A Really Cool Black Box

I picked up my new 15″ MacBook Pro (MBP) today about 6 p.m. at the Briarwood Apple Store. A FedEx tracking email alerted me to its presence (arrived at 12:12 p.m.). When I went in the store, all the staff looked a bit hung over from the weekend iPhone 3G launch (Apple sold 1 Million of them over the weekend – not all at Briarwood, of course). Since the store hadn’t called me as yet the manager I spoke with indicated that the MBP probably hadn’t been processed yet either. But she cheerily went off to check. After about fifteen minutes (time well spent playing with the iPhone) she returned carrying a thin, black, rectangular box. I was in business!

Later this evening, when I went to set up the MacBook Pro, I wasn’t sure exactly how to port my data back from my external hard drive. Since I’d been using the clone of my old PowerBook’s HD and operating off it for a couple of weeks, I wanted the new MBP hard drive to take on the exact same state. Upon starting up the new MPB, I was given the option to transfer data from another Mac (Apple always gives you this option). I plugged in my external drive and selected it as the volume I wanted to use. The new MBP went to work and in under an hour (closer to 30 minutes) it was finished. After going through the registration process, the MBP completed booting and, voila, a perfect transfer! I sure didn’t expect it to be that easy. It was done in time for the boys and I to watch the MLB Home Run Derby on ESPN 360 (much better with a faster graphics card)!

Now I’ve got a notebook that is a bit thinner than my previous model and also a bit wider which gives me more screen real estate (a couple hundred more pixels doesn’t hurt at all). The screen also has LED backlighting instead of fluorescent, which makes it instantly bright (and extremely bright as well).

Thanks again to TIm Buck, who let me use his PBG4 12″ as a loaner for the last three weeks. It got me through with flying colors.

And again I want to acknowledge God’s abundant provision of this machine. Since it is effectively my mobile office, I am grateful for the upgrade!