I've had my PowerBook G4 12-inch lapop for two weeks now. Here are some of my experiences so far with it. I hope this doesn't come across as any sort of advertisement or rabid fanaticism. Up until now I've been a PC guy and my desktop machine is an Athlon based self-built PC running Debian Linux.

Stuff I like

This first thing is probably not as much mac related but I do like the freedom of the wireless network. It's liberating to check email, chat, surf anywhere in the house although for "real" work I still sit down at my desktop. The desktop is just more customized to my liking for when I want to code.

I've played with iMovie and came away really impressed. The capture process is completely painless since it detects scene changes and starts a new clip at each one. I have some video footage of our family trip to Europe and to capture it all we basically I just had to hook up the camera via firewire and watch it while iMovie did its capture thing. Apple really opened up the video editing process for everyone by automating the most tedious part of it. The editing process moves quickly along to sequencing clips, adding titles, and adding transitions.

I also found HandBrake which automates the ripping and transcoding of DVDs to Divx ( is that how the kids spell it today? ). I took my Three Amigos DVD and made an 831MB Divx file to view on the road.

Rendezvous works great, especially on a cramped 12 inch display, for quickly switching between visible windows. The sleep and wakeup process are also very responsive and quick.

Stuff that annoys me

iMail works great and seems a decent enough mail client but I can't get it to accept the self-signed SSL certifcate for my mail server. Apparently, there are ways to get it to accept it but none are very straightforward. I just want a check box that says "accept this certificate." This may be enough to get me to put Mozilla Thunderbird on here.

Safari is a nice browser too but I was just annoyed that short of editing the user.css file there was no simple way to block ads. I found PithHelmet , which works great but is shareware. The cheapskate ( especially after remembering how much I paid for the laptop in me ) is pushing me to install Firefox with the AdBlock extension.

Finally, the case gets uncomfortable warm after about 20 minutes of usage so most of the time I end up using a coffetable or even the floorto rest the laptop on. But the machine itself is very quiet, no noisy fans to annoy everyone in the room.

At the annual retreat for work, one of the sessions involved presenting about organizations we found interesting or good models. Finally, all my knowledge and time spent on BigSoccer and MLSNet paid off. Not all of us were tagged to present, and I felt really bad for eveyone else who actually spent some time researching and preparing for their presentations. I just came in ready to wing it, with some main points I'd thought of on the drive in, and somehow managed to impress the judges enoough to come in first. Here are some of the points I made, as best as I can remember.

I chose Major League Soccer (MLS) as the organization I presented on, not because they are doing very important work or working on some great cause. But they are trying to succeed at something - selling soccer to Americans - in the face of many challenges. First off, the team sports marketplace in the US is crowded with the NFL, MLB, NBA, and - until the lockout - the NHL commanding most sport's fans attention. Second, they are trying to sell a sport which is seen as foreign, unexciting, unmanly by many sports fans and sports reporters. And finally, a number of sports leagues, some better backed and marketed have failed recently. The XFL, backed by Vince McMahon, failed after only one season. Even the WUSA, founded on the heels and hubris of the USA Women's World Cup soccer team, was forced to fold after 3 seasons.

There's England, Australia, and ... oh yeah YouForgotPoland.com - Politics Makes You Stupid