mashby

After having a lot of fun installing software and getting familiar with all the new toys included in the Mac OS over the past few weeks, it’s time to begin getting down to the nitty gritty of what my new laptop is primarily for — work. So I have begun focusing on what core applications I need in my average day. The cornerstone of business day is e-mail, so I figured I better try a few applications to see which e-mail client would work best for how I work.

Since I use IMAP as my mail protocol, trying out different programs isn’t a big deal. Techinically speaking, I could have multiple e-mail clients configured on the same machine and use them interchangeably, but I was looking for “one to rule them all.” There are a ton of e-mail applications for the Mac, but I narrowed the choices down to three: Apple Mail, Entourage and Thunderbird.

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For the past few weeks, I’ve been waxing poetic about how wonderful my new MacBook is and how fond I am of it. Since I began using a laptops 12 years ago, I can say without a doubt that my new laptop is by far the best laptop I’ve ever owned. I know, I know, I sound like a lovelorn sap who can’t stop talking about his new girlfriend. We’ve all had friends that just won’t shut up about their latest infatuation and I know that, at least here in my weblog, I’m modeling that same behavior. So in an effort to redeem myself, my dear friends, I’ll now share with you the things that I don’t like about the MacBook.

Wi-Fi Drops The Network When On Battery
As long as the laptop is powered by an outlet, the Wi-Fi connection is solid as a rock. Unfortunately, the same thing can’t be said when running on the battery. From time-to-time, the wireless network connection drops without warning. After working for awhile, I’ll find that an instant message, a web page, or an e-mail that I’m trying to send won’t work. Looking up in the menu bar, the network icon is greyed out, showing that there is no connection.

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One of the things that I’ve played with over the years has been Bluetooth. In fact, I jumped on the ill fated Sony Ericsson T608 back in 2004 because it was the first Bluetooth (BT) phone on the Sprint network. I’ve had a collection of headsets, adapters and devices that all worked with BT, but I haven’t had that great of an experience using the technology itself.

It’s really been a comedy of errors on all fronts. The T608 was a totally crap phone and the BT headset was more pain than gain. BT HotSyncing with my Palm didn’t make much sense given the fact that if I’m THAT close to the computer, I might as well sync it with the cradle and charge it at the same time. I even tried surfing via BT, but it was just too slow. About the only thing I haven’t tried was using a BT headset with my computer, since my BT adapters on my Windows machines didn’t support the feature. That changed recently though when I purchased my MacBook and began playing with iChat and Skype.

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This morning, as I was reading my RSS feeds, I came across an article about a Microsoft venerability and how the patch was released on Tuesday. As my mind was mulling over this article and few errant thoughts floated around. “That’s right Windows Updates are always on Tuesday. Oh yeah, and Apple’s updates are on Wednesday aren’t they?” It’s at that point that I realised that today is Friday and I didn’t receive any updates. Something must be wrong.

Regardless of the operating system, computers aren’t perfect and problems arise from time-to-time. So I wasn’t alarmed by the fact that my new MacBook hadn’t alerted me to the fact that there were updates this past Wednesday. Microsoft Update gives me trouble all the time. I have several machines that I manage that still require manual updates, even though I have them set to auto-update. It frustrates me to know end, but that’s just how it works, or doesn’t as the case may be.

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