Those Crazy Google People!

As usual, Google comes out with an April Fool's joke every year. This year its centered around Gmail, Google's web e-mail service. Basically, its advertising a new feature where you can send your e-mails and change the time that they were sent, to make it look like you sent it days, weeks, or even years ago. My favorite part of the whole thing are the testimonials to the right. Particularly, this quote:

"I used to be an honest person; but now I don't have to be. It's just so much easier this way. I've gained a lot of productivity by not having to think about doing the 'right' thing."

Todd J., Investment Banker

Here's the link to check it out yourself:

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

It's a Zoo Out There!

Yesterday we had the opportunity to take the kids to the Maryland Zoo of Baltimore. The weather turned out great and we had a really fun time. It was a first not only for Audrey and Liam, but for me too, as I've never been to the Baltimore Zoo. Its one of the few times that I absolutely love our Canon Powershot due to its ability to zoom up to 432mm (that's optical zoom, too). Thanks to the great zoom range, we snagged some really good shots of the animals. Below are some of the photos we took.

Baltimore Zoo 2008

Easter in Western PA 2008

This Easter we decided to pack up the whole family and travel out to the western part of the state to visit my parents for Easter, and to allow them the chance to meet Liam. After a wonderful trip up in which both kids were amazingly behaved and content, we finally made it to our destinate. And then came the snow. And then went the snow. Its hard to believe that the Saturday morning of our visit came with about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground. Enough snow for Audrey to get her first (and only, probably) chance to sled ride this year. Later that day, all of the snow was melted and replaced with sunshine to the point where we were outside blowing bubbles in my parents back yard. The weekend concluded with a magnificent dinner prepared by Carol and some Easter egg coloring for Audrey. Special thanks to our friends Chris and Lindsay Ramage, who, as always, provided us with food and shelter for the trip. Check out the album below for some highlight photos of our trip.

Easter 2008

What can you do with Windows XP and Windows 98?

How about make a song? This video plays a song using only the sounds found in both windows 98 and windows XP.

American Idol for the Newbie

My wife and I have been watching American Idol since its first season. We enjoy the show for its simple entertainment value: a singing competition. Not that we're the best critics of how to sing, but we know what we like. Over the years of watching, I think I've come to a good idea on how to break down the show for the newcomer. Here we go:

The series first begins with about 2 or 3 weeks of interviews and ridiculous auditions by idiots who just want screen time. Somehow, among the thousands who audition, Randy, Paula, and Simon (the show judges and contestant critics) find people who can actually sing. This section is probably the most entertaining for most people, since there are so many weirdos who get air-time, it makes to be a sort of Jerry Springer feeling of superiority over the nuts who try out. Clearly, this section is popular because of its humorous slant, and less of the actual singing.

The next section is another competition in Hollywood with the judges still weeding out more people to get down to about 24 contestants. These 24 are pretty good singers, but I'm sure that, for the sake of entertainment value, they allow a few nuts to get through even from here. These people can usually sing just fair, but have serious personality or other flaws which keep them from getting far in the competition.

The next section is about eliminating people week by week. They start with 24 singers and they go to the "final 12". These people are usually performing live on a stage in front of a live audience and the judges. However, in this stage of the competition, the judges are now only critics, and America (read: teenage girls) vote for their favorites, with the singers with the least votes getting eliminated. Let's break down the roles of the critics, since this is the most interesting aspect of the show, in my opinion:

Randy is a producer, former musician and some other stuff. He's usually trademarked by calling people "dog" and using terms such as "pitchy", "pitch problems", and "yo-yo-yo!" His judgments on the contestants are usually on their vocal control, but sometimes his "isms" take over and he's really hard to understand. In most cases, he's pretty positive.

Paula is a former singer and choreographer who had her own pop career in the 90s. Her judgments hold no value for anything. She pretty much justs wastes time telling people how they have good spirits and how much she likes their personalities. Most of the time people become dumber listening to her talk. Nevertheless, she's the one ace that every singer can bet on, since she lacks any spine to say anything that would be remotely negative. I'm quite positive that she's worthless on the show as anything other than a trademark at this point.

Simon Cowell is the opposite of Paula. He's the person who actually makes any sense, tells it like it is, and makes enemies in the process. He's known usually for using words such as "Appallingly awful", "Cabaret singer", "No relevance", etc. He's really the only judge that most of the singers care about impressing, because he's the judge that 1. speaks coherent English (unlike Randy), 2.) speaks coherent English (unlike Paula).

