Well, I started the P90X program officially today.

Going into my first workout, I weighed 198 lbs, and am only 'acceptable' in terms of my overall fitness. I plan to do the full 90 days of the 'normal' P90X workout program. I am using resistance bands instead of either dumbbells or a pull-up bar (I don't want to hang one in our apartment).

Today's workout was Chest & Back and then Ab Ripper X. The Chest & Back workout was really tough. The pull-downs weren't that bad, and I was able to do some respectable reps with the 40 lb band, but all those pushups were pretty killer. The first exercise is pushups, and I went and did my max not realizing what was coming. In the future I will pace myself a lot better.

After Chest & Back it was time for the Ab Ripper X workout. I did this one once last week (the day the DVD's came but before I had the rest of my equipment), so I knew going in that it was tough. I am happy to report that I did better this time, which I attribute to hydration and eating well today in addition to just being more aware of how my body moves through these exercises.

The addition of the recovery drink has an extremely noticeable difference, and there is no way I could do this workout without it.

I stuck to the meal plan today (Level II of Phase 1 based on my weight). I ended up short 1 protein, but other than that I nailed the portions exactly. I expect my protein bars to arrive on Wednesday and that will help with the portions.

I can tell it is going to be a crazy 90 days. This program is absolutely not for the faint of heart. I really can't wait to see my results though!

This is the third in a series of posts exploring my ongoing experience with my first Mac. For the first entry in this series, click here. For part two, click here.

Let's talk about the facts of life - iLife. For those who don't know, iLife is the suite of software included with every mac that is comprised of iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, iChat, etc. At the end of my last post I promised a review, and here it is: this software is absolutely incredible. iPhoto has a feature that identifies the faces in a photo, and once you've given names to a few of them, the software can go through your entire photo collection and identify with some accuracy who is in the photo. This has got to be the most useful feature in the history of photography. Well, ok, maybe second most useful behind only the camera.

If you've used iTunes on a PC, you may have had the same experience I have - iTunes on the PC is buggy, likes to crash for no apparent reason, and takes forever to run. iTunes on the Mac suffers from none of these issues, and is a very stable and snappy program.

I could continue on about iLife for pages. I could tell you about the awesome experience I had with iMovie the very first time I used it, or the Places feature of iPhoto, or the amazing clarity through the iSight camera in iChat. The bottom line, though, is that Macs have a huge leg up over windows machines when it comes to out-of-the-box functionality. Every piece of software I just mentioned is free and comes pre-installed on every Mac. Until I used them myself, I never would have believed that this software would be this much fun to play around with.

This will likely be the last in this series for a while. At this point the Mac is an integral part of my technological suite at home. The effect the iMac has had on my technology usage is that my very nice laptop is used only at work and for gaming now. I have a feeling that in the coming years, we will likely move from a home with several PC's and an iMac to a home with a bunch of Macs and one or two gaming PC's.

It's official, I've converted.

This is the second in a series of posts exploring my ongoing experience with my first Mac. For the first entry in this series, click here.

In my last post, I talked mostly about my experience with the salespeople involved with the purchase of my new Mac. In this post I want to talk about the machine itself.

I entered the Apple Retail Store and was immediately surprised by the sheer number of people inside. There were easily 50 people in the store, and it seemed to me like about a quarter of them were Apple employees. I casually moved towards the 13" Macbook Pros - one of the several models of Mac I was considering for my purchase. I hadn't really seen one of the new 'Unibody' type Macbooks in person yet, and I was blown away by how nice they all looked. The aluminum enclosure with the glass screen is definitely slick. I went to use the touchpad and was pretty surprised by the lack of buttons. I admit that for about 30 seconds I could not figure out how to click that thing. I am used to lightly tapping the touchpad on my laptop for click functionality, or at the very least, just using one of the two mouse buttons. The idea of pushing down the entire touchpad is, while an interesting idea, not something I really like.

