Apple Hardware

So, the new iMac has been revealed. They’ve gone for an aluminium effect with a flush glass screen. I personally liked the sleek white look of the iMac I bought but I suppose the aluminium look is quite nice.

I’ve also heard rumours that the new wireless keyboard needs a lot to be desired. There’s no keypad and special function keys and it’s super thin.

What are your thoughts?

At first I though the wireless mighty mouse that I got with my iMac was excellent. Now, as I use it I don’t quite think it’s as good as I first thought.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love it but doing a right click is harder to perform because of the way it works.

What I mean is, sometimes when I right click on something, the mouse thinks I’ve left clicked. It must be me not clicking far over enough on the mouse but it’s harder to get used to than a PC mouse that has 2 defined buttons.

One of the things I was struggling to get used to was using the Apple key and “C” to copy to the clipboard. I found that sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.

However, I found out today that it works (Apple and “C”) for native OS X software, but for software that uses the X11 plugin (such as OpenOffice) you have to use ctrl and C.

The confusion starts when you want to copy stuff from OpenOffice to a native application such as mail. You have to mix the two then!

Having had my iMac for a few days now, I’m getting used to using it and love it. However, I noticed one dead pixel just to the right of my eye line. It’s stuck in the off state so it’s noticeable when typing documents with a white background etc.

I know one out of about a zillion isn’t bad, but should I put up with that?

What would my chances be of getting it replaced do you think? Also after setting it up and putting all my music and software on, would it be worth it because I’d have to do all that again.

Well, after a slight mishap on the delivery, AND TNT not putting it on the van for delivery the next day I had to go to the depot to pick it up.

My first impression was, Jesus, how big is that screen!! I’ve never seen a bigger screen on a computer before…..seriously.

After getting it all out of the box and putting the batteries in the keyboard and mouse I switched on the monster. Setup was pretty straight forward, as I expected really. Just a case of choosing nationality and timezone etc.

My first impressions from a virgin Mac user were……how the hell do I do this…..how do I do that etc. I have to admit I had to search the internet to find out how to do a couple of simple tasks but other than that I think it will be really easy to get used to. One thing I miss from my Windows setup is the “Home” and “End” keys above the arrow keys. I didn’t realise how often I used them, if there are some on the ‘mac I haven’t found them yet!

Setting up my email took much longer than I expected, however I have put that down to my ISP’s smtp server being down for a while (I think). It’s now up and running using the “Mail” program and it seems fine so far. The spam filtering seems good too.

One of the things I noticed after switching on this morning is the shear speed that it boots up. It puts my old pc to shame! Also opening iTunes is rapid. It used to take about 20 or 30 seconds on my pc whereas on the Mac its about 2 or 3 seconds!

I’m not sure if this is the same on all macs but I’m not quite used to the @ symbol being on the “2″ key. On my pc its just above the right shift key. I suppose I’ll get used to it after a while.

That’s about it for my first impressions and to round up this post here’s my scores so far out of 10:

• Looks : 10
• Build quality : 10
• Keyboard : 8 (a bit softer than I’m used to)
• Mouse : 10 (how cool is the pea shaped middle button!)
• Useability : 10 (when you get used to it)
• Sound : 10
• Screen quality : 10

Since ordering my iMac a few days ago, Apple’s “order tracking” feature said that my delivery would arrive on Thursday 21st. So, yesterday I went out to sort out a friends laptop that wasn’t working properly.

On arriving back home, lo and behold, good old TNT delivery company left a “sorry you were out” card! If i’d have been in I would have received my iMac on the Tuesday (yesterday).

How pissed off do you feel when that happens? I rang the TNT depot and they said my delivery was still out with the driver so I couldn’t go and pick it up, so I have rescheduled it for today.

I won’t be missing this delivery!

Hello and welcome to my blog about how I get on with switching over to an Apple Mac from a Windows pc.

After putting my order in for an Apple iMac yesterday, I’ve got 4 days until delivery and I can’t wait.

Please feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed and join in the comments as I learn the ropes on the Mac operating system, allegedly the best OS in the world….time will see.

T minus 4 days and counting!