Mac Life. Simple Life.

Managing iTunes album art

2009-09-29T10:59:00.006+10:00

Album art is a wonderful idea for digital audio collection and make navigating between albums so much easier in iTunes.

Since iTunes version 7.0 onwards, you can download the album art of a song or a group of them from iTunes store.

Open iTunes, right click on a song or a group of them and select "Get Album Artwork", iTunes will download the album cover and store them accordingly.

There are two issues with this feature:

Portability: If you switch to another media player other than iTunes, the downloaded album art from iTunes will not copy across.
Customization: How to customize the album art of your own.

This article will examine these two issues.

Portability
By default, iTunes will store all the downloaded album art under iTunes/Album Artwork folder. This means when you switch to another media player, the new media player will not understand how iTunes organize the artworks.

In order to support portability of the album artworks, you will need to embed the album artwork into the mp3 itself. There are two ways you can do that with your existing album artwork from iTunes:

Manual cut and paste: If you right-click on a song in iTunes (with album artwork downloaded from iTunes store before) and select "Get Info", go to "Artwork" tab and you will see the album art. Click on the album art and perform a Cut (Command-X in Mac) and Paste (Command-V in Mac). Click OK. This will embed the artwork into mp3 now instead of storing into the default iTunes folder.
Use Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes: This script will re-embed the artwork into mp3 of the select files. Note that this script requires some knowledge on how to install custom scripts in iTunes. Check out the link above for installation instructions.

Note that embedding artwork into mp3 will allow you to bring along/transfer your music collection easily without worrying about additional data. However, by doing this, you are increasing the file size of the mp3 and hence might consume more space.

Customization
Although iTunes store has a lot of album arts available for download, sometimes you might come across some of the albums have no artwork on the store. For example, foreign language albums, or singles, or you might want the exact album artwork in different countries, etc.

In this case, you can find the actual album artwork (an image) that you want to associate for certain tracks and following the instructions below to associate artwork:

Right-click on a track/group of tracks in iTunes and select "Get Info".
Select "Artwork" tab (if you select only one track) or check "Artwork" checkbox (group of tracks).
Click Add or double click on the Artwork space and select the image that you want to associate.
Click OK.

Portable Cross Platform Personal Wiki

2009-09-25T10:56:00.024+10:00

Problem

I have been using Atlassian Confluence Wiki Personal License (free) at home for a while now. Basically I used Confluence to record all important information, such as how I setup my own server, what directories store what, command bash command prompts and useful scripts etc. Wiki is really useful is keeping track of all the little "findings" and tricks for the future.

Besides Confluence, I am using another wiki engine at work. This creates a problem where a lot of the time, my "knowledge" is stored into different places and quite hard to search for something. At home, I cannot get access to work's wiki and vice versa.

Wouldn't it be great to have a portable personal wiki that you can bring with you no matter where you goes (at work, at home, etc) and still manage to keep track of everything that you think is important?

Quest

The problem above has led me into search for the best solution in fulfilling what I want. There are few main requirements that I want from a Wiki:

Portable: This means I can bring it with me no matter where I go. Having a personal wiki hosted on some site probably help but what I might not be able to access it if company firewall blocks it or for some reason, I am situated at a location with no Internet. The obvious solution to this would be a USB thumb drive. Nowdays, USB thumb drive is so small (keychain size) and easy to bring around. Furthermore, their storage capacity is getting higher and better.
Cross platform: I am using Mac at home but Windows/Linux at work. So I need a portable wiki that could run seamlessly in both environment.
Small Footprint: Given the need for portability, the Wiki probably needs a small footprint (in terms of the environment to run the wiki), so that I don't need to install anything on the host machine that I am using.

Over the years, I have been trying to find the holy grail for the problem and have attempted the following:

XAMPP and MediaWiki

XAMPP is an Apache distribution that contains MySQL, PHP and Perl. It allows the user to install everything on a USB thumb drive. This is really useful if you are a Web developer (PHP for example) and want to carry your work with you everywhere. XAMPP has different distributions for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris.

Once we have the XAMPP installed on USB drive, we then install MediaWiki, which is a Wiki engine written in PHP using MySQL to store the data.

There are various articles that describe how to install XAMPP and MediaWiki:

Lifehacker - Run Your Personal Wikipedia from a USB Stick

Also MediaWiki provides a manual to describe how to install the Wiki using WOS Portable / Uniform Server (both on Windows platform).

