Heather's New Computer - Going Mac!!

October 20, 2009

On another topic, since I could ramble on and on in a negative fashion about work, I finally bought a new computer! Although I am not currently using that new computer. My old computer (the still current one, but I mean my very old, geriatric computer) is a PC, about six years old at best calculation and has served me quite well up until recently. Things got so bad (meaning slow and almost unusable) that I reformatted it in an attempt to extend its lifespan a bit longer so that I could save up for a new computer. In my, I'm sure, whining to Gieve (and anyone else who would listen) about my dying computer, he suggested that I might start thinking Mac. I think I may have scoffed since I've been quite anti-Mac in my life, having used PCs from the DOS days and the few times using a Mac in a library, I think as part of my job. I remember hating it. I remember using a more contemporary version last year in a failed photography class, learning how to use Adobe Photoshop and Bridge, but someone was telling me exactly what to do, where to click. I remember still despising the non-intuitive, user unfriendly interface of the Mac OS.

But I think he unfairly started the whole thing off with "You know you can boot a Mac as a PC and run Windows and anything else Microsoft. It'll probably even run it better than an actual PC." To which I probably snorted skeptically but damn him, it started a small seed in my head. You see, I have this tendency to abuse my computers. Which is why I need serious workhorse, power house computers. I usually have running, at least, World of Warcraft, four browser windows open with about 10 or so tabs each, MS-Word, and often will pull up a resource hog like Photoshop or other photography program. Seems like not that much but WoW and all those tabs are quite heavy on the computer, especially WoW. Then try to pull up something like Sony Vegas Movie Studio to mess around with film editing. Computer go squish. Well, my old, geriatric computer go squish. In its day, it could run a small country. A very small country but there you go.

So, in my obsessive research manner, I started poking around about using a Mac as a PC. I know, I know, anathema to Mac users I'm sure. But hell, if a Mac could run Windows better than a PC, and possibly last a lot longer, I might go for that. I started asking more questions of Gieve about Macs, knowing virtually nothing about them. Take for example, when I looked up pictures of the iMac, the computer Gieve was recommending (I really don't need a Pro, no matter how much the thought of eight processors might make me slobber), I called him up and said, "Well, it does look nice and fancy, but uhm.... where's the rest of it?" I think he laughed at me. "That's it!!" And thus I started leaning in that direction but he said to wait, there's rumours of a new iMac update coming soon, possibly with quad cores. And apparently he was very excited about that (despite him having that 8-core processor MacPro), stating it would be a computing platform not seen yet, very powerful, etc, etc. I think I gave him another skeptical look.

But I said okay, my computer would probably last until the end of the year, although I recognized my sanity might not (when I tell my computer to do something, it'd better do it with extreme swiftness, and if it doesn't, I get crazy). So I started lurking at the Mac rumour sites, macrumours.com and appleinsider.com. And remember that obessiveness I mentioned? Well, I think I refreshed those sites several times a day. Sigh. Nothing. Well, actually, a lot of rumours and some news stuff. But I got a very interesting education about the goings on with these two big giants, Apple and Microsoft, both to them and between them. At some point, it became a very interesting anthropological study and eventually, in my mind, I realized that either way, I'd just be getting a new computer, it didn't really matter which kind it was. Both have "great reputations" although usually from within their own user circles. Mac users hate PCs, PC users hate Macs, etc, each think their own hardware is the bomb. Doesn't that remind you of something?

So, I think at this point I was about 70%/30%, in favor of a Mac. Something in my research was pointing to a more versatile and possibly stable experience (can use the Mac as a PC but also as a Mac for my photography and movie editing stuff). Gieve had said wait, so I was waiting, and still obsessively checking the rumour sites, still doing research. Things were looking clearer that an announcement of upgrades would be coming very soon and many theories stated that it would be right before the release of Windows 7, slated for October 22, probably to steal the thunder of Microsoft. Which at this point didn't seem very thunderous to me, considering I'd learned that to upgrade to Windows 7 cost $200 and stand alone was $400 but to upgrade from Mac's Leopard OS to their new OS, Snow Leopard (which just charms me since they are my favorite Cats) costs maybe $40. Please. That is just sad.

So, if I were to buy a new computer, especially if a Mac, and paying for Mac at Mac prices, much higher than PC, I figured I'd better get the newest damn thing they put out. So, I decided since this announcement might be so iminent, I better go play with an iMac. Off to Best Buy I go wherein I find the 24" inch iMac and start messing with it, thinking I'm going to have the same experience from long ago, that I'm not going to know what to do and I'm going to tear my hair out and go crazy. But I have to say, it wasn't so bad. At this point, I probably know computers pretty well, in the sense of how they flow, interface-wise. I think I've been through at least five different versions of operating systems. From BASIC, programming those really old Apple IIs or whatever they were, to DOS (my first AT 8088), to Win 3.1, which I thankfully managed to skip over (it drove me crazy and I had to use it in the psych computer labs), Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT (which I didn't use all that much either, I think at some work somewhere), Windows XP (on my desktop now), Windows Vista (on my laptop now... sucks balls), Windows 7 (Starter version, on my new little mini computer). Okay, that's ten. Wow.

So maybe it's all that direct experience that allowed me to catch on fairly quickly, plus having used a Mac before at some point, or maybe they improved their interface and what they say about being so intuitive is true. In any case, I did pretty good. The programs in iLife were pretty cool, seemless, like in the way that iTunes and my iPod always have been, plus I was charmed, perhaps evilly lured, one might say, by the sleek, rounded and chrome look of all the programs. I do remember liking this look from my use of the Mac Photoshop from my class. Plus, that screen. My gods. I'm still not sure about the glossy surface but the colors were just so rich. I guess the test will be running WoW or seeing my (in my eyes) boring photos on this. So... that experience bumped me to 90%/10%. I still had some doubts. Well, naturally I think anyone would have doubts, doing a "switcher" but I foolishly wanted to be 100% sure. Plus, I was still waiting.

Then, October 20, 2009, they made the announcement. Two days before Windows 7 is to be released. I was at work, but knew from the rumours sites that today was looking like The Day. I'd been scouring those stupid sites for probably a month or more. Obsessively. So I asked a co-worker with an iPhone (which I regrettably don't have) if I could check the Mac site. She was quite agreeable and I went straight to my "trusty" rumour sites, saw the announcement (they mix actual news with conjecture) and then right to apple.com. Upon even a brief glance, I had my 100%. I called Gieve, asking for help with ordering my computer that night, which he was probably amusedly amenable to.

So that night, after celebratory sushi, we came home and ordered my new iMac computer. It was a bit more expensive that I had thought, considering bumping up processors from i5 to i7, but saved by staying at 4 gig RAM, but then adding a ton for taxes. "Free shipping" is balls, since the taxes bump it far too high anyway. In any case, I got an iMac = 27" screen, quad core i7 processors, 4 gigs of RAM (probably soon to be upgraded but can't afford it now), ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb video card, etc. Lots of bells and whistles. I'm a little in trepidation about switching but I trust Gieve. And I did play with it, so... should be fine...