Out Of Box Experience
My beloved TiBook died on Saturday night. It was old for a laptop: over three years of rough use. The paint was completely gone from the places I rest my wrists, and the CD ROM made an ominous clattering sound when it spun up, so the final expiration was no great surprise. After trying all kinds of tricks to get it to work again, I finally made the determination that the patient was beyond help.
At this point, it became an organ donor. The battery was nearly new, and the hard drive perfectly functional. I bought a FireWire enclosure for the hard drive and a set of Torx screwdrivers, and with about fifteen minutes' work, the hard drive (with all my precious files) became an external FireWire drive. I dubbed it the Brain-in-a-Jar.
Sunday it was off to the Apple store to buy a replacement. Business has been picking up lately, so I opted for the 17" PowerBook. Not the best traveling machine, but that big screen is to die for.
Having used probably a dozen different laptops over the years for work and home, I've gotten used to the idea that it takes a good two days to get a new laptop set up properly, with all your files copied over, software installed, and configurations set up right. I was pleasantly surprised when my new laptop greeted me with a screen asking if I was moving from another Mac.
When I answered "yes," it invited me to connect the two Macs together, with the old one in FireWire Disk mode (which makes the computer act like an external drive). By this time, my old computer was not just dead, but in pieces on the kitchen table. But I did have my Brain-in-a-Jar.
I plugged in the Brain-in-a-Jar, and....
It worked!
My new laptop recognized the external drive as the drive from my old computer, and offered to copy users, applications, and network settings. After whirring for about 90 minutes (during which time I ate dinner), I was greeted with my old laptop on my new laptop's giant screen, right down to my desktop picture of the twins.
Most amazingly, it not only copied all my files and configurations, it got all the applications, too, including all the license keys. No scrambling to old filing cabinets looking for CD ROMs, or ancient stickers with cryptic 17-digit codes. I just plugged in the new computer, let it copy files for a while...and.....everything....worked.
After I got over the initial shock of not having to waste two days copying files and reinstalling applications, I was left with a simple question: Why can't Microsoft do this? (Maybe Scoble would like to take a crack at that one.)
It'll still take me some time to get used to the new computer. The keyboard still doesn't feel right, though the backlit keys are a wonder to behold (especially since I'm in the habit of working on the laptop while She Who Puts Up With Me tries to sleep in the next room). Having the power, USB, and network ports on the side of the computer instead of the back seems somehow unnatural (especially since I like to use a mouse, and the USB plug gets in the way). On the other hand, I can't wait to try out my one indulgence: a copy of Final Cut Express ($99 with the purchase of a new CPU). Maybe now I'll finally get around to editing all the video of my grandmother.