Verdict

I have been playing around with XAMPP + MediaWiki combination. There are few issues with it and it does not meet my requirements.

Slow: Install XAMPP on my USB thumb drive took around 1 hour or more - perhaps it is my USB drive (formatted to FAT32?). Everytime I need to start XAMPP, I am required to start the XAMPP console and start both MySQL and Apache.
Cross-platform: Although XAMPP provides different distribution for Mac and Windows, unfortunately I have to install both distributions and might need to migrate data back and forth for the Wiki data stores in MySQL. To get around this problem, I am using a Windows VM on my Mac to be able to use the XAMPP (Windows). This provides a consistent Wiki usage at home and work.

XAMPP + MediaWiki seems a bit fiddly and too much preparation and work (start XAMPP, start Apache and MySQL) for my requirements.

At last, I found what I am looking for:

Wiki on a stick

According to the website above, "Wiki on a stick" a personal wiki that lives in one self-modifying XHTML containing software, interface and data. Very useful for creating small websites and mantaining notes or todo-lists; completely javascript-programmable, supports images and files embedding.

Basically it is just a simple HTML file. Once you open the HTML file in your browser, you can start create Wiki pages. Everything is manipulated with javascript + XHTML in a single HTML. How cool is that!

This immediately fulfill all my requirements - portable, small footprint, cross platform! It is nothing more that a HTML page and what you need is a modern browser that supports the javascript that it needs (I am using Firefox 3+).

I have been using a while now with "Wiki on a stick" - and I truly like it. It is very portable and don't need to fiddle around the environment/platform that allows you to run the Wiki on.

However there are some gotchas that needs to beaware of when using this, which I have summarise my experience below.

Experience with "Wiki on a Stick"

Although it looks like this is the best solution for me, there are some gotchas:

Don't expect full blown Wiki functionality: As this Wiki is designed for its simplicity and small footprint, do not expect bells and whistles that other more powerful Wikis have.
Might not suitable for enterprise and multiple update: As I am not looking for multiple updates/concurrent updates, this suitable me well. However if you are looking to use this Wiki and allow concurrent updates, I would strongly recommend using other Wiki engines, such as MediaWiki, JSP Wiki, etc.
Binaries: Although this wiki supports images and files embedded, as you know, this is a single HTML file, embedded large binaries might not be a good ideas in a single file (imagine a Microsoft Word with 100+ images embedded). My solution to this is create a separate folders on USB drive (relative to the HTML Wiki) for images, attachments, files, etc, and use or other HTML tag in the Wiki to refer to those files.

Since using Wiki on a stick, I have also found similar personal Wiki called TiddlyWiki. It has much more support and plugins than the former.

Macbook Pro with External LCD Monitor

2009-08-05T23:10:00.012+10:00

Got myself a Samsung SyncMaster 2333 23'' LCD Monitor. I have to say I am impressed!

For a person that hardly used an external monitor (always been with LCD screen that is attached to laptop), I have to say this is a very big step-up.

This article explains a few tips that I stumble upon.

How to make external monitor the primary one

By default, once you connect the external monitor to Macbook, the external monitor will display as secondary - i.e. without the dock at the bottom and menu bar at the top.

In order to make the external monitor the primary one, go to System Preferences -> Displays.

Select Arrangement. You will see two rectangles - each representing a monitor (internal & external).

You will also notice there is a small white bar at the top of the smaller rectangle. Drag the bar to the bigger rectangle (indicating that you want to make the external monitor the primary one).

The screen should looks like:

How to use only the external monitor but switch off the laptop screen

This is quite a common request once you have an external monitor. By default, both screens are available and you can utilise both screens for different purposes - I found it quite useful for cross-reference.

However, sometimes we would like to use only the external monitor as our primary workspace and want to switch off the laptop screen.

After googling for a while, here are two options that I could find:

Reduce the brightness of your laptop screen to minimum: Go to System Preferences and ensure you set the brightness of the laptop screen to minimum. I found this approach is a workaround and can be quite annoying if you switch between monitors because you need to switch the brightness back again if you want to use the laptop screen. Not recommend.
Sleep and awake approach: A lot of peoples have confirmed that this works and I tried it with success. Once you have setup your external monitor, shut the lid of your Macbook Pro, just enough so that the laptop goes to sleep. Note that this will switch off your external monitor as well. Then if you are using external keyboard (like mine), just tap any key to bring the laptop out from the sleep (without opening the lid), your external monitor will switch on after a second, then open the laptop lid, the Macbook Pro screen is not switch on anymore. This approach seems to work until I found another better approach - wonder if Snow Leopard has this functionality. Note that if you don't have external keyboard, some articles said you can use external usb drive to trigger the wake up, or slide your finger through the gap between the lid and laptop keyboard to trigger the wake up.

