My new toy, MacBook...and Flock

Finally got myself a MacBook...white. That was one of the reasons why I went to Penang, the other being just to tag along to 'pacat' a free ride with my other half who had conference at one of Penang's glitzier tourist hotels. Will blog on that later.

Always wanted a Mac but never could bring myself to get one because it was so pricey. But then, the 'I want' and cool factors finally got the better of us. And other half was so nice to order it for me - I couldn't give excuses not to get it cos he had ordered. So, here I am blogging from my new Mac...took some pics of it but don't have any photo editing software yet. Wanted to do capture screen but haven't had the time to try it out. So many new things. But it's kinda exciting. Will upload some pics once I can sort those things out. Or I may have to go back to my desktop for pics makeover first. Anyway, been spending most of my free time getting used to the feel of the Mac. Boy! It's not as easy as I thought. For one, closing a program is on the left...unlike the X on the top right for Windows based. But I am slowly getting the hang of it. People say once you start on a Mac, you will get hooked on it. I think there may be truth in it. My HP Compaq nx9040 will probably not be seeing very much daylight from now onwards. I have also bought a keyboard to plug into my monitor. My desktop will probably be reassigned to another duty soon....maybe.

I consider myself a modern day social surfer...having been spoilt by Firefox with its addons, especially Sage which has made it easier for me to keep track of the countless sites and blogs. So, the first thing I did was to look for a Mac compatible browser along that line. Googled and Yahooed. Found Flock yesterday and I have been wowed by it....it's even better than Mozilla. Other half searched and recommended NewsFire to me this morning but after trying both I think I am going to stick to Flock. It's still in beta version though but with what it's capable of, I'm already a fan. The thing in it that has won me over is its Newsreader. I can organise all my sites in little neat folders and they can be seen in the sidebar...an improvement from the Sage Aggregator. Saves space and I don't have to keep scrolling down to check all the sites cos they are all now in folders. And numbers in cute blue boxes beside each folder tells me how many articles have not been read. It's really great for feed reading. And when the folder is clicked...all new feeds are shown. No need to click on the individual sites or blogs in the folder....quite a nice touch actually.

I'm not too concern about the technicalities involved in the coming out of the software but the little that I have fiddled with the last 24 hours have shown much promise. There is a Blog Editor and you also get Flickr and Photobucket integration. I've yet to use them yet but they show much promise. And I read somewhere today that there are many addons being developed for it. This will probably keep me busy for a while. In the meantime, the pics will have to wait cos I am still fiddling with its settings and checking out all its other functions. But if you are a social browser, I think this is a great browser ..... not sure whether there is a version for Windows though.