My 2nd MacBook Report

When you turn on your MacBook for the first time, you will be asked a few geographical related questions to set up for your location, language etc. I was not successful in configuring my Airport card to connect to my D-Link wireless access point (the default settings are basic), but that's likely due to the kind of configuration I have on the access point right now. I switched to regular old wired Ethernet connection - it connected without a hitch.

The next thing that happens is the Mac checks online to see what updates to the OS and installed software are available and offers to download and install them (this task can be scheduled automatically).

Because this is a unique, new OS, there are a lot of settings to discover and learn so you can decide how you want things set up. I decided to get some advice in that arena by going to myfirstmac.com on this particular page: 5 things to do after starting up your first Mac. I did move my Dock to the right side of the screen and added right-clicking ability to the track pad. While I was setting up the track pad options, I discovered that scrolling up and down a page can be accomplished by placing two fingers on the track pad at once.

The next thing I did was download and (try to) install Firefox. I thought this would be relatively simple, and it would be if you knew what you were doing. Of course the internet was a great help. When you download Firefox, it comes as a [.dmg] file. It's an image file. What you're supposed to do with this file is double-click it, then drag the Firefox icon into your applications folder. Then you can unmount the image and delete it. I did not know that, so I struggled with that for a little.

The User Interface (UI) is fairly intuitive, but it is a major departure from the familiar Windows UI and that makes for a puzzling experience. Fortunately, places like Mac 101 make it a little easier to swallow and is a place I will spend a lot of time for the next few days if not weeks.