Review of Parallels Desktop 3 and VMWare Fusion 2

2008-12-19T10:41:00.012+11:00

The first Mac software that I bought since I owned my first MacBook Pro is Parallels Desktop 3.0, and that is 1 year ago. I have been using Parallels since then, upgrading to their latest build every now and then, until I try out VMWare Fusion 2 last week.

I have to say I am very impressed by VMWare Fusion 2 so far!

Here is my personal review between Parallels Desktop 3 and VMWare Fusion 2.

Parallels Desktop 3

* This review is based on Parallels Desktop 3. Parallels Desktop version 4 is out and some of the issues that I have with version 3 might have already been fixed.

Thumbs Up

Supports wide variety of popular OS and quite easy to create VMs and install OS.
Include the Parallels Transporter that allows you to import VMs created by other products into Parallels compatible VMs - note that this does not always work. I tried to import a VMWare image that contains multiple files but failed. However, a single VMWare image with Windows 2000 works.
Constant release/build cycle - You will receive update every now and then. Makes me feel like the $ is well spend.

Thumbs Down

Slow, slow and slow. I have a VM with Windows XP installed but it takes ages to start up. During startup, it makes my Macbook Pro freeze occasionally (not even switching between different applications). The response is quite sluggish.
Network between the VM and the host (MacBook Pro) seems to be problematic. I can access the internet from VM but when it has problem accessing the LAN machines.
Printer setting in the VM also problematic. Because of the problem of accessing LAN machines, the VM cannot see the network printer and hence I have to convert to PDF and copy to my Mac and print it from there - how tedious.
Coherence mode have the annoying windows start bar at the bottom.

VMWare Fusion 2

Thumbs Up

Speed - Starting up a VM is just like starting real OS on the actual machine. The speed is amazing. I have imported the Parallels VM (Windows XP) into VMWare Fusion and the startup time probably around 10 times faster than Paralles. How amazing! This might be something to do with VMWare Fusion can utilise the 2 CPUs on the Mac. Also when starting the VM, the Mac is not frozen (by the way, I have only 2GB of RAM).
Seamless network and printer support - The same VM imported from Parallels and run with VMWare Fusion. The network and printer settings do not work in Parallels but magically just work in VMWare Fusion.
Unity mode (Coherence mode in Paralles) seems to work much better. The windows just look like normal Mac window (although the icons might be Windows specific).
Convert to full screen and back seems pretty quick and snappy.
Haven't try it myself - but apparently you can also play most of the 3D games in Windows (with DirectX support).
(I can go on and on with the good things....)

Thumbs Down

Nothing major so far - besides the price of VMWare Fusion is a bit pricey

Having use both VM tools, I strongly recommend VMWare Fusion for Mac because it just works! With my blog's philosophy, tools that we used should make our life simpler...

How to charge and eject your iPod in Linux

2008-11-24T19:58:00.007+11:00

This might be uncommon but I found that most of the time, I cannot wait until my iPod is fully charged before switching off/hibernate my MacBook Pro.

I have a Linux server (Fedora Core 8) that runs 24x7. So how about utilising my server to do the work instead?

Here are the steps to charge your iPod under Linux:

1) Sync my iPod with all the songs from my MacBook Pro.
2) Eject iPod from my MacBook.
3) Connect the USB cable to my Linux server.
4) Determine the drive that iPod is using under Linux. Normally it should be an alphabet greater than all existing mounted drive. Execute the following command:


> mount

It should shows something similar to:


/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol03 on /data type ext3 (rw)
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02 on /home type ext3 (rw)
/dev/sda2 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
/dev/sdb on /mnt/media type xfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
sunrpc on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)

In this case, /dev/sdb seems to be the last of mounted hard disk. So if I tried:


> mount /dev/sdc /mnt/ipod

Once this is successful, you should be able to perform listing on this directory.


> ls /mnt/ipod

5) You might want to umount the ipod to left it charging (we don't need to mount it for it to be charged because we are not syncing the songs).


