I stealthily updated the “tools of my trade” page recently but in case you missed it, there’s a new leader of the (computer) pack around these parts. After going back and forth and back and forth for days, I decided that the future was a desktop and not a laptop. As my brother pointed out, portable computers always suffer on the price-performance scale and since I do most of my work at home these days, the value of portability has taken a tumble. Also, the thought of plugging in and unplugging a whole bunch of cords was pretty unappealing. A quick trip to the local Apple store got me excited about the “late 2006” 24″ iMacs. To get a bigger hard drive and better video card, I ordered through the Apple web site. Three weeks in, I’d give the iMac a straight “A” so far.
The screen is big enough to show a web browser, my note taker of choice, a word processor file or two, a small Excel spreadsheet and still have room left in the corners for iTunes and Adium. Sweet. It’s also a great way to show off photo slide shows using the included remote control, always near at hand thanks to its magnetic resting spot on the side of the iMac. My vacation pics never looked so good.
With 2 GB of memory, the iMac runs everything quickly. Opening my 7,000+ digital photo collection in iPhoto on my old Powerbook G4 takes up to 15 seconds before I can get to work. On the new iMac, it’s a delay of only about 5 seconds. Speaking of photos, I’m completely addicted to the Photo Booth program that uses the built in iSight camera to let you take funny snapshots of yourself. My latest opus:
I’ve downloaded VMWare’s Fusion beta for Windows-y stuff and was absolutely amazed when it created a new partition with Windows 2000 in about 30 minutes — Virtual PC on the PB took over an hour, I recall. It works like a charm with Microsoft Outlook 2003 and the annoying, horridly designed Sony software accompanying my wee ICD-P320 Sony digital recorder (catchy name, huh?).
I opted for Apple’s bluetooth wireless mouse and keyboard, too. I’ve had no problems waking up the computer from sleep, as I’d feared, and Apple’s mighty mouse scroll wheel has the unique ability (in my experience) of knowing which program the cursor is hovering over. With other scroll wheel mice I’ve used, if you move the cursor from an active window to an inactive window, you needed to click on the new window before scrolling. Mighty mouse just knows. The keyboard has a good feel but I’m not much of a touch typist so my word counts for little on that score.
I do have one complaint with the iMac’s design, however. Just below the screen you can see a 4″ tall band of white plastic. It is a great place for my wife to leave me sticky notes. But combined with the iMac’s metal stand that tilts but doesn’t move up or down, the design places the top 1/3 of the giant screen almost uncomfortably high for viewing from my desk chair. I’m exploring mounting the whole kit and caboodle on a swinging metal arm. Otherwise, I’m going to need a taller chair and/or lower desk…
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