Now that everyone (almost) at the office are totting around identical MacBook Pros, I felt the urgent necessity to personalize mine. Otherwise, I imagine, when at some time that we leave our MacBook Pros in close proximity to one another, it’ll be all too easy for us to grab the wrong MacBook Pro. What if we grab one MacBook Pro, pack it into our bag, go home or somewhere else, then only realize that we’ve gotten the wrong one? I can just picture some of us struggling at the login/screensaver password window trying to re-enter our passwords repeatedly into the wrong MacBook Pro.

The problem with personalizing the exterior of a MacBook Pro is that we cannot get the traditional notebook protectors. You know, those full print protectors that cover the entire surface. The reasons are: 1) the white Apple logo needs to be seen, and 2) you want people to notice it is an aluminum unibody MacBook Pro. A clear, transparent protection film will do well to protect the notebook, but doesn’t help to quickly identify the notebook.

So, well, we’ve got to find some sort of minimalistic stickers. Yeah, like this flower sticker. A simple, elegant graphic print. The material is somewhat thick, so you feel a noticeable bump as you slide your finger over it. I hope it will stick on really well and not come off easily.

Apple hardware is now the rage at my workplace. Out of 11 programmers/engineers who were asked to select a notebook to replace their previous (mostly unworkable) notebooks, nine chose a Mac. The last two stuck on to a PC/Windows notebook.

In the previous round of notebook procurement, it was the other way around. Only two opted for a Mac, all the rest chose a PC/Windows notebook. I was one of those two. It looks like we did a good job selling the Mac.

Interestingly, when I attended a system administration technical conference in the US around in 2004 or so, I noticed large number of Apple users. Just going by a cursory glance around the various presentation venues, I would say 50% of people who were working on a notebook would be having a Mac. I wondered if perhaps it was simply because the Macs were more noticeable (the lighted white Apple logo on the screen’s back). Or perhaps Mac users were more likely to use their notebooks “anytime anywhere”.

Well, where I am now, totting around a PC/Windows notebook is the “extraordinary case”.