The first and most obvious is the wallpaper. The internet is full of useful sources. Two places I like are http://digitalblasphemy.com/ which is a pay site, but has some pretty sweet free options, and http://www.deviantart.com/ which contains a wide range of art, but with a little cropping most images will fit. Also for all you proud Apple users out there, you can check out http://www.usingmac.com/2008/5/18/50-nice-apple-wallpapers.

The second biggest thing you can do to alter your experience is changing your icons. This is a two step process. First you have to find icons you like. They’re all over the Internet, but http://iconfactory.com has both free and pay icon sets available. Some of the themes are pretty ugly, but there are some real gems hidden away. Once you have icons you like there are two ways of customizing your computer. The first is by copying and pasting the icons into the folder’s Info screen, as explained at http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/how-to-change-mac-os-x-leopard-icons/. The second method is to purchase a tool called Candybar. It seems like a waste of money, but it is really addictive. It makes changing your default icons really fun and easy. It also allows for changing your dock, and entire themes from IconFactory can be applied with a single click. Plus it stores all your themes so mixing and matching icons from different sets is a breeze. It comes as a free demo, so I recommend giving it a try.

Once you’ve chosen your background and set up your icons, you’ll want to get the details to match your theme. In system preferences, you can choose the highlight colours for lists, and some dock features. I like browsing in column mode, but if you prefer the “Icon View” you can set colours and background images for finder windows. There is an explanation of this trick at http://www.thinkmac.net/blog/archives/mac-tips-daily-218-folder-backgrounds.html. You can even modify your login screen with the tutorial found at http://osxdaily.com/2007/02/22/customize-the-mac-os-x-login-screen/. My point is that if there is something you want to change, you should perform a google search, because you would be amazed at your options.

That’s about it for the OS theme. There are a few applications which I like because they really add to the experience and the look. Instead of using iChat for interoffice communication I like to use Adium. It is very flexible for the look and feel, but doesn’t handle video as well. I also really like using CoverSutra to play my music. I’m one of those people who loves listening to music while I work, but flipping back and forth to iTunes is annoying and can slow me down. CoverSutra lets me hot-key all of my music, provides a SpotLight like quick search and most importantly, places the icon of the album on my screen. This is particularly good for a well organized music library. One thing to note is the bright pink icon that CoverSutra comes with. If you decide to purchase this application, you should use one of the tricks above to change the icon.

I’d love to hear what tricks you have for customizing you desktop experience.

I was initial extremely impressed by the shear quantity of documentation that Apple included with XCode. Normally you would only expect to see some help stuff for using the tools, not the language. In this case, there was sample code, tutorials and more. More Importantly, they had class references and such for everything, the type of documentation a non-novice developer can make use of. This type of documentation is often overlooked.

Later that day, I was sitting in a Chapters (a Canadian book store) and didn’t have access to the Internet. Not needing anything but the tutorial walkthrough, I started building my application. It turns out that all this amazing documentation was for the previous version of XCode (and Objective-C). It was telling me to press buttons and select options that weren’t there. Some of them weren’t even close. I wasted hours trying to fight my way through the documentation. It wasn’t just misplaced buttons either. The Garbage collection feature that was just released with Objective-C 2.0 kept “cleaning” my window. Without realizing that the documentation was so out of date. I thought I was doing something wrong. If it was missing all together I would have waited till I got home, and found a newer Internet tutorial (which is what I finally did).

Apple scores big points for have a huge amount of documentation at your finger tips, but loses points for it being out of date. Sometimes misinformation is worse than no information.

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Do you have any stories with bad documentation? Any interesting experiences trying to learn a new language? Leave a comment:

I want to contrast this with the recent purchase of an Acer (A150 Aspire One) netbook my fiancée made. While she loves Apple computers and owns a MacBook, she needed a small, portable computer to carry around.

The Acer didn’t have terrible packaging, but then again it was no Apple packaging either. Anna hit the power button with excitement all ready to use the computer. The Acer responded by putting form after form in front of her. The laptop had to install a ridiculous amount of applications and tools, and after 3 restarts and 29 minutes of staring at progress bars, the computer was finally ready to be used. Suddenly, we both got the feeling of “I miss my Apple.”

This feeling is termed “post decision” or “cognitive dissonance” and it essentially equates to buyers remorse. Most companies are hyper aware of this phenomenon, as it is far more expensive to reach new consumers with marketing dollars then it is to keep existing repeat consumers. When you see a message with the product thanking you for the purchase or calling you a loyal customer, this is the company trying to battle your feelings of cognitive dissonance.

So many companies are focused on making the sale, they forget about making the person happy once they have purchased the computer. That’s how you get repeat business. Those details are why Anna and I have bought four Apple computers in the last 3 years. “You don’t get a second chance for a first impression” and I won’t be buying or recommending Acer to anybody. Instead, I suggest you go buy an Apple.

(Side note: Two days after purchase, we had to return the computer because of a flickering screen.)

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Comment starter: What great purchasing experiences have you had? When was your biggest buyer’s remorse?