Making friends with the Mac

I spent the weekend trying to get familiar with my new MacBook laptop.

No, I do not love it yet. I'm still mystified as to where things are stored, why things show up on my desktop when I least expect it, etc.

I did get my virtual machine and MS office installed, though. I was a bit clueless when installing it and I suspect that at some point, I'll redo the installation. But for now, it's working. I don't really understand what I did to make it work. If I could figure out where the documentation went to (it's not in the Documents folder...where did it go???), I might be able to get a clue as to how the beast works.

I like the idea of having a laptop, especially with a wireless connection. I'll be taking the machine with me next week when I visit my family. The only snag is that there isn't a wireless connection where I'll be staying, so I'll be relying on my phone to check email. If I need to actually send files anywhere, I'll either need to connect to the cable modem or find a wireless hot spot somewhere. Or...use thumbdrives to transfer files to the computer there. Or just wait until I'm back in the airport :-)

I'm so used to everyone having a wireless network that I forgot I'll be staying with family members who have no real need for wireless. Thus, they don't have it.

I did let my current employers know that I'll be out of state, but still online and working. I'm hoping that's not an issue since we're all working remotely and as long as I'm reachable, it shouldn't matter where I'm at, physically. We'll see if they object.

In the meantime, I'll continue trying to make friends with my Mac. I've yet to discover why people love them more than a Windows machine. The hardware is lovely, but the actual operation of the OS doesn't seem to be anything that tugs at my heart strings. Not like my iPhone does (oh, I do *love* my iPhone!).