> umount /mnt/ipod (if mounted before)

6) In order to fully eject the ipod, we need to execute one more command:


> eject /dev/sdc (or the drive that your ipod is connected to).

7) Next enjoy! Once fully charged, just unplugged from the machine.

Weird Dark Border around Leopard Desktop

2007-11-24T14:08:00.001+11:00

Since yesterday a dark border kept appearing in my Leopard desktop. I am currently using six spaces and this dark border only appears in space 2, which I used the spaces for Safari and internet browsing.

The screen looks like:

Posted my problem to Whirlpool, some suggested that it could be the Expose that is doing the trick. I am still don't know what is the purpose of having the dark border around the screen. I did not change Expose configuration.

After a machine restart, it seems alright where the dark border disappear in all spaces. Weird.

Wonder if this is a problem with Leopard? Or somehow I did something that trigger this dark border to appear?

Screenshots Snapshot in Leopard

2007-11-21T20:51:00.000+11:00

Today I encountered a situation where I want to take a screenshot of webpages. Being a new Mac user, I am not sure if I could do what is equivalent to "Alt/Ctrl + PrintScreen" in Windows.

Quick google search reveals this very helpful site. There are quite number of different options to take a screenshot and I was amazed by shortcut keys and varieties. It makes screenshooting a fun activity!

Migrating Outlook Mail to Apple Mail

2007-11-17T11:07:00.001+11:00

"Migrating Outlook Mail from my Windows machine to Apple Mail" has been a TODO item since I bought my Mac. Today I have a chance to experiment and import successfully to Apple Mail. Although not perfect but it gets mostly what I want.

Here are the steps that I have done (with help of several websites):

1) Look for where Outlook stores the mailbox, normally you can get this setting via the Preferences or Settings.

2) Use Outlook Express to import all the mail from Outlook (this is because somehow Thunderbird cannot recognise the Outlook Mail).

3) Download and install Thunderbird on your Windows machine.

4) Use Thunderbird to import all emails from Outlook Express (make sure you select Outlook Express).

5) After import, check the "Preferences" or "Settings" under Thunderbird to see where it stores all the email.

6) Thunderbird organises each of the mailbox as separate directory. Copy all the folders that you want to import to Mac.

7) I uses Apple Mail and select File -> Import Mailboxes...

8) Select Thunderbird and select the thunderbird mailbox that you have just copied.

9) Apple Mail will import all the folders and put them under "On My Mac -> Import".

I have to spent sometimes to organise the folder to different level but I got most of the email messages. Although I don't quite like how Apple Mail organise the folder and mail.

Found a problem where whenever you tried to move an email from one folder to another, it does not delete from the source folder. It just greyed out the email in the source folder. When I press delete on that email, it still would not delete it. Is this a defect? Or just I haven't accustom to the way Apple Mail works?

Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.1

2007-11-16T22:16:00.001+11:00

Apple has just released an update for Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.1. Apparently this update release contains bug fixes for major defects that have been found since Leopard has been released.

Today I invoke the Software Update manually and there are a few updates, including iTunes 7.5, QuickTime, and of course the Leopard update 10.5.1. Installation took around 15 minutes. Being a new Mac user, I cannot spot any difference between this update but it might be more stable?

Also I found a very strange problem with Leopard recently where when I boot up my Mac (normally I use hibernate mode 5 - similar to Windows Hibernate) and after everything is booted correctly, when I click on any application in my dock, the application icon kept jumping and the application never open. I have tried Terminal, Activity Monitor and even tried to force quit some of them but failed. Ended up have to force a restart by holding the power button! I don't really expect this to happen to a Mac, which contradicts what I heard from others, where Mac OS X seems to be the most stable OS!

Having two incidents since I bought my Mac, one being installation of Parallels and now cannot open any application (after force reboot of Mac, it looks fine), it kind of makes me wonder if all the reviews that I heard are true?

Useful Utilities for Leopard

2007-11-13T21:58:00.000+11:00

Have my Mac and Leopard for two weeks now and found the following utilities pretty handy.

Quicksilver: This is a MUST HAVE if you want to access your application quickly. Highly customizable. Launch your application by pressing +, type in a few words and search your application from the list.

UnRarX: I saw some posts mentioned that in Tiger it supports .rar file type but not in Leopard. So this utility will come in handy when you want to extract .rar.

VLC: Having problem viewing .wmv and other file types which are not supported by Quicktime? This VLC player supports most of the video format and it comes with clean interface.

