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So it is with a tinge of regret that I am handing over my baby of the last two years to my sister (after a trip to France with a friend for a conference). The iBook that has served me well is being retired from my service. I must say I only have praise for the little device that has been at my side for the past 23 months. I have used it to develop a few web sites, written my thesis, updated a school site and kept my photos relatively in order. But now it is time to upgrade to a bigger and better machine. Enter the new baby - a Black MacBook.

The Upgrade

I agonised over whether or not to go for the 17″ MacBook Pro, but when the 13.3″ MacBook came out I really only saw one option. The solution I’ve come to is the MacBook I’m writing this on combined with a 24″ Dell LCD that can double as a TV.

Opening the Box

Apple has such a brilliant group of Industrial Designers who deal with the packaging of products and the new MacBook’s lives up to the standards. The foam has been lovingly sculpted and the box is about half the width of my iBook’s.

Boot Up Time

I’ve been reading 37Signals book Getting Real and I can tell you that it is so true one of the comments made in it on the effort Apple’s CEO puts into getting that “first impression” spot on. Easy to set up doesn’t even begin to describe the difference between Apple and other company’s out their with laptops (although that’s also due to their using Windows, but that’s for another time).

Boot up was faster than my iBook. Set up painless. Now I’ve just got to get my existing data from one ‘book to the other.

Life’s Little Helpers

There are a bunch of little helpers that I’ve got installed on the iBook that I’m busily attempting to locate again for the MacBook.

• Tabing through Safari: System Preferences -> Keyboard + Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Full Keyboard Access: All Controls
• Dictionary for Safari: Edit -> Spelling -> Check Spelling As You Type

Software

The biggest headache for me was never going to be updating data, but rather updating all the software I’ve been using. Here’s my list (updated as I think of it)

• FlickrExport
• Textmate
• Transmit
• Adium X
• Skype
• Firefox
• iScrobbler
• NetNewsWire Lite
• MS Office X
• Adobe Photoshop

Transfers

Mail is an easy beast to transfer your old information from. Simply go

File -> Import Mailboxes

, select your required mail account and location (I just had a network connection opened to the old iBook) and presto - Import your mailboxes!

Photos were the hardest and most time consuming. I’m still in the process of moving them and archiving them. Tedious, yes, worthwhile, bloody well hope so.

To be continued…