I have been saving up for a new computer for a while, so with Apple's Black Friday discounts today I went to their store and bought one. It's a 20" iMac with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, which needless to say is a huge improvement from the three-year-old Powerbook that was previously my main machine. The new Mac will be even speedier when I increase the RAM, but I didn't want to pay Apple's outrageous charges so I'll be getting that upgrade someplace else. Still, the 1GB of DDR2-667MHz memory that came with it is nothing to sneeze at.
Apparently the two Apple Stores I usually frequent were very busy today, but luckily I was at Apple's retail Web site before I went shopping and I discovered a new little-known location not far away; I went there (at about 10:30am) and had no wait whatsoever.
It came with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) pre-installed, but a 10.5 (Leopard) DVD came in the package so I could immediately upgrade to the newest operating system. They must still have a backlog of 10.4 machines that were already assembled and packaged. I didn't have any personal data on the computer yet, so I completely wiped the hard drive and installed 10.5 rather than upgrading.
I'm really enjoying it, and I'm trying to stay with the bundled software and hardware as much as possible. I'm still using the Mighty Mouse, iChat, and Spotlight instead of the replacements I had in place on the old machine. However, Safari just wouldn't cut it for browsing and I already installed Firefox.
Anyway, I'm rambling now (if I wasn't in the first place; this is a personal blog after all), and I should probably get back to playing with the computer. And maybe eating. Between going to the Apple Store, cleaning my office to make space for the new computer, and setting everything up, I just realized a little bit ago that I forgot to eat anything. Dinnertime!
Apple retail stores revamp for holidays - Yahoo! News
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The Geek Code desperately needs updating, but in any case here's mine (as of 2010-02-28):
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GIT/MU d+(-) s:+>: a C++> ULXB++++$ L+++ M++ w--() !O !V P+ E---
W+++ N o++ K? PS PE++ Y+ PGP t !5 X- R- tv+@ b++ DI++++ D--- e*++
h--- r+++ y+++ G+
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If you really care about knowing what that all means, you either know the code already, or you can get it decoded for you here.
5 comments:
Lemme first say: Congrats on your new purchase. Getting a new computer, in my opinion, is equivalent to having a baby. If computers were the result of "adult time", I would throw away all of her "safety measures".... sorry, I'll get back to tech.
I completely understand why you didn't want add more ram to your original purchase. Granted, their ram is more expensive, but it's not by all that much. Plus, having to take apart your all-encased machine doesn't seem worth it to save a few bucks.
I'm jealous. You have the cool remote, the camera, and the built-in microphone.
Having read my previous reply, I realize that didn't make much sense. It's late...
I understand why you didn't get more ram, but I would have not done the same.
Well, the only way to get more RAM is to order online and wait for the shipment... buying in the store, you have to take one of the pre-configured models and do the upgrading yourself.
I considered dropping by Fry's on my way home and getting the RAM, but it's actually cheaper at crucial.com (plus I have more faith that I'm getting good-quality stuff from Crucial).
Besides, it's really no big deal to add RAM to an iMac. Granted, the last time I did it was the G5 model a couple of form factors ago (at my old job), but it should still be pretty simple.
I've bought my 20" 2.4GHz iMac about a month ago. I ordered the extra RAM and had to wait 2 weeks for my machine. But I got through that anticipation and now I'm enjoying it.
Congrats and welcome to the Mac world. I still can't get over what a piece of art my new machine is. Sometimes I look at it from across the room ... you know, just to look at it.
Google "mac leopard terminal command" to find some nice tweaks. You can make the dock darker for more contrast, return the top menu bar to white instead of see-through. Those two I did pretty quickly. Just make sure any terminal commands you use look benign.
And to Harry ... my second child was born almost two months ago. My coworkers all told me I was more excited about getting a new Mac than I was about the new baby. And why not? A new computer is basically all positive -- it doesn't scream at you all day or keep you up at night!
@forester: Thanks! However, this is definitely not time for a Mac welcoming party... I switched 3 or 4 years ago (while I was working in publishing).
Terminal operations are already my strong suit; I'm a Linux systems admin at work. I've already got my Dock (on the side, of course) at the end position, with hidden application icons transparent.
I actually haven't been bothered (yet) my the transparent menu bar. If I get irritated, though, it's outta there. As I said in the OP, I'm trying to keep everything as factory-fresh as possible as long as I can. However, I already switched from Spotlight to Quicksilver... I tried the former for a few days, but it's really no contest.
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