Connectivity Right Out of the Box!

Day 2

Well this is cool! My shiny new MacBook pro - with no other special software installed - can now connect to my corporate network's Exchange Server! Email, Contacts, Calendar. They are all coming through - without Microsoft's Office products on the Mac.

It didn't take much to figure out how to wire it all up. I just opened up the MacBook's "Mail" application, filled in a few boxes (email, account name, server name) and in less than 10 minutes I had a gazillion email messages flowing into my new system from my corporate network's Exchange Server. One interesting anomaly though was that I had my Windows box on and connected to the Exchange Server at the same time. And while the Mac was "downloading" email, you could see the PC mirroring the downloading email as well (at least the inbox mail counter kept increasing - then decreasing as it detected mail that was junk). In fact both the Mac and PC were analyzing the email marking messages that were "spam". The Outlook client on the PC marked more than the Mail client on the Mac for those who are interested. The one gotcha now is I don't have VPN set up on the Mac - so this ability to fetch mail - only works when I'm wired in at work. I can, however, still access my email via the Web using Outlook Web Access (OWA).

I also explored some of the other apps on the Mac on day 2. Including GarageBand, which is a decent app for those with a creative music gene (even if you can't play musical apps). In some ways, it is a lot like Sony Acid product for Windows. I didn't spend a whole lot of time in the app, so I don't have enough data to do an apples to apples comparison (no pun intended).

I also downloaded and installed my first new app on the box (not counting iWorks which Apple installed for me before it was shipped). The app installed was the Sony Reader Library for the Mac. This past Christmas I received, as a gift, a Sony Reader, which I have fairly high marks for, but I don't use as often as should. Part of the reason I don't use it as often as I should is because the Sony Reader app for Windows just doesn't run under my "normal" account on my PC laptop. Sure I can still wire in the Reader without using the software (moving files around like you would with a USB stick), but I prefer the ability to manage my Reader with the iTunes like software that Sony provides. Bouncing out of my "normal" domain account on my PC and logging in as local user just to use the Reader Library software just doesn't sit well for me. With the Mac, I have the software I need to manage my reader. Time will tell if I end up using the Reader more now (part of me wishes I had waited for the iPad to use as a reader).

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to day 3 - to discover more great things about the Mac.