The Light Side Of The Dark Side...
First post of the year! Never mind that we're more than four months in...
As anyone who has been bored enough to dig deep within my website (or to read my last post), I have been engaged in an on-going Mac saga, involving several quasi-relevant G3-based Macs. Well, it has taken a new turn. A couple of days ago, after walking into the Apple Store at the local mall, and spending an hour or so hemming and hawing, I convinced myself to plunk down $1,299 for a brand spankin' new 17" iMac, with a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo chip under the hood. As a long-time PC loather and a relative newbie to the Mac world, the implications of the new device are a bit confusing: the power plant long-used by the enemy, sitting under the hood of an Apple computer. However, it definitely walks like a Mac, and quacks like a Mac, so it's definitely a Mac. Or, as things may turn out soon, a sheep in wolf's clothing...
Not one day after acquiring this beast, I decided to see what all the hoopla about Boot Camp, Apple's new beta software which allows these Intel-based Macs to boot Windows XP, was about. After installing the software, I attempted to install a dusty copy of Windows XP Professional SP1; I know Boot Camp requires SP2, but it started to install anyway, so I figured it might work...
Boy, was I wrong! When I attempted to run the driver disk which Boot Camp had made, it gave me a fatal error. On top of that, the machine flat refused to shut itself down or restart without freezing. Not good. I decided to cut my losses, and remove the Windows partition from the HD. However, there might be hope: according to some pages I've read, the install at least allows the wireless card to work (something which didn't seem to work for me, but who knows), which means you can download and install SP2 from the existing SP1 install, to allow those other drivers to work. Not sure if I'll have good luck with that (I rarely do), but maybe I'll make a go of it.
Anyhoo, getting back to the crux of the matter, the new iMac works quite well at it's primary purpose, which is to be a Mac. Native applications, such as Safari, are lightning-fast. Old PPC applications aren't too much worse: Microsoft Word 2004, which took at least 30 seconds to start on my old 400MHz iMac G3, only takes about 5-10 seconds with the new iMac. The Rosetta emulation layer is nearly transparent, except for the slight delay versus a real PPC iMac. Having an iSight camera built-in is an added plus, since there aren't too many other webcams which work with the Mac without some tweaking (are you listening, Logitech?). The remote is neat, too; the included Front Row software, when used with the remote, essentially turns the iMac into a gigantic iPod.
All in all, I think the new iMac is a great device. The only problem I've had with it, save for the minor Boot Camp snafu, was that the keyboard partially or completely stopped responding on the first day I had it. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be too common of an occurrence, and fairly easy to fix when it does. Another minor problem is the current lack of Universal Binary-based major applications (such as Photoshop or Microsoft Office) made for the Intel-based Macs, though I'm sure it'll turn out to only be an issue in the short term. My only real concern is the fact that it is a first-revision device, and anything which is in it's first revision has the potential to develop issues; hopefully, that won't be the case with this iMac. Anyway, enough of this typing, I'm gonna do some more messing around with this thing... ;)
-Adam
As anyone who has been bored enough to dig deep within my website (or to read my last post), I have been engaged in an on-going Mac saga, involving several quasi-relevant G3-based Macs. Well, it has taken a new turn. A couple of days ago, after walking into the Apple Store at the local mall, and spending an hour or so hemming and hawing, I convinced myself to plunk down $1,299 for a brand spankin' new 17" iMac, with a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo chip under the hood. As a long-time PC loather and a relative newbie to the Mac world, the implications of the new device are a bit confusing: the power plant long-used by the enemy, sitting under the hood of an Apple computer. However, it definitely walks like a Mac, and quacks like a Mac, so it's definitely a Mac. Or, as things may turn out soon, a sheep in wolf's clothing...
Not one day after acquiring this beast, I decided to see what all the hoopla about Boot Camp, Apple's new beta software which allows these Intel-based Macs to boot Windows XP, was about. After installing the software, I attempted to install a dusty copy of Windows XP Professional SP1; I know Boot Camp requires SP2, but it started to install anyway, so I figured it might work...
Boy, was I wrong! When I attempted to run the driver disk which Boot Camp had made, it gave me a fatal error. On top of that, the machine flat refused to shut itself down or restart without freezing. Not good. I decided to cut my losses, and remove the Windows partition from the HD. However, there might be hope: according to some pages I've read, the install at least allows the wireless card to work (something which didn't seem to work for me, but who knows), which means you can download and install SP2 from the existing SP1 install, to allow those other drivers to work. Not sure if I'll have good luck with that (I rarely do), but maybe I'll make a go of it.
Anyhoo, getting back to the crux of the matter, the new iMac works quite well at it's primary purpose, which is to be a Mac. Native applications, such as Safari, are lightning-fast. Old PPC applications aren't too much worse: Microsoft Word 2004, which took at least 30 seconds to start on my old 400MHz iMac G3, only takes about 5-10 seconds with the new iMac. The Rosetta emulation layer is nearly transparent, except for the slight delay versus a real PPC iMac. Having an iSight camera built-in is an added plus, since there aren't too many other webcams which work with the Mac without some tweaking (are you listening, Logitech?). The remote is neat, too; the included Front Row software, when used with the remote, essentially turns the iMac into a gigantic iPod.
All in all, I think the new iMac is a great device. The only problem I've had with it, save for the minor Boot Camp snafu, was that the keyboard partially or completely stopped responding on the first day I had it. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be too common of an occurrence, and fairly easy to fix when it does. Another minor problem is the current lack of Universal Binary-based major applications (such as Photoshop or Microsoft Office) made for the Intel-based Macs, though I'm sure it'll turn out to only be an issue in the short term. My only real concern is the fact that it is a first-revision device, and anything which is in it's first revision has the potential to develop issues; hopefully, that won't be the case with this iMac. Anyway, enough of this typing, I'm gonna do some more messing around with this thing... ;)
-Adam
posted by Adam Vaughn at 2:38 AM
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