Wow! My first blog in just under 4 years!  A LOT has changed in both my life and Jamroom since then, the most recent change being that I purchased a Macbook Pro.  I've always been a PC/Windows user since I first started using computers when I was little, and have a pretty good feel for how things work on it inside and out.  To be honest, I never really liked Mac's while I was in middle and high school - the computer labs always had them, and I found them diffult to use.  So when I got my first laptop for college, I opted for a 17" HP.  What a mistake - in the four years (plus one extra for student teaching) that I was in college, I ended up going through four laptops.  They always crashed or had one problem or another, and yet I continued to get PCs.  I had my last laptop for about two and a half years, which worked decently until about last Christmas, when some part of the OS was corrupted during an "update," and since then, I had to deal with random crashes/rebooting fairly often. Ugh.

So I decided that it was time for a new laptop.  I've had an iPhone since the 3G came out, and really liked how it was setup and how things worked, so I figured I would at least think about getting a Macbook Pro (I always go for top of the line with computers - I figure they'll last longer?). I had a few conversations with Brian (bigguy) about all things Jamroom, and he mentioned a few times about how much he liked his Macbook (Pro?).  He told me he uses his for his main dev machine, and wouldn't go back to a PC.  After hearing this a few times, I decided that I was going to make the leap, and I'm SO glad I did!

I bit the bullet about two weeks ago and ordered a Macbook Pro - about as top of the line as you can get:

• 2.3GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 Processor
• 8GB 1333MHZ DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB
• 512GB Solid State Drive (at Brian's recommendation)
• 8x Double-Layer SuperDrive
• High Resolution Antiglare Wide Screen Display

The final price, with Apple Care and tax came to a bit of $4,000 - a WHOPPER of a purchase, but from what Brian has told me, and I completely trust his expertise and opinion, it's going to last me for a long time!  It arrived about two weeks ago, and I immediately upgraded to OSX Lion, and began transferring files and installing the programs I needed, which took about two days to get everything how I wanted it.  For anyone who needs to transfer a huge amount of data between computers, don't do it over your home network - do it computer-computer by connecting them with an ethernet cable (wish I'd found that out at the beginning...).

Anyways, so I've been using it actively for about a week and a half for everything, and it's pretty amazing.  First off, it's SUPER fast!  I use Eclipse for my IDE, and it had some issues on my old laptop opening (slow) and working with large files - but not any more!  Second, working on it is super efficient, and has increased my productivity.  I love the multitouch mousepad and gestures (as well as Launch Pad and Mission Control) - makes moving between and opening windows/programs a breeze.  Installing apps either from the app store or via download is a breeze as well.  And did I mention battery life? I used to get an hour and a half on my last PC - I now get almost four freakin' hours!!!!!! AWESOME!

I'm obviously still adjusting to some things.  I'm a pretty heavy user of keyboard shortcuts, so using "command" instead of "ctrl" is taking a bit of getting used to, especially when some programs (like Eclipse) have mixed "command" and "ctrl" shortcuts.  For example, on my PC, I'm used to searching in Eclipse via ctrl + H - on a mac, though, command + H hides a window, so the keyboard shortcut is the same as a PC.  But other shortcuts use commad (like "save"), so I typically end up hiding Eclipse when I mean to search.

I also always liked getting a 17" PC because the keyboard had a number pad (and the screen real estate - I like my screen real estate!).  I'm pretty quick with it, and use the "home" and "end" keys a lot.  I definitely miss it on my Macbook Pro, but I'm getting used to it. I've found the shortcuts for "home" and "end" (command + left or right), as well as "delete" (opposite of backspace - fn + delete), but I liked a single key instead of a combo better.  Entering long numbers is a pain now, but overall I guess I can get used to it.

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with it.  At the risk of sound like Steve Jobs, "it just works." (I think that's one of his phrases, right?) I'm really looking forward to developing on it - I must say, I've got a pretty nice suite of software setup on it!  I was always afraid of making the switch, but probably never go back!  It can be done, and I highly recommend it for any JR developers!

Kyle