Tuesday 28 October 2014

My first hours with the late 2014 Mac Mini


First comment I received upon delivery to my doorstep (ordered via online Apple store - took just about 3 working days to arrive) was in the tune of "really? That's all?" because a much bigger desktop was expected. There were just three packages:
1. Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad
2. Mini DisplayPort to VGA adaptor 
3. THE Mac Mini, of course 

Next up was to open the packaging and set up the Mac Mini. Pairing the keyboard and trackpad was a breeze as it was all automated even before the Mac load up the OS. Connecting to my wifi was a pain because I kept getting disconnected so I disabled it. Finally, after keying in my name and password as the admin, I am in OS X Yosemite. 

Frankly, my heart dropped a little expecting to see the colours pop out like from an iMac or a MacBook but I know, I’m using the poor guy’s Mac so it’s my screen that’s not producing the colours. I quickly went on to launch that gear-looking program called “System Preferences” to set up my wifi and proceeded to install apps from the Mac App Store. The first one was, amusingly, Pocket, followed by Feedly. I still can’t quite get over why I searched for Pocket first but it is a great app after all.

Next, I started to chat with my bud via Messages (that was after setting up and getting it connected to my Apple ID, of course) and he reminded me all about Apple’s sandbox so I had to download Google Chrome browser by first launching Safari to go to Chrome’s website to download the installer. Installing third party software that’s not Apple approved was not easy at all (first time using OS X, remember?). After the installation a window popped up and I was staring at it not knowing what to do for quite awhile until I clicked on the huge Google Chrome icon and dragged it out of the window. Ah, so that was how it should be done. =.=“

I spent the rest of last night and the wee hours of this morning reading through my RSS feeds via Feedly and then, bed time. Oh did I mention that I was pleasantly surprised by the Magic Trackpad and OS X’s awesome gesture controls? It was almost like using a touchscreen and not a desktop! Gosh, I wonder why Microsoft never made the trackpads even half as good. It’s all in the software, right? After just a night of using the Magic Trackpad, I absentmindedly did the same gestures with my office laptop trackpad only to be reminded that I was using Windows.


And with that, I would like to end this post and prepare for bed, TONIGHT. ;)

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