It was as I was thus engaged with the Macbook Pros that Scott (the salesperson from my previous post) walked up and introduced himself. I talked about how I was a computer science type guy and was interested in getting into iPhone/iPad programming, and that I was considering either a Mac Mini, a Macbook Pro, or an iMac. I had already basically ruled out the Mac Mini, and since he found me looking at the Macbook Pros, he told me he wanted to show me the iMacs. I told him I was interested in the smaller (21.5" screen) iMacs, and we walked over to a table full of computers. He grabbed the mouse of one of them and started to show me the screen. I stopped him and explained again that I wanted to see the smaller iMacs - the ones for $1200. He explained that the one we were looking at was one of the smaller iMacs, and he pointed to a table with the larger size up iMacs...my first reaction was something like "Huh, yeah, those are definitely the big ones". My second reaction was "Holy crap, 21.5 inches is HUGE!".

For some reason, that size is significantly smaller in my brain than it is in reality.

After the size, my next impression of the iMac was that it was gorgeous. This is easily the best looking computer I have ever seen. Now don't get me wrong, my Windows 7 laptop (a custom-built Sager) is a workhorse. It's got great internals, a fully HD screen, and it absolutely screams. But wow, the iMac is just, well, pretty.

Now, fortunately pretty doesn't sell me a computer (I likely would have walked out with much of the store!). I checked out the specs and the speed, browsed the internet for a minute or two, and, oh who am I kidding...I was sold the minute I saw the thing.

About an hour later I am unpacking my new iMac and putting it on my desk. The kids are in the room watching me and there is a whole chorus of "Ooh's" as I get everything plugged in (you know, the whole one cord I need to plug in). My wife's reaction was "Umm, I thought you were going to get the small one..."

I turned on the machine, and the screen lit up in a solid (and very bright) white. It sat there just long enough to make me worried that something was wrong with it, then it played a little movie in which the OS X logo made my daughter cry from the noise. Also, I think it may have charged the old solar powered calculator I had lying on the desk.

I went through the setup process (which took me about as long as the Windows 7 process...wasn't exactly blown away here), and then I finally got to the desktop. Then my new iMac told me there were some updates I had to install and then restart the computer.

I thought I was getting away from things like this by getting a Mac?

I push forward through 3 (!) update and reboot cycles, and finally my Mac seems to be up-to-date and usable.

Just in time for dinner.

So, back from dinner (yum, sushi...), I sit down at the Mac with the intention of swapping my iTunes folder from my Windows laptop over to my Mac so I can use the Mac to sync my iPod (it just seems more natural than syncing it with the PC). Well, it turns out you can't just access windows shared folders from a Mac (or vice-versa), you need to go through and setup some complicated file sharing stuff. Now granted, it is likely only complicated because of my limited Mac experience, but still, I can't be the only person on the planet with Windows 7 computers and an iMac on the same network.

This brings me to my next gripe - the seemingly total lack of online community-based support for the Macs. With any given PC problem, I can Google an error code or general issue and have a couple dozen results describing the issue, some workarounds, and a possible fix. It took me close to two hours to figure out how to do something as simple as setup a Windows-accessible file-share on the Mac. The process itself took about 2 minutes, but good luck figuring it out on your own!

Now, this post probably has come off a bit negative. The reality is, despite the frustration from some strange menu systems and things of that nature, I have had an absolute blast doing even mundane things on the Mac.

Now, with the more boring stuff out of the way, tune in next time for my first impressions of the iLife software, including what I think is one of the coolest features I've ever seen in photo organization!

Those who know me well are aware of my general disdain towards Apple's attitude surrounding their products. To be frank, there is just a bit too much 'kool-aid drinking' going on in Cupertino, if you catch my meaning.

