The Process of Switching to a iMac

So, I’ve become fed up with the windows operating system. Or, well, perhaps not, but the lust for something different has been there for a long time now… A very long time. In fact, I decided to switch to OSX a long time ago, but decided to wait for the new model iMac. Which was massively delayed, sadly. But early this summer the new models were released, while I was in SF, actually, so I had a chance to check them out there. Beautiful machines!
I did order one late August, a 24″ with the 2.4 GHz processor (I did not really see the need for the 2.8) and the new, small, wireless keyboard. The keyboard was massively delayed, however, and according to apple I would have to wait for almost two months before I got the machine. Then, out of the blue, they informed me that the machine was shipped, and all I had to do was to wait a week for delivery.
The machine, however, was well worth the wait. It is simply stunning. Almost surreally beautiful, far more than my old PC. Which, honestly, is about as beautiful as a pile of plastic with lots of cables on it. As far as I can tell, the iMac is really quiet, but that probably is due to the fact that the PC is so loud…
Adapting to the OSX way of working was a surprisingly swift procedure, even if I had not used OSX at all before. Not that I know everything, but as it turns out I can do pretty much anything I need to do rather easily. Installing programs is quite easy and instinctive, and other than that, well, most software is either similar between the platforms, or usable enough.

There are certain things I like a lot about the iMac:
– Widgets. They are really useful, and implemented well with the Dashboard. In fact, I am writing this in a Widget that allows me to update my blog.
– The hardware. It is so nice. Simply a beautiful machine.
– Ease of use. Now, I am a pretty experienced user, mind you, but I do appreciate the simplicity. I am lazy, and really do not want to spend time to learn how to do mundane things.
– System wide spellchecking. That is – there is a possibility for spellchecking in almost all software. Nice.

Things I dislike
– The mighty mouse. Who designed that crap? Honestly, it is simply horrible to use. I lasted for all of 20 minutes using it, and don’t believe that I ever will try it again. I was under the impression that they had adapted to the critique they got in the beginning, but no. It simply sucks.
– There really aren’t as much software to OSX as there is for windows. Now, this is a good and a bad thing. There almost always, in my experience, is a piece of software that will do whatever it is you want to do, but in the Windows world, there probably is at least 10. So it all ends up with you having to do a bit more googling to find the software, but it will be there. And, limited choices aren’t always that bad. You don’t have to try a bunch of software to know what solution fits you. Sometimes this is frustrating, however. I tried to find software to convert videos to ipodplayable formats. And almost all hits where software for windows, EVEN among the recommended software on mac/ipod forums. Frustrating, but, there are software for the Mac too, so no biggie.
– I’ve had one case where the machine “hanged”, and stopped responding, forcing a reboot. There are some rumors about trouble with an upgrade, but I don’t really know. It happened once, will look into it if it happens again.

Things I will be doing
– Upgrading the machine to more memory. Will the 1GB that was included is quite enough for most small tasks (surfing, word-processing, etc.) it is obviously to little once one starts to play with virtual machines etc. Memory is quite cheap now, so I’ll be adding 2GB more ram.
– More hard disk space (for storage). Yeah, I like ample storage, so I’ll be adding a couple of external HDs. In fact, I choose not to upgrade the internal HD, not because of price (even though that was a factor) but because by keeping a small internal HD and storing other, less relevant stuff on external storage, I’ll be able to do system wide backups on an external hard drive. Will try that this weekend. Should be fun to see if it works.

I’ll update more in the future as I try stuff and learn about them. Up till this point it has been an overwhelmingly positive experience to switch.

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