A Month with a Mac

It has been about a month  since we replaced our Windows PCs with iMacs so I thought a quick report was in order. I am glad to report – all is fine.

As I posted on November 19, we replaced an HP and Dell PC running Windows XP with two iMacs. The installation and data transfers were simple. And the learning curve fast. We both have standard configurations with 4 MB and are pleasantly surprised at the speed.

Alan’s World

I also do a ton of surfing and email but a fair amount of managing digital images and music. For these task, I love my 27” iMac, especially the ability to have multiple windows open and accessible. But I go beyond some standard tasks with content for my websites.

As I mentioned in the first post, for $79,  I d the Windows emulator, Parallels, that allows me to run all my previous Windows apps on my iMac. Overall, I have been pleasantly surprised with this app.

I regularly run Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Quicken via Parallels. Interestingly, these apps runs at least twice as fast as on my old PC. My only gripe was a caps lock issue but in an update last week, this has been fixed by Parallels. Also, I am not thrilled how the fonts are displayed but it is manageable. Anyway, I saved almost $1000 by spending $79 and not ing new Mac versions of these apps. But, over time, I will.

Behind the Screens

On the system admin side of things, the network is invisible, the backups to the Time Capsule are automatic and OS updates happen almost without notice. This last item was bit of a surprise in how many updates Apple suggests – very similar to Windows but without the hassle and time.

My only real complaint thus far is learning the cursor functions of page up/down, backspace, delete, etc. I quickly learned the red, yellow, green window buttons but Apple seems overly complicated on managing the cursor and text.

Another app that needs improvement is Apple’s email. It is too simple when compared to Outlook. The simplistic signature feature is annoying as is the spell checker. It seems to take one more step than on Windows to do some simple tasks.

While on the subject of apps, I downloaded Picasa as my image management tool and forgot iPhoto altogether. However, many Apple apps are integrated with iPhoto making me wish iPhoto was my primary photo app; but I can’t live with it’s issues.

However, the Preview app that comes will iMacs is surprisingly powerful with it’s re-size, crop, annotation features. It almost replaces Photoshop for most simple image manipulation.

Looking Back, Going Forward

OK, with my gripes aside, we love our new iMacs and will never go back to Windows and those boring boxes from HP, Dell and others. As for support, I don’t know; I haven’t used it. And that is a good thing.

As I said, I will pay a premium for excellence in design and engineering. There is a reason Apple market share has double in PCs recently – they are simply better.

Climb On!
Alan