Throughout the show, these three critics battle with each other and also with Ryan Seacrest, the absolute shortest show host I've ever seen. Ryan is known for picking fights with Simon to stir up the crowd or defend the battered singer who just went through Simon's critique.

Once the show gets down to the final 12, they make the "big" hollywood stage, where they perform in front of huge audiences. The final 12 makes the American Idol tour after the season is over, despite anyone's elimination. In this case, the next 12 weeks are pretty much the same process of 1 person eliminated each show by "america" voting.

Somewhere, near the end of the season, there is a huge controversy, as one of the contestants who clearly has amazing talent and should wipe the floor with everybody else gets voted off unexpectedly. This stirs things up among everybody, and then we go from there to the final decent contestant.

Well, that's American Idol in the nutshell. Please pray for me.

Dear Windows Vista...

Dear Windows Vista,

We've been together for over a year now and it has been quite an interesting relationship. Since day one you've done your little song and dance. You've bragged about your new features and improvements to me. You've shown me that you can run as reliably as the other guy. I was almost impressed.

Then one day you decided that you couldn't live with some of my friends. You scoffed at my printer when I just wanted him to work with us both. You told me that you'd not ever plan on being friends with some of my favorite applications that the OS in my previous relationship got along with so well.

You've also decided to nag me constantly when all I wanted to do was my normal routine. You are so paranoid about the simplest of security issues. It's practically all you think about. Then there was the day that you let me down completely. I was attempting to help some people at work with their networking problems. You did all that you could to confuse me and complicate everything. You haven't costed me my job, but I'm thinking that if things continue with you, my reputation at work might be jeopardized.

You are so demanding. You want the best computers and you require so much more than anyone else. You are already getting ready for major therapy for a bunch of issues. Rumor has it that the therapy could make you worse.

It is therefore sad that I have to end this relationship. I gave you months to change. I waited for you to get along and I tried to get used to your idiosyncrasies but to no avail. Therefore, I've decided that its time for us to go our separate ways. I was much happier with my last OS. He might have been a little clumsy with security, and maybe he doesn't have your bells and whistles, but he's reliable for me and he never complains. Don't take it personally. Okay, maybe you should. We're through.

-Albert

The Picture who?

Several months ago my wife and I took our two kids to get their portraits done at the mall at a place called "The Picture People". I have been there several times before getting pictures of our daughter, etc, but I had never known anything about photography or cameras. That being said, I didn't really have any problems with their photos. They were "ok", however I wasn't the kind of person to question the "professional talent" that surely existed there.

Fast-forward to my most recent experience: After engrossing myself in tons of literature on cameras, photography techniques, etc I started wondering about Picture People gear. What kind of cameras did they use? Did they use portrait lenses? How are they making their prints? Armed with this curiosity, I decided to drop some questions on our designated Picture People photographer (PPP) who would be shooting Liam and Audrey. The following is a paraphrased dialog of our conversation:

Me: So what kind of camera do you use here?
PPP: What?
Me: Is that a Canon SLR?
PPP: Uh, I think so. I really don't know.

(At this point I'm shocked. These people charge stupid prices for portraits, and yet they have people taking pictures who can't even tell you what kind of camera they use)

Me: Do you mind if I take a look at it?
PPP: No, go right ahead. (hands me the camera)
Me: Oh, its a Canon 20D with a Tamron Zoom Lens (The exact specs escape me now).
PPP: Oh yeah, our boss uses the newer one. I think that its the Canon 10D?
Me: Oh, do you mean the Canon 40D (which had just come out about 2 months ago)?
PPP: No, I think that its the 10D. Its really really nice, I guess. I don't really know much about the cameras.
Me: (Feeling a little cheated by the fact that this person makes money shooting photos of my kids with gear that she can't identify)Soooo, Do you use Epson printers for your prints?
PPP: Oh, I have no idea. We have this big machine in the back that prints them out. I can show it to you, if you like?
Me: Sure, can I see it? (She leads me behind the counter to the printing room).

What I saw was a huge monster of a machine that looked like it could have pushed out Ford F150's. It was cranking pretty loudly, and I felt kind of weird and nosy, so I stepped out.

Me: Wow, that's a big machine for prints.
PPP: Yeah, it prints them really fast too.
Me: So how large can you print on that thing?
PPP: Oh, I don't know...I can look it up if you'd like.
Me: No, that's fine. I was just curious. Thanks for your help.
PPP: No problem.

