads with two fingers, you get the right-click context menu all us Windows power users miss.  The other shortcut it took me awhile to find was <command> + <~> which is equivalent to <ctrl> + <F6> in Windows (move to next window in a multiple document interface.)

On 4/10/09 9:56 AM, Larry Crutcher, Starlight Solar wrote:
> Joel,
> After 28 years of business computing dating from my George Morrow CPM machine, I purchased my first Mac, a MackBook Pro, 2.4GHz. After 6 months, I have very mixed feelings about it. I love the battery life and simplicity of features and included programs. Although I am still in a steep learning curve, there are many things that frustrate me daily. NO right click button means you need to plug in a mouse so you can use the many options accessible by a right click. I have my old Sharp laptop PC on the other desk and find that I often scoot my rolling chair to it to quickly accomplish something. Perhaps it is just because it is familiar.
> 
> The MacBook seems rugged, has a fairly bright screen although my Sharp has a sunlight readable, 400 NIT backlight. I am sure once I learn, or just put up with, the intricateness of the Mac, it will be just fine. Here's a really positive note: It has never crashed or locked up...yet. What a feeling!
> 
> Larry Crutcher
> 
> On Apr 10, 2009, at 8:26 AM, Joel Davidson wrote:
> 
>> Wrenches,
>> Some Wrenches include their notebook computer among their most valued tools. My 2001 IBM T23 notebook has served me well in the office and on the road, but it is getting a little long in the tooth. What notebook computer do you all recommend? As always, thank you very much for your valuable advice.
>> Best regards,
>> Joel Davidson
>> _______________________________________________

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