This excerpt is taken from the Google Mac Blog..

” Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

We’re pretty serious about that mission, including the “universally accessible” part. It means making products that everyone can use – including Mac users. We want to provide great products and services to the tens of millions of Mac users around the world, because it’s the right thing to do, and because Mac users inside and outside Google demand it. That’s why we’ve recruited some of the best, most passionate Mac people out there for a Mac Engineering team. You can already check out the first results of their efforts at www.google.com/mac :

And that’s why I love Google too. True to form, Google is committed to giving access to information for everyone. Us Mac users included. Check out their Mac page and see the various software that you can download for your Mac. I  haven’t tried all, so far I like Google Earth and the Widgets. Go and check it out.

The local dealer I buy Mac stuff from graciously loaned me a 1.83 Ghz Macbook Pro to demo. My office actually ordered an iMac from them but since they still have yet to deliver it they loaned the MBP till the iMac gets here. So for the past two weeks I’ve been using the MBP as opposed to my Powerbook. How do I feel two about it 2 weeks after?

Well the MBP is certainly a great unit. It’s definitely faster at apps that are universal but then again you already knew that. The screen is definitely brighter. 3/4ths of the brightness setting is the same as full brightness on my Powerbook. The ambient light on the keyboard also works so much better. Sure they said this on the tech specs but you really won’t appreciate it until you actually use it. Here’s how I know it’s certainly better than the Powerbook’s, on my PB I turned the ambient light sensor off since when it lights up I can barely make out the letter but on the MBP, it’s as clear as day. So I kept it on.

I tried running Photoshop on it and I must say I’m not that impressed. Maybe because it’s just a 1.83 Ghz MBP with 512 RAM but Photoshop felt sluggish compared to my 1.5Ghz G4 with 1GB RAM. I guess for web design it’s good enough but working on print stuff it was slow. I’m not sure if upgrading the RAM will make that much of a difference. Illustrator and Indesign definitely felt so much slower.

After 2 weeks with it, will I get one? Honestly I want to. But two things are stopping me. One I still do a lot of print stuff and I feel that I will still get more work done on my PB than the MBP. So until Adobe release universal binaries for the CS Suite the Powerbook will still out run the MBP in that area. The second reason is that there are rumors that the Merom based MBPs will be out in the next few months. I think it’s worth waiting for.

Still, I love the MBP. If i didn’t have a laptop or it was really time to change mine I would go with this one. I like the Macbooks but I’m really more of an aluminum guy rather than plastic. I love the built-in iSight. I never thought much of it before but being able to do video conference without the hassle of attaching my iSight is really nice. I’ve been doing a lot more video conferencing as of late. As more and more people I know get web cams and/or change to Macbooks and Macbook Pros, I’ve had a lot more people to do video conferencing with.

The MBP is a good machine. However if you plan to buy one now and you can wait a few months I’d say wait for the Merom based ones. You’ll get more bang for buck. If you absolutely have to get one now, then the MBP is worth your money. As it is, I’m already sad.. and I haven’t even given it back yet. That’s still a few days away.

I’ve been trying to do some encoding of Flash Videos for a web site. The thing is, everytime I’d want to view the finished video I’d have to preview it on an embedded Flash Video Player on a web page. It’s just a plain hassle to do this for previewing. It took more time that I’d like. Thank God my friend Nargalzius pointed me to Perian. A freeware plugin that allows Quicktime to play almost any video format, even FLVs. Straight from the Quicktime program.

Neat plugin. Go get it here.