Needless to say, the portrait of Liam was stinky. What made it worse was that we were able to choose from about 10 different shots and couldn't find any that we liked. The pose were mediocre and the composition of the photos weren't great either. My feelings were that, with a bed sheet, some good natural light, and one of the Digital photography Class cameras from school, I could definitely do better than this person.

This past Sunday, I had the chance to try out that theory. Below are some shots taken of Audrey in a fancy dress that she got from a friend from church.












To be honest, I think that perhaps I just got an airhead of a person at the Picture People. Maybe somebody who just filled a gap for them. On the other hand, it made me wonder how much they actually train their staff if the people can't even identify what camera they use. If they can't do that, then how sure can I be that they even know how to USE the camera?

Just in case you were wondering what to get your sweetheart for Valentines Day...

CMOS or CCD? Which is King?

(Nerdy photography technical topic alert! Please skip this post if you don't care about this stuff)


I find it curious to know whether or not it is valuable to go to CMOS over CCD. I've not really gotten a clear message from previous sources on what is the best technology for the digital image. However, I think that the following article does a good job of shedding some light on the subject. Read on if you're curious:

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9860021-39.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

A quick quote for the photography enthusiast.

I was reading a post from Scott Kelby's blog today and he mentioned an ad he saw for the Canon 40D. The photo was of a woman with a sunset behind her with the following words printed on it:

“I gaze at the sunset with the woman I love, and think….f/8 at 1/250.”

To quote Scott Kelby: "You just gotta love that."

My side job as an Apple Evangelist

Well, I wouldn't exactly say I'm and evangelist, I guess. However, I've already given 3 recommendations to people to buy a Mac when they asked my advice on getting another computer. One person actually took my advice and came walking into work two days later with a new MacBook and a big smile on their face. Fast-forward one week and the smile is still there and she's pushing her own evangelism for Steve Jobs around the place.

Despite our family's switch to a Mac about 2 months ago, I can't say that I've been blown away by the system. It pretty much does the same thing that my PC did. Other than not worrying about viruses anymore, which wasn't a huge concern anyways, I'd have to say that the adjustment to our computing life might even be a bit more annoying than when we were with our PC. The new computing platform requires learning how to do similar things somewhat differently.

So why have I been recommending Macs? I think that its the confidence in their reliability and the fact that most people with limited computer knowledge will find them a bit less daunting to use. These days, Macs can do most anything a PC can, without the issues of antivirus software, spyware, and hardware compatibility issues (unless you have my luck). Another reason that I now recommend a Mac is because I have one, and am feeling a bit more confident about answering questions about them.

This doesn't mean that I've given up on the PC. I actually still think that people with a tad more experience using PC's should stick with it if they've got a lot of software commitments to Microsoft, or if they don't want the restricted hardware options and prices that Apple offers.

Chuck Norris

I've grown up watching Chuck Norris movies as a kid. He was certainly an impressive actor and martial artist. His reputation even caused some satirical lists which were quite humorous. Unfortunately, Chuck didn't think so. Now he's suing some of the people who are attempting to making money on these tall tales. While I'm pretty neutral on that whole deal, I'd have to say that the lists are pretty funny. Below are some of Chuck Norris facts that I though were funny enough to share:

The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed miserably.

Chuck Norris drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls.

When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes, ever.

There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.

Police label anyone attacking Chuck Norris as a Code 45-11.... a suicide.

A Handicapped parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.

If you spell Chuck Norris in Scrabble, you win. Forever.

Chuck Norris has two speeds: Walk and Kill.

Someone once tried to tell Chuck Norris that roundhouse kicks aren't the best way to kick someone. This has been recorded by historians as the worst mistake anyone has ever made.

Time waits for no man. Unless that man is Chuck Norris.

In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Chuck Norris could use to kill you, including the room itself.

When Chuck Norris was denied an Egg McMuffin at McDonald's because it was 10:35, he roundhouse kicked the store so hard it became a Wendy's.

A Chuck Norris-delivered Roundhouse Kick is the preferred method of execution in 16 states.

When taking the SAT, write "Chuck Norris" for every answer. You will score over 8000.

Chuck Norris and Mr. T walked into a bar. The bar was instantly destroyed, as that level of awesome cannot be contained in one building.

Chuck Norris played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won.

If at first you don't succeed, you're not Chuck Norris.

It is believed dinosaurs are extinct due to a giant meteor. That's true if you want to call Chuck Norris a giant meteor.

