Finally Pro-MacBooked

6 April 07

Six months later than expected, and on the eve of the new Apple Leopards, I am nevertheless a happy owner of the MacBook Pro, and it feels good.

The demise of my Toshiba A70 facilitated getting what I have been wanting for a long while now, an Apple laptop, and great input from other Mac enthusiasts in the Textpattern community pretty much clinched it.

I went with a refurbished deal from Apple France; a 33% discount is not too shabby. All the language and keyboard concerns I originally had are put to rest (as the Textpattern folks said they would be), as I’m happily using English with a French keyboard, with another user account for French writing needs. (I did like the ability to quickly and easily switch keyboard languages in Windows, but I have not found that function yet in Mac…does it exist?)

I’ve decided not to split the drive for Windows use, as there is really no need (work resources helping out here); besides, I’m anxious to move away from proprietary applications to keep my cost overhead down. In that respect, I will do a system split with Linux at some point, but I’m not in a hurry.

I do need local site drafting abilities though, so I’m going with MAMP (since I am already well versed in WAMP) until I have more time for installing those components from scratch (not something I’ve done before)…maybe on the Linux side.

Anyway, I’ll be gradually getting used to the leather of this chair, and enjoying every minute of it. I guess I’ll need some Mac hangouts now to really gain power-user understanding of what I have.

  1. marios marios buttner :: 6 April 07 :: #

    Destry wrote:

    but I have not found that function yet in Mac

    From your Apple menu, select System prefs, and on the Presonal Row, select International. Click on the Input menu menu bar. Click the languages, you need and make sure, that Select previous input Source and select next input Source are showing up under Input menu shortcuts . You should then be able to switch your Input Locales, with ⌥ Space, and ⌥ ⌘ Space.

    I hope, that helps.

  2. Destry Wion :: 6 April 07 :: #

    Thanks very much, marios. I’m certain that shall do the trick.

    Say, how/where did you get those text Mac key symbols? (so much to learn…) Those could prove to be handy.

  3. Jon-Michael :: 6 April 07 :: #

    Congratulations! I got my iMac in January and love it! For OS X software, check out iusethis. Rather than leave a link-laden comment, these are the apps I’d recommend :).

    Here are a few miscellaneous tip’s too:

    * Highlight some text in Safari, hover your mouse over it for a second, then click-and-hold while dragging up (and to your desktop) to create a text clipping.

    * If you highlight a word in most applications, hitting ^⌘d (control+command+d) will define it.

    * To spell check the current textarea or document, hit ⌘;.

    * Check out the /Applications/Utilities/ folder. Apple has some handy stuff in there (color picker esp.).

    * I just bought TextMate, after seeing the light. It’s an amazing editor, but if you’re looking for an open source one, Smultron is excellent alternative.

    Enjoy your Mac!

  4. Destry Wion :: 7 April 07 :: #

    Hi J-M,

    Thanks for the tips, good stuff.

  5. marios :: 11 April 07 :: #

    Destry wrote:

    did you get those text Mac key symbols?

    The Apple specific key symbols do exist as tab triggers in TextMate’s HTML bundle.

    (E.g.: In HTML scope in TexMate, you can type: command and then hit Tab, and it will insert the corresponding HTMl entity.

    There’s two problems so far with this.

    1. Textile will convert it back to the inserted glyph. I think notextile wrapping will do.

    2. Not all of these Glyph will show up on windows platforms.

    Some People use images, to depict these Glyps as a workaround.

    In this article, Alan describes a method how we can hide a set of keybindings behind Ctrl M , as to insert any keyboard specific glyph from any Application, not only TextMate.

    However, I found it a little bit difficult to memorize.

    The former is easier.

    (This comment comes a little late. I have been off for Easter)

  6. Jon-Michael :: 16 April 07 :: #

    Cool marios, didn’t know about the TextMate shortcut.

    If you want to insert the symbol without HTML encoding, enable the menu-character palette System Preferences>International>Input Menu>Show input menu in menu bar. Click the flag in the menu bar>show character palette>Category tab>expand symbols>technical, then drag your character into a textarea or document. Check out the menu bar keyboard viewer too – you can find out what all the ⌥+x keys do.  (⌥ shift k) :)

  7. Destry Wion :: 18 April 07 :: #

    Thanks for recording the info, guys. I’ll have to log the glyph stuff away for later; I’m still struggling with MAMP at the moment.

    I’m completely lost in Mac, and it’s rather annoying, actually. I can’t seem to get anything done.

  8. Jon-Michael :: 18 April 07 :: #

    Just spend a few late nights tinkering, and you’ll get it down! :D There are tons of switching guides out there, but the most useful one for me was Switch 101. It covers the basics to software and hardware.

  9. Destry Wion :: 22 April 07 :: #

    Happy to report things are indeed falling into place as I continue to forge onward.