I hadn't owned an Apple product made after 1984 until the fall of 2009, when I purchased a used iPod Touch on eBay for $90. I bought the iPod for the sole purpose of checking out the App store as a viable path to small business ownership. I have some experience in computer programming, and felt that getting into the iPhone app market was a reasonable decision. I was very surprised to discover that the iPod Touch was not only a great little music player, but a truly phenomenal portable device that managed to become a must carry device for me within a very short space of time.

After my positive experience with the iPod Touch, I decided I would look into buying a Mac. For months I debated my options. On the one hand, if I planned to program for the app store, I 100% needed a Mac. On the other hand, unless I was able to monetize the Mac in some way, I just couldn't see the value in paying substantially more out of pocket for a Mac with similar specs to a mid-range (at best) PC.

Then, the iPad was announced. I don't know how well the iPad will sell at launch (and it has one of the worst product names ever), but I am pretty sure it will move, umm, quickly. This is my chance to get in on the ground floor with a new app store - so when we got our tax refund this year, I decided it was time to pull the trigger on my first Mac purchase. This series of posts will be a chronicle of my experience as a long time PC user and overall tech guy, using a modern Mac for the first time.

With the introduction out of the way, the balance of today's post will be about the people involved when I actually bought the Mac. Details of the hardware itself will follow in a future post.

I live in a reasonably large city, and so I expected to find an Apple Store in town. It turns out, the closest Apple Retail Store is about 45 minutes North of me. What we do have in Salem is a third-party distributor with a name that I fully expect was designed to throw off Mac newbies and make them believe they are dealing with the real deal.

I had an idea of the type of machine I was looking for, so I called the local folks to inquire about inventory before I went in. The guy I spoke with on the phone was not real polite, and just sounded like he was a tad put off by the fact that I had questions for him.

He explained that I should just go into the store, and I told him I would, assuming they had what I wanted to see in stock.

He said they would have it.
I asked if he was sure.
He said he was.

He was responding quite quickly so I asked if he knew for a fact that they had it or he was just assuming they would because it's a common model. At this point there is a short pause, and I can hear the familiar 'click-click-click' of a keyboard. After about 20 seconds, he says 'Yeah, looks like we don't have that one...we can have it in stock a week from Wednesday." Now, as much as I love buying locally, there is no way I'm waiting close to two weeks for something I could order from Apple.com and have on Tuesday.

I still have some more questions I'd like to get answered, but this guy has clearly had enough of me, so I get off the phone and search the intertubes for some information. After some frustrating efforts to find up-to-date information on the various Mac models (most reviews and articles are dated 2007 or earlier), I decide to go straight to the source, and I call the closest Apple store to me.

A nice young woman (I assume she was young anyway) answered the phone and spent easily 20 minutes answering all my questions - making sure I really understood the responses each time. I was extremely impressed, and it was very refreshing after the guy I had just spoken to. She informed me that they did in fact have many of the model I was hoping to see in stock and on their floor to demo, and that I was welcome to pop in anytime.

We got off the phone, and when I got off work, I made the drive to the Apple Store. First of all, this was easily the best shopping experience I've ever had, for any product, ever. Second, whoever is designing these buildings is awesome, and after I make my first billion dollars, I'm getting him/her to design my home.

I was helped by a guy named Scott, who was extremely willing to just answer questions for me as I came up with them. He was extremely knowledgeable, and the few times I asked him a stumper, he went to the nearest Mac and found the answer for me online. He helped me get my educator discount, he showed me which Mac was best for my use (including talking me DOWN a model because he said it sounded like I wouldn't use the enhanced hardware on the step up), and just was an overall great guy. After about 25 minutes of answering every question I could come up with, Scott was still smiling and attentive to my concerns. When I finally purchased my shiny new Mac, he handed me the receipt and congratulated me on buying my first Mac and officially becoming a Mac owner.

I tell you what, if they are trying to create lifelong customers, they are doing one hell of a job in there.

My next post will be about the nitty gritty - my new Mac itself and my experiences getting it setup and working on my network (which was quite a gritty task, I assure you). Tune in next time!