When Bruce Banner gets mad, he turns into the Hulk. When the Hulk gets mad, he turns into Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris uses a night light. Not because Chuck Norris is afraid of the dark, but the dark is afraid of Chuck Norris.

Christmas Photos and More

One of the reasons that I'm glad that I enjoy photography is that when we have insane Christmas seasons of immense activities, parties, dinners and such, I know that I'll have plenty of photographs:

The first set of photos is from Bev's annual Christmas party. The food was excellent and the company as well. The popular gift of the afternoon was most certainly Bev's hand-made slippers for everyone.

Bev's Christmas Pary

(click on picture to view album photos)


On Christmas day we opened presents and loaded up the car and headed to Waynesboro to visit with Ted and Carol. The food and company was also excellent there. Audrey found her new tent (complete with tunnel) and plasma car (see photo) to be a great diversion (I particularly enjoyed riding the plasma car with her).

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

(click on picture to view album photos)

Finally, after a hectic time of traveling and parties, we made plans to head to Bethany Beach to hang out with our friends Jamie and Amanda Biddison. We had a fun time baking and decorating cookies as well as relaxing with walks on the boardwalk and watching a LOT of television.

Delaware Post-Christmas Retreat

(click on picture to view album photos)

Whew! With all of that, I'm just about beat! Thankfully, it was a most enjoyable way to end the 2007 year and we look forward to whatever the Lord has in store for us in 2008. Happy New Year to you all!

I Love Impressions

On of my favorite types of comedy are impressionists. Here is a great clip of Frank Caliendo on David Letterman. He has to be one of the best impressionists I've ever seen. Take about 7 minutes and enjoy. He's really good:

Little Brother Comes To Visit

This past Saturday, my little brother Donovan and his wife Sharon came to visit us here in Lancaster. They made the trip down from New York City, where they live (Brooklyn). They brought us gifts, including a cool penguin hat for Audrey (which she loves). It was really cool seeing them. Check out a few photos below.

Donovan and Sharon Visit 2

What kind of Geek are you?

In one way or another, we're all hiding that "inner geek" inside of us. During my web browsing today, I found a poster that reminded me of just that fact. Go on over and check out the selection and see if you're on the list:

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2086153791&size=o&context=set-72157601200807582

I'm not a Microsoft Hater, but...

This article is pretty funny.

Realism and the Pittsburgh Steelers

I like to consider myself a "realistic" football fan. Of course, I always want my team to win, and I always stand behind them. However, when it comes to haughtiness and bragging, there's usually nowhere to stand. Take this season, for example: The Steelers are 9-3 for the season. The media and the Steelers themselves are taking this to actually believe that the Pittsburgh Steelers actually belong in the same rankings as New England possibly Indianapolis. I'm sorry, but they are nowhere near the powerhouse that the Patriots are.

First off, their record has several flaws to it. One of those has to do with last year's pathetic post-superbowl season. Coming out of a superbowl that they barely won, the Steelers went on to disappoint with a lousy 8-8 season that didn't even get them a playoff game. The NFL naturally adjusts the schedule in the coming season to accommodate the "weaker" teams in the league. This year, the Steelers have been given a fluffy schedule against many other weaker teams (with maybe New England being an exception). Let's not forget that the Steelers have 3 losses against teams that barely have a chance at the playoffs this year. And in last weeks's game against the Bengals, Big Ben had issues throwing the ball because it was wet? Are you kidding me? Do they not practice in the rain? Somebody tell me how a professional QB in the NFL can't throw in the rain. Particularly when their team's home field isn't in a dome?

Now I've been reading reports all week at how the Steelers claim that they are going to upset the unbeaten Patriots and I can't help but laugh. Have they not reviewed their own past 3 games? Somebody needs to show them the tape, because if they play anything like they have been playing the past 3 weeks, then this game will be over by half-time.

And if the Steelers win? Well, good for them. However, its a lot easier to enjoy my team when they humble themselves and step down to reality, than when they start guaranteeing victories against teams that, at least this season, have it together way better than they do.

Hate folding Laundry?

Me too. That's why when I found this video on how to fold a T-shirt in about two seconds, I just had to share.



Fold a T-shirt in 2 seconds

OOHHHH YEEEAHHHH!!!

