Why am I disappointed? Well, it’s the OS I’m disappointed with, I was kinda expecting a cut-down version of OS X to be installed on it so you could install OS X software on it. People keep commenting on how Flash isn’t on the iPad – well it wasn’t on my MacBook or Dell desktop, but I could install it if I wanted it and was expecting to be able to do the same thing with Apples new product but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Before it was revealed, it was rumoured Apple was going to release a Tablet computer and the iPad is most definitely not a Tablet – Tablets are similar but have a ‘proper’ operating system. What Apple have done with the iPad is invent a product that is a cross-between an e-Book reader and a Netbook.

Just like what they did with the App-Store and the iPhone, it makes good business sense to do what they’ve done as something similar to the App-Store is on it’s way for use with the iPad.

The one thing that people seem to be getting confused about is exactly what use the iPad is. It is designed for people who browse the internet, read news websites, go on to social network sites, watch videos online, go online to quickly look something up, updating their blogs, checking their emails, reading e-books and many other use

What it’s not primarily for, is for creating websites, writing essays, creating large documents, photo editing, video editing or anything else that you really need a proper keyboard and mouse to do! I’m not saying you can’t do these things on the iPad (maybe when the right software comes along you can) – but it wont be as quick and easy to do than if you had a laptop with a proper keyboard and scratchpad.

e-Book readers haven’t really taken off yet and nobody really knows what to do with a proper full-size Table computer, Apple’s iPad is likely to either revolutionise this or put a stop to it once and for all.

Will the iPad to to e-books and Netbooks what the iPod did to MP3 players? Only time will tell.

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Not only do you get the handy numeric keypad, but several additional keys such as DELETE, PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN.

If like me you have a MacBook then having an external keyboard to the built in one means you can position your MacBook in a more comfortable viewing position and if you have an external monitor that is larger than the screen on your MacBook then it also makes sense to have this item.

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You can use it to share your internet connection with other computers (both Mac’s and PC’s).  It has a single USB port on the back so you can connect either a compatible USB printer or external hard disk drive which can then be shared across your network.  If you want to connect more than one USB device to the Base Station then simply plug in a USB hub and connect up your devices.

I have two external USB hard disk drives that I have plugged in to a USB hub which is in turn connected to the USB port on my Base Station.  One of the hard drives I use to store my downloads on and the other I let OS X Snow Leopard use backup my MacBook with using Time Machine.

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It has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface which means there’s no messing about with HTML or any other website programming language, you simple create a new page and insert text and images just like you would do in Apple Pages or Microsoft Word.  What you see on screen is exactly how your website will look like.

If you take a look at my other website (www.ketrin.co.uk) you will see that you can easily put in photo albums and even videos or podcasts if you wanted!

Included with iWeb ’09 are plenty of templates that you can use to easily and quickly change the look of your website.  There are also plenty of websites that you can get additional templates from, some are free and other you have to pay a nominal fee for.

If you’re a PC user and have ever used FrontPage before then you’ll see that it is the same sort of thing only a lot simpler and easier to use!

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Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) is the first technical certification you can take that’s part of Apples Training & Certification program.

One of the main reasons for buying an Apple MacBook was that as we are in the middle of a recession, it is possible that I could lose my job and end up competing with lots of other people looking for roles in IT Support.  To stand out from the crowd I decided that getting some Apple Mac OS skills under my belt would help me achieve this.

I could of spend around £1000 on a 3 day course and then go and sit the exam but then I would be what I call a ‘paper ACSP’ as I wouldn’t actually have a Mac.  Alternatively I could buy a MacBook and a training book and learn by reading and using the MacBook as my main computer to gain hands on experience and it is this second option that I chose.

The book that I have is called Mac OS X Support Essentials by Kevin M. White.  With some books you get a CD with a digital version of the book on it, in this book you don’t, however you can access an online version of the book for a limited period so you can make copies of diagrams that you want to print out and pin up on your wall to help you remember things.

I’ve already upgraded, installed and re-installed both Leopard and Snow Leopard so the 1st couple of chapters of the book have been quite easy.  I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book as I know bugger-all about Macs so will be learning something all the way!!!

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There is just one issue, if you are using a standard VGA type monitor (like I am) then you will need to purchase a lead/adaptor as they don’t have VGA ports on them.  I’m not sure if older Macs have them, but the newer ones certainly don’t.  The port that the MacBooks do have is a Mini Display Port which Apple themselves have created.  Having said that, the design details for this port are out in the public domain (or so I believe) so any manufacturer could use it if they wish.

As the monitor I used to use with my PC laptop has a standard VGA connection I have had to shell out £20 (yes really that much) for a 4inch lead/adaptor so I connect it up.

Within a matter of seconds of turning on my monitor and plugging it in to my MacBook my monitor began displaying an image without me having to do anything!   On having a quick look in System Preferences I found the Displays option in the Hardware section.  I then set the displays to be mirrored and hey presto I was all set up!!

I only wanted to see the image on my external monitor and not on the screen of my MacBook.  To achieve this was quite simple, I just closed the lid on my MacBook.

“Won’t that put the MacBook in to sleep mode?” I hear you cry!   Yes it will.  But if like me you have a USB keyboard/mouse plugged in to your MacBook you can wake the MacBook up by pressing a key etc. and you will then only have the display shown on the external monitor as the MacBook is that clever to realise what you are trying to achieve and wont display anything on the MacBook screen itself.