Mac OS X Hibernate Issue

2007-11-08T09:34:00.001+11:00

Problem

I have been searching for ways for Mac OS X to behave the same as Windows when it comes down to hibernation. Mac OS X has this concept of "Sleep" and "Shutdown".

By default, "Sleep" will turn the computer off but my MacBook Pro will still have the white light, switching between dim and bright. In this case, you cannot totally switch off your MacBook Pro as you would like to do in Windows.

However, if you "Sleep" using your laptop battery, once the battery runs out, MacBook Pro is smart enough to save all contents in your RAM to hard disk. This is called a "Safe Sleep".

Wish

Wouldn't it be nice if we could choose to hibernate whenever we want so that if we are not using the laptop for a few hours, instead of putting the laptop to "Sleep", which will still drain the battery, we can "hibernate" the laptop and restore our applications (as it is) when we start it up again.

Solution

Macworld has an article that contains comprehensive information about this. Here is the summary.

First find out what is the current setting of your sleep mode, using:

> pmset -g | grep hibernate

This will tell you which sleep mode you are currently on. The following displays different sleep mode:

0 - Legacy sleep mode. It will save everything to RAM upon sleeping but does not support "Safe Sleep". Very fast sleep.

1 - Legacy "Safe Sleep". This is the "Safe Sleep". Everything your laptop goes into sleep, it will save everything to harddisk. Slow on Sleep and Startup.

3 - Default. As described above, when sleeping, contents are saved to RAM. When battery runs out, hibernate occurs.

5 - Behaves as 1 but applicable only for modern Mac that uses "Secure virtual memory".

7 - Behaves as 3 but applicable only for modern Mac that uses "Secure virtual memory".

For me, I am using MacBook Pro and I know that I am using "Secure virtual memory" (System Preferences -> Security), so 5 is my choice. I want my Mac to hibernate everything I sleep.
Make an alias in your .bash_profile under your home directory:

alias hibernateon="sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 5"

alias hibernateoff="sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0"

"Source" your bash_profile file and your are done!
Whenever you want to hibernate your computer, if it is not set already, just go to terminal and execute hibernateon. If you want to turn it off, hibernateoff and you are all set.

Tool

It was known that if you want to avoid hassle setting up in command line, there is a dashboard widget, called Deep Sleep that will do the trick do. Somehow it does not work on my MacBook Pro.

Parallels 3.0 with Leopard

2007-11-03T08:18:00.002+11:00

Playing with my Leopard and MacBook Pro for a few days now, and I miss my Microsoft Money. I cannot seem to find a replacement yet but Quicken comes pretty close. Quicken also has a version that support Mac.

Given that I have accumulate quite a number of Microsoft applications, especially for Money and Office, I have decided to purchase Parallels 3.0 to emulate my windows environment. There are some good reviews from my colleague.

At first was having some trouble finding a copy of Parallels around the shop and one of the Mac reseller introduced me with VMWare fusion. Not knowing how it performs, I kept looking for Parallels until I got one from another reseller.

Installation from the CD was simple enough and hassle few. Also impress by the book that comes with the box.

The problem comes when I click on the Parallels icon once the installation is completed. It just throw an error and error report displays some information that is too low level that I cannot comprehend.

After a bit of googling, found out that Parallels website does offer a download for Leopard users separately. That could indicate that the copy I have does not compatible with Leopard. So I downloaded the copy and installed it. Build 5160 is the build number that should work with Leopard.

Next challenge is to find my old Microsoft XP CDs. First I have installed Microsoft XP Home edition (without SP2) and apparently it does not work with Parallels. The installation of the Windows stuck at "Install device drivers..." stage. Luckily I found another copy of more recent Microsoft XP Pro and it installed successfully.

After that, starting the VM just a click away and it show up the same old WinXP interface. Installed Microsoft Money and Office on it and voila! Now I can work on applications from Mac and Windows. Also a nifty feature in Parallels is the "seamless" mode where it hides the window frames and make the Windows application looks as if a Mac app. Cool! Don't forget to hide the task bar to make it more realistic.

In conclusion, the installation of setting of Parallels is not as easy than I thought it would be.

The first problem is due to the recent release of Leopard and how Parallels 3.0 in store does not work out of the box with Leopard will definitely give headache to the user. I strongly recommend whoever bought Parallels from a store ensure that they download the latest copy from Parallels after that.
Stability - Occasionally when I am starting the VM, it just said some problem starting it and at one point, it even cause the "restart" blind coming up and advised me to restart my computer! Not sure if this is something to do with hibernation.
Using Parallels is good that provides concurrent usage of both Mac and Windows applications. However, for Windows, I need to perform an extra step by starting the VM.