On a lighter note, I just read this post that made me a somewhat happy camper:

Gmail Adds AIM Support

Dealing with God's will

Today I read two different stories about babies. One of those being my wife's blog post about our 3 month old son Liam. Liam is a treasure to us. A blessing from God to a family without any merit to know him. He's a gift we cherish daily, and just the thought of his little grins, coos, and hand-motions makes me smile. I thank God for the safe pregnancy that my wife had, and for the safe labor as well. All of these were undeserved privileges. God has mercy on whom he will have mercy.

Then there was the other story. A woman who is involved in our school is pregnant with her second child. She is due this Spring. She and her husband have been dealing with the diagnosis of their unborn daughter, Janessa, who has severe developmental issues. These are not just mere deformities, but almost guaranteed fatal ones. Janessa's condition and prognosis is that, if she even survives pregnancy, that she will quickly die after birth. The severe situation of her health problems affects her brain's ability to enable her to perform any life functions. This is compounded by a heart condition that will inevitably cause congenital heart failure shortly after birth. The story ends with notes of praise, as they rejoice in the possibility of being able to meet their daughter before she dies.

I can't even fathom for a moment the sort of emotional torment that these people are going through, and yet they still find rays of sunshine in the news. As a parent of two healthy children, the second story is torture to me. And yet, I can't help to see that these people, who still choose to praise God for the little time that he could give them with their daughter, have chosen to accept God's will for them and their daughter in such a circumstance.

That second story humbles me greatly. It shows me how much I need to be thankful for, and how little faith and hope I really possess. Let me end this post with an inspirational excerpt from the letter :

So, needless to say, we have many things to think and pray about. We
are so thankful for the wonderful care we received at CHOP. We are
confident that what we were told is exactly what is wrong with
Janessa. We feel encouraged that we will probably get to meet our
little girl and share some time with her (that has been our biggest
desire since we learned of her condition). We also feel very sad that
we will lose her at some point in the future, and preparing for that
loss is hard to think about. We realize the importance of planning
for all possible outcomes: complete healing (should God choose to do
that), or losing our little girl (should God choose to do that). We
have no way of knowing what God's will is, and so we will just have to
wait and see what He does. We do know that He is able to do miracles,
and also that He sometimes chooses not to. We realize that in either
situation, it is a matter of bringing honor and glory to Him. We are
very glad we can have confidence in the fact that God is Good. He
loves us, and He desires for everyone to come to know Him. If God
chooses to let Janessa live, so that others can come to know Him
through her life- GREAT! If God chooses to let Janessa die, so that
others can come to know Him through her death- GREAT! The God we
serve doesn't change depending on our circumstances. He is the same-
yesterday, today and forever. Our lives are in His hands.

Forward Progress

Well, after experiencing such a huge letdown with printer incompatibilities, weird internet issues, and stupid user mistakes, I'm starting to settle down with this computer. Here are some further thoughts as of today:

1. After discovering that HP didn't make a Mac version of their driver for my computer, I found that there was a work-around on the web for downloading an older HP driver for a Mac-specific printer that did the job. It was quite a hassle to get working, but now it seems to work fine (albeit, quite slow). I guess that it was disappointing to learn that I couldn't just "plug and play" like I did for windows xp with this thing.

2. The weird internet slowness issues are seeming to subside for now. After doing some further research, I found that some people had trouble with their Macs on the internet because of older routers, etc. So, after plugging my Mac directly into the cable modem, things are now zipping along. So that makes two things that I own that didn't work well with the Mac. This does not impress me. Old hardware or not, Macs are supposed to be easy. If I weren't a geek, I'd be surfing on a PC by now, since I wouldn't have the patience to deal with this stuff.

3. I'm quite impressed at how quickly the Mac mini actually reboots. I've never owned a windows machine that booted like this. Its nice.

4. As much as I never used to like iTunes, I feel like I'm warming up to it. Overall, I'm not that all impressed with Apple's way of designing applications. I don't find that there are controls which would be intuitive for me. Most things are symbols and aren't even labeled (particularly in iTunes).

5. Stupid FedEx.

6. One of my favorite online utilities, Logmein.com works great with OSX, which now allows me to support our school servers from home (a HUGE plus).

Well, these are the extent of my thoughts for now. The hiccups have caused enough angst to keep me from posting photos of the "unboxing" (sorry, Dave).

Apple Seems to be Leveling the Playing Field

So here we are after several day switching to the Mac, and the experience has been nothing but bothersome. What!??? How can that be? According to the "cult of Mac" and the Apple website, Macs "just work". Yeah, whatever. Here's how things have been "just working" for me over the past few days:

1. My wife has not once been able to print. I've been able to print only one time, after spending 30 minutes trying to find a driver that was actually remotely compatible with my printer (since HP doesn't make a specific Mac driver for my printer). Even so, I'm still hearing the echoes of confident Mac enthusiasts and commercials which state that all you need to do is plug it in, and it works. Maybe on their planet it does.

