Macintosh

[Groundhog]

I heard that Leopard is going to be released either late this year or early 2007. which stinks b/c if i get a new mac, i'm going to want to get it with leopard, but obviously i'm going to need it before exam time rolls around. ah, what to do, what to do...

If your exams come really late, you can get a mac and usually you can get the new OS with a recent proof of purchase.

[Groundhog]

Well, it depends when it comes out. This assumes that you buy the computer pretty soon before it comes out. Usually you can get a free copy if you got a mac within the last 3 months or so. I don't know if they'll be doing this for sure.

[1908]

I already know the widgets are cool....

If you haven't checked them out already, Yahoo have some pretty good widgets.  They're available for both Windows and Mac.

http://widgets.yahoo.com/

[Guess who's coming to dinner?!?]

The tech guy at my job just fave me an articel which says that it won't be out until early november.  I think if you buy your laptop in mid-august you will cool in terms of the free update on the OS.  But in my experience it isn't freee-it costs about $20.

[OingoBoingo]

I already know the widgets are cool....

If you haven't checked them out already, Yahoo have some pretty good widgets.  They're available for both Windows and Mac.

http://widgets.yahoo.com/

Konfabulator (now yahoo widgets) can be frustrating to use at times. Eh, to me it still seems like secondhand imitation of the Dashboard concept even though the former predates the latter. Too often I have though about checking the weather, pressing F8 and finding my Konspose screen blank. Widgets do not always behave correctly. Your milaege may vary.

I cannot see why someone with Tiger on a Mac would bother. Hopefully Vista does not screw this one up.

Oingo

[AZWildcat]

I should also mention that Word for the Mac allows audio notes, a la One Note.  With the MBP/Powerbook's built in mic, it's VERY handy in LS!

[The Spanish Teacher]

AZWildcat - i've been reading a lot about high pitch whining sound coming out of the new Macs.  have you had any problems with this?
here is a link of a bunhc of disgruntled macbook pro purchasers talking about their noise problems:

http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/macbookpro/topic4057.html

i hope by the time i buy mine the problem will be fixed.

also - did you buy yours at a store or throught the website? how long after your ordered (if your ordered it) did it take to arrive?

[ramman]

i've been following the whine issue too. i got my mbp this monday (i ordered it online last thurs using the educational discount) I think I have the whine, but it's intermittent and doesn't stay on for long. Plus, i can only hear when it's perfectly quiet in my room. It's not too loud, but it's a little on the high pitched side, which can be annoying for some people. It's really easy to get rid of though. You just need to launch either the photobooth app or a "mirror" widget for dashboard that turns on the iSight camera, and the noise goes away. Also, someone wrote a program called QuietMBP that gets rid of it by lightly utilizing the second core of the cpu (i think). All in all, it seems to be a softwrae fixable issue and hopefully apple will take care of it soon so there won't be a need to use a ghetto workaround.

Honestly, if I hadn't come across it on the internet, i would have thought it was the fan sound and ignored it.

Outside of that, I love my mbp. It's fast and beautiful.

[The Spanish Teacher]

thanks for the quick reply, mojman.

i'm thinking about ordering my mbp in july or august - i shouldn't have any problems receiving it by the beginning of school (late august), right?

[AZWildcat]

AZWildcat - i've been reading a lot about high pitch whining sound coming out of the new Macs.  have you had any problems with this?
here is a link of a bunhc of disgruntled macbook pro purchasers talking about their noise problems:

http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/macbookpro/topic4057.html

i hope by the time i buy mine the problem will be fixed.

also - did you buy yours at a store or throught the website? how long after your ordered (if your ordered it) did it take to arrive?

Mine "has it" but it sounds like more of an issue than it really is.  As someone else mentioned, it has to be perfectly quiet to hear it.  When I'm in the library, the fans from my neighbors PC laptops create enough noise to block it out.  And there are software programs to take care of it.  Frankly, I would bet that this is more an Intel problem than an Apple problem; you just don't hear them on the PCs because they make so much more noise.