Leopard - First Glance

2007-11-01T21:13:00.000+11:00

Mac OS X 10.5 a.k.a Leopard has been the hot topic around town lately. While getting my first Mac is exciting, learning how to use Leopard or accustom to Mac OS X is another adventure.

Here are some noticeable differences working in Windows environment and Mac OS X:

Keyboard - As all Macs come with the "Command" key, which I found acts very similar to "Ctrl" key in Windows. Although Mac keyboard also comes with Ctrl, Alt, and Shift. Most of the "Ctrl" key function in Windows are the same with "Command" key function. For example, under Firefox, a new tab is "Ctrl-T", and with Safari, a new tab is "Command-T". Find is "Ctrl-F" under Windows and Mac is "Command-T". I am glad to see this similarity because that makes the transition easier and normally I just have to guess the key.
Windows menu bar - Under Windows, all window has their own menu bar (File, Edit, View, etc). In Mac OS X, all windows share the same menu bar (with various menu item depending on the application). Also I think all of them share the same common key shortcut too, for example, "Command-," will bring you to the preferences setting for each application.
Close,Minimise and Maximise - The button group is located at the top left of each window rather than top right in windows. Although in Windows, you can change them using different themes, such as WindowBlinds, AquaSoft, etc.
Dock - This is the unique signature of Mac OS X where it acts like the "Quick Launch" under windows but looks nicer. Also in Leopard, it comes with the concept of "Stack", whereby you can organise your items under a folder in Dock. When you click on the Stack folder, it will spring out in a "Fan" or "Grid" mode.
Spaces - I love spaces very much. Being a Linux user too, I have discovered the effectiveness of using Spaces quite a while ago. Spaces allow you to organise your work into different workspace so that it would not clutter with too much application windows. The new Spaces that comes with Leopard enhance the experience where you can switch to different Spaces instantly by using shortcut key "Command+arrow key" or "Ctrl+". You can also customise the keyboard shortcut if you don't like "Ctrl+". For me, the Ctrl key is a bit out of reach and I have change it to "Command+

To be honest, I found that it takes sometimes to adjust to the new keyboard layout and a lot of time I hit the wrong button. As time goes by, I think it will become easier. Also I think I will buy a Mac keyboard later.

First MacBook Pro - With Leopard

2007-10-31T21:42:00.001+11:00

31 October 2007 marks an important part of my life as I have just bought my first Mac - A MacBook Pro 15 inch 2.4 Ghz.

After long awaiting months for Leopard, and now I am carrying my Mac in this black slim box walking down the street. The box opening experience was a pleasant one. With no complication, unwrap the box and removed the white protector cover, revealed the silver and shiny MacBook Pro.

The MacBook Pro was accompanied with cables and charger. Underneath the MacBook Pro was a small square box which filled with manual and some CDs. The CDs include the new Mac OSX due to the MacBook Pro was shipped before Leopard was released, and some other miscellaneous CDs.

Quick glance through the manual suggested that I should be plugging in the cable and start charging my laptop. This is the first time I use a magnetic charger. It is kind of fancy where the cable will just attract to the MacBook Pro.

While charging is in progress, I cannot wait to open the lid and what I saw was simple - A screen, keyboard, trackpad and a power button, not to mention the shiny surface. When it started up, first it completed the installation of Tiger - simple installation - no grilling or interrogative question asked.

Next I cannot wait to put on Leopard that came with the CD. It took quite a long time to complete the installation of Leopard, approximately 1 hour or more. During the installation, the laptop got pretty warm which made me worry.

After the installation was complete, the laptop restarted and there I am, sitting in front of a Mac, with the latest OSX installed. I am impressed with the presentation of the OS itself. Nice, clean, and the eye-candy animation.

Quickly change my desktop background to one of the pictures under 'Plant' with lots of green leaves. I suppose that is good for my eyes. Tried all the applications sitting at the bottom of the screen. All applications look great.

One of the applications that caught my attention was the photo booth. It was very creative and mimic the commercial photo booth where you can take plenty of photos of yourself or friends with different background. That was cool!

Overall the first impression was really great - Simple. The box opening experience is delightful and same as any Apple product, e.g. iPod etc.