2. I actually found a way to accidentally delete an app without moving it to the trash. How did I do that? Well, I wanted to drag it from the app folder to my dock. Doing so, it landed in the wrong place on the dock. So I attempted to drag it to another location on the dock, only to have it dissapear in a cloud. I couldn't find it elsewhere. I even did a spotlight search for it, which yielded absolutely no results. Yep, that's right its gone. So now I need to pull it from my install disk to use it again.

3. I have yet still to be able to view pages properly on both firefox or safari. Both my wife and I are having problems viewing images, which do not show up randomly on certain sites. I've checked all the necessary settings in both browsers, and nothing has worked. The photos show up randomly on our google blogs, and any google related site where there are pictures. However this morning, I wasn't even able to view photos on Flickr.

My hunch is that these problems might be somewhat related to the new Operating System OSX Leopard. So much so, that I'm going to revert back to Tiger. If rolling back to the former OS does nothing, then perhaps Mr. Warfel will be able to see the first ever pictures of a "re-boxing" of the Mac Mini as I ship this baby back to Apple and get myself a Dell. Stupid FedEx.

First Impression of the Mac Mini

After a little over a week, we finally received the Mini. I'd have to say that I'm most impressed with the packaging. You can tell that Apple puts HUGE amounts of care into appearances, and their packaging of the unit is one of those details. The mini came in a tiny white box with a handle on top. Inside it had everything carefully wrapped in clear plastic (like a new CD). The unit itself was tiny, about the size of a CD case. Interestingly, the power brick, which was also sleekly styled, was almost half the size of the computer. Putting the thing together and initial setup was a snap. Just plug it all in. Here are my random thoughts from what I could do yesterday:

-It is hard to get used to using the copy and paste functions, which requires using the windows key, rather than the CTRL key, which I'm used to.

-The mini came with OSX 10.4 Tiger installed, but also with a Leopard install disk. I DID in fact install Leopard, and found it to be somewhat faster overall than Tiger, but the doc is kind of weird looking. I think I preferred the old doc, but its a minor quibble.

-Installing and uninstalling applications is too simple. I wish windows could be like that.

-It takes some getting used to having a fixed menu at the top of the screen per application, rather than a menu connected to the actual window of the application. I keep forgetting to look there.

-I hate that clicking the x button does not quit the application, but only hides it. I'm a performance miser, and that is something that I could easily overlook and end up with 40 apps opened at one time.

-I had to download a driver from HP's website for my printer. I also should note that HP never released an official driver for my printer, so I actually had to do some google searching to find one of the same "family" that works on the Mac. I've not officially printed anything yet, but I'll assume that the driver works.

-iPhoto was not as impressive as I had thought it would be. I'm glad that I ordered Lightroom. Photo organization and quick editing were a breeze with Picasa. Its a bit more involved with iPhoto, but I like the added control you get over image exposure. I think what I hate is the weird photo management and arrangement. I felt like Picasa did that way better.

-I'm still trying to get iMovie to work. It just hangs on me each time I launch it. I've never once had it working. Stupid FedEx.

-There is way less flexibility in tweaking the system settings than in something like Windows or even Linux. Either way, most things are eye candy anyways, so no big deal. Just something I noticed.

-Once I actually figure out the iTunes interface, I think I might like it. I'll be honest in that I've never been a fan of the iTunes GUI over the years and have avoided it on my PC, but its integration with OSX and FrontRow is probably a good reason to start learning it.

-Installing OSX Leopard was so simple that Microsoft should be somewhat ashamed at the way its done in Windows. The total installation (clean install) took 45 minutes. The process can be that short in Windows, but the screens for OSX make it much less intimidating.

-Garage Band looks so awesome I'll just reserve to say that it deserves its own separate post, once I can actually start producing some music on it (yes I do play and write music sometimes).

I think I'll stop here with the thoughts. There's still a lot for me to learn and explore, so these initial thoughts might be totally bunk in another month. Either way, I'd have to say that I'm still feeling neutral on the whole thing. I don't LOVE the mac yet. Its too different from the things I've used over the years to just take it at face value. Stay tuned for more thoughts.

...

I finally got my Mac today. Stupid FedEx.