I have some good news, and I have some bad news. Let’s start with the bad news. I caught a cold last week, and I’m still trying to recover. Instead of staying up late writing blog posts, I’ve been falling asleep before midnight, blowing my nose continuously, and coughing in the general direction of wherever my mouth happens to be pointed.
The good news? I finally made the switch from PC to Mac. I’m typing this post on my shiny, new 15-inch MacBook Pro, and it’s awesome. I’ve had it for less than a week, and I’ve already decided that I’m not going back. In addition to looking way better than any PC laptop I’ve ever used, everything I’ve tried on my Mac has just worked. My mom (the most technologically challenged person in the world) could probably even use it.
Anyway, here are some of my favorite personal finance articles from the past couple of weeks that I’ve read while trying not to cough on my new MacBook Pro.
- The Government’s Student Bailout: Federal Loan Changes at Poorer Than You
- Financial Guru Review: Suze Orman at Green Panda Treehouse
- Moving into a New House at Spilling Buckets
- Does religion make you better with money? at Living Almost Large
- How To Be A Millionaire? Start Thinking Like One! at The Digerati Life
- Avoiding Spending Is Not The Same As Saving Money at The Simple Dollar
- Common Car-Dealer Tricks at Get Rich Slowly
Also, be sure to check out some of the carnivals from the past couple of weeks. My article on the average student debt by state in the United States was featured as an Editor’s Pick in the Carnival of Personal Finance.
- Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by Living Almost Large
- Festival of Frugality hosted by Stupid Cents
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Can you explain some of the advances of a macbook? Cause I only think it sucks because everyone uses windows, so nothing is compatible for the Mac.
I’m a PC. The Mac is a shiny toy. I hate the little things you can’t do on a Mac. Like instantly line up icons on your desktop, right-click without having an external mouse or hitting the extra key, play most video games, finance software, etc. I have an iBook with OS X 10.3 and I want to run over it with my SUV. The battery is already dead and I missed the recall to replace it. I have 3 PCs, 1 Mac, an Apple IIc, and 1 Linux box. I’d say the Linux box would be my second favorite OS, with Mac as third.
Hooray! Welcome to Mac!! You can line up icons on your desktop under “view” in Finder, or you can set your preferences so that icons snap to the grid when they’re put on your desktop.
Video games: true. Having a Mac has saved me countless hours
I have had this MacBook for two years and the battery still works, and the charge holds longer than on laptops my PC friends are using.
(I don’t typically need to right-click, as I know a zillion keyboard shortcuts and just use those.)
Congrats on your new Mac. I have had a MacBook for a couple years now and I won’t go back either. I am saving for a MacBook Pro. I bet you love it. Enjoy your new toy!
@Stefan: It’s true that most of the world still uses PCs, but it’s possible to run Windows on Macs now if you really need it. The biggest advantage of using a Mac is that stuff just works. This typically isn’t the case with Windows and don’t even get me started on Linux. Aesthetically, it’s hard to find a PC laptop that looks as good as a Mac. Fewer problems + better design = more pleasurable user experience.
A common argument is that Macs are ridiculously overpriced for the hardware you get, and it was true for a long time. However, this is not really the case anymore. While Macs are still slightly more expensive than their PC counterparts, talk some people who have switched, and I bet they’ll tell you it was worth the extra cost.
@Broke Wall Streeter: All of the things you hate have been addressed with the lastest revisions of the MacBook line. With the multitouch trackpad, you can right-click by tapping with two fingers (as well as a bunch of other cool stuff like scroll, zoom, pan, and rotate with gestures). As far as battery life is concerned, it’s hard, if not impossible, to find a PC laptop that comes with a battery that lasts as long as the latest MacBook Pro batteries.
Congrats on the new Mac! I hope you feel better soon.
Congratulations on the Mac.
The hardware of that pro is very sexy.
But don’t say that you will never go back.
Have you tried Windows 7?
Have you tried doing an alt+tab on a Mac with 5 different browser windows open? It won’t show each one individually, it’ll show that you have safari open.
How about seeing what you have open including minimized windows? I still haven’t found that.
And what happens when you want to make a finder window the size of the screen? When I press the plus button it doesn’t maximize it just gets a little bit bigger. Double clicking the top bar will minimize it..
And why isn’t there a nice scrollable list of installed applications accessible from desktop?
Why can’t I move the top bar? That thing looks very 1980s sitting across the top.
That’s just my beef with my Mac.
Never say never about Windows or Linux.
If you command-tilda, it will toggle between open browser windows. But why use lots of windows when you can use tabs? (Shift-command-brackets flip forward and backwards through tabs in Safari.)
There is also a keyboard shortcut way to show all open windows at once, but I don’t use it, so I’m not sure what it is.
If you manually make a Finder window the size of your screen, they will automatically open that size when you re-open them later. Clicking in the green circle will make them smaller, then clicking again will make them full-size again.
You can put a list of applications on the desktop, if you want one. I find it’s easier just to keep the apps I use frequently on the dock. The rest I’ll go through the HD to find if I need them, though that’s not very often.
What “top bar” are you trying to move?
@Faran: Nope, haven’t tried Windows 7, but I definitely will. I do still have a Windows/Linux machine around for testing purposes.
Alt+tab? Have you ever used Exposé? I find it way more user friendly than alt+tab on any OS.
Scrollable list of installed applications? (cringe) The computer geek in me says that this is the best way to find applications. Launch Spotlight (command+spacebar) and start typing the first few letters of the application. Way faster than scrolling through a list of every application you have installed on your machine.
Well seriously though, Apple decided to release their new laptops for a reasonable price, how could you resist? They make things work and they make them look slick. I am personally a Windows guy, probably will always be…even though I put my toobar at the top of the desktop and I got Rocketdock so that it looks like mac… uhhh…good buy, hope you like it. If you are getting a new laptop and you just want something that works…best option!
Congrats, PC’s are primed for self-destruct mode after 2 years, regardless of brand or price. Their solution? – Reboot.
Welcome to the Mac world. You certainly won’t be going back.
Congratulations! We are so proud of you!!
I’ve used a Mac recently. It’s certainly quite cool and a good machine to use, I have to say that I wasn’t glued to it, hehe.
Till then,
Jean
I know a few people that are computer illiterate and made the switch and still are computer illiterate but worse, I had to them how operate basic functions…
Congrats on switching to mac but how’s it going now? Are you missing few things of Windows?
Congrats on switching to mac but how’s it going now? ?????
I hope the MAC is going really well and you would learned the tricks and shortcuts to use it. Please write a post about that…