Don’t believe me?  Then try it yourself and open up your MacBook and you’ll see that the screen remains blank until you press a key on the MacBooks built in keyboard.

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As with any upgrade, the first thing I did was to make sure I had a recent backup of all my data.  Thankfully OS X Snow Leopard comes with Time Capsule, so no problem there.

Installing the RAM is a very simple process, all you have to do is remove the battery and then unscrew 8 screws that hold the large panel underneath the MacBook in place.  You are then greeted with the optical drive, the main system board and more importantly – the RAM slots…

After removing the two 1GB 1067 DDR3 RAM sticks of RAM that come with the laptop, I inserted the 2 2GB sticks of RAM – all you then have to do is replace the panel, put back the battery and power on the laptop.

OS X Snow Leopard then loaded and worked without any problems – RAM upgrade successful!  Adding extra RAM can help when using multiple applications at the same time and particularly comes in useful if you are using VM Ware type tools such as Parallels for Mac.

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After using OS X on my MacBook for over a week now I have noticed that it is significantly faster than a similar spec’d Windows laptop.

My MacBook is also a lot quieter than any PC laptop I have ever used.  I assumed that this was due to the hardware, but after playing around with Boot Camp (this allows you to dual boot your Mac computer with Windows), I noticed that my laptop became noisy when Windows XP was installed.

Windows always seems to be up to something so you constantly hear either the CPU fan spinning up and down or the hard disk drive ticking away.  I have Windows Vista Ultimate Edition on my Dell desktop computer and one of the first things I did was to turn the indexing off, as the constant clicking of the hard disk drive was so annoying.  I foolishly thought this was due to the hardware, but my experience with my new Mac has taught me that this is not necessarily the case.

So why is XP/Vista so noisy? God knows, you could argue that it’s because it’s indexing everything on the hard drive to make finding things quicker – Mac OS X does this and I’ve never heard such a quiet laptop for a long while!

The out-of-the-box experience is better than most Windows based computers as pretty much everything I could ever need was there waiting for me to start using it!   I can play DVD’s, edit/create movies and even organize my photos using a fantastic application called iPhoto (what a great piece of software) and even automatically backup my whole computer using Time Machine without spending another penny.

The only software I did purchase was Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and the only reason I did this is because whether we like it or not, Microsoft Office is the most likely office suite to find installed on a computer in the business world and it’s this world that I work in.

The time it takes to power up my MacBook and let the Operating System finish loading is about the same time as the PC laptops I am used the using.

However, once OS X has loaded you can start using it.  On a Windows computer you can’t as it has to load things like anti-spyware and anti-virus as well as umpteen different programs that sit on the taskbar and it’s these programs that mean you have to wait longer on a PC to start using it than on a Mac.

Even copying data to and from a USB hard drive seems quicker on a Mac!  OS X just seems to use the hardware better than Operating Systems like Windows XP and Vista (although I must say Vista is quicker at this than XP is).

So in a nutshell, I have to say that there is a significant difference between Windows and that of the Mac OS – without a doubt in my mind, the Mac OS is far, far better and with the new updated ‘Snow Leopard’ version of OS X promising even faster performance on a Mac, I can’t wait for the disk to land on my doormat!

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I even stuck one on the back of the desktop unit! In other words it’s nothing more than a very expensive toy!

To this day (including now that I own one), I would say they are nothing more than an over-priced status symbol. Everything you can do on a Mac you can do on an IBM Compatible PC such as Dell or HP/Compaq – and at a lot cheaper price to boot! (As time passes and I get to know more about Macs this current thinking may change)!

So why have I brought one myself then???

Simple, there are 2 types of hardcore computer users, one lot are IBM Compatible PC users who hate anything Mac and don’t want anything to do with them and the other lot are Mac users who despise anything Microsoft based and think Macs are the best things ever!

As a IBM compatible PC guy I have spotted a niche in the market and I’m going to learn about Mac’s from and IT Technical Support point of view as well as ‘proper’ PCs!

I looked at the price of a course and the cost of a laptop and saw that a proper course was more than a laptop cost so I decided to get a laptop and learn things that way.

Within 24 hours of having my new MacBook I have already upgraded the hard disk drive by swapping it out for the large 320GB SATA Hard Disk Drive that I removed from the USB hard disk drive that I had recently purchased for backing up my work on.

I used Time Machine to backup all my files at the click of ONE button (not millions like you would have to on a Windows based machine), I then re-installed OS X (learnt pretty quickly how to partition a drive) and then restored from my Time Machine backup.

After re-doing the OS Updates I was then fully back up and running without any issues what-so-ever.

Upgrading the hard disk was a much simpler and easier task than that of a Windows based PC so I’m starting to see some of the advantages of using Macs…

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Despite only having a Mac for literally a matter of days, I have no choice but to take back everything I have ever said about Mac’s.  I’ve tried my hardest to make it go wrong, I’ve tried to pick fault with it – yet whatever application/feature I try (and no matter what I do) I end up being impressed.

I have to say purchasing a Mac has got to have been one of the best ideas I have ever had!  Simple, complex, versatile, technical, non-technical, easy, fast and fantastic! These are just some of the words that can describe Apple Mac’s!  Simple to use, as complex as you want it to be, versatile because right out of the box it can do almost anything! Technical enough for the IT Professionals yet so easy to use anyone can quickly start using all their features!

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