Hamarana

I was trying to avoid this but oh well, my friend JTF insisted. So blame him.

First, to get the hideous messy desk out of the way (and please note the absence of an Apple mouse: I prefer the Logitech Marble Mouse for the moment):

Then a couple of the screen itself. In the first, I have my back to the window. In the second, you can see the reflections of the curtain on the glass of the screen. This is not an issue for me as I sit with the window at the side, and a lamp behind the screen to the side of the desk. If you want an iMac, as with any computer with a highly reflective glass screen, you need to locate it where light will not affect your use of the computer. Any highly lit area would be disastrous: get a matte screen if you have no choices with lighting. (Macbook Pro with matte screen springs to mind, or one of the last white iMacs)

Lastly, the keyboard. When I saw it in the store I was not sure I would like it. I had quite a different feel to the last keyboard, or any standard keyboard you might imagine. As I become used to it though, I find that I am making fewer mistakes as my fingers become used to the keys and their location… they seem slightly larger than the average, and not as close together. However the low height (or lack of height) of the keys more than compensates. The first is a wide shot of the whole keyboard, the second a closeup to demonstrate the keys appearance. IMO this is a keyboard worth using with any computer at all.

Well, thats it, not too exciting really. I like the stock pix of the previous post much more

I have commented that having Bootcamp on the iMac would be really convenient, in that one might want to dual boot with Windows. I was wrong: that is, I was wrong for me. Bootcamp is certainly easy enough to set up and install to, but unless you have a real need for an independently running Windows system, don’t bother. I have only one program I really really must have Windows for, because there is nothing like it on Mac, and for that, I sure don’t need a whole Windows partition.

So, in the end, I’ve chosen VMWare. Why not Parallels? A really silly reason, I suppose. I prefer VMware because it lists the virtual machines in a small window, whereas Parallels drops icons all over your desktop. I prefer a less cluttered appearance. Why would it be an issue? Well, given that a virtual machine is just that, and me being as I am… I am wanting to play with more than one OS. Currently I have XP and Vista installed, as well as Kubuntu (Ubuntu with the KDE desktop). I had Window98 but it was too painful so I have dropped it. I’m going to try to get BeOS installed but it will probably fail, it has since VPC6 which it quite liked (hardware issues… always hardware issues with BeOS) and later on when I find my install floppies (they MUST be around here somewhere), I’ll install OS/2 Warp 4 (aka Merlin). And many more. I have the odd Mandrake Linux and Redhat lying about as well. Yes, I know I must be nuts.

In the meantime, Vista and XP work beautifully, and the both Parallels and VMWare have the capacity to show Windows programs on the Mac desktop without the intrusion of a visible OS Window. The screenshot is of VMWare’s Unity, with Internet Explorer accessing Hamarana, and a game of Freecell (which, naturally, I lost).

Clicking on the image will get you a very large one if you really want a closer look.

You can also see Vista’s start menu extended in the bottom corner of the screen. I extended it for the shot, normally you get just the start button down there, as in Vista. You don’t get the whole taskbar. You can also see toward the end of the mac dock, a couple of icons for IE, windows explorer, and freecell.

[edit] After I wrote all this, I decided I should really look into Parallels more. My initial Vista install failed but I have reinstalled from the VMWare virtual machine (parallels can do that, I don’t think VMWare can) and now have a screenie of Parallels, Vista and coherence working very well.

Again, click on the image for the large version. Interesting how the entire taskbar is visible with coherence/Parallels. Its not really needed and it looks fugly. IMO of course.

Just a quick screenie of VMWare running Windows vista, inside a virtual machine. I installed Vista in a separate partition with the help of an OSX app called Bootcamp. VMWare can pick up that install and run it inside OSX. I don’t think Parallels can do the same.

More later on how it all runs but so far so good. I had trouble getting VMWare using my net connection but that’s all resolved now. Parallels worked with it right out of the box. I’m leaning toward the VMWare install for only one reason… it doesnt capture the mouse completely. ie; I dont need to make additional keypresses to get the mouse pointer back to OSX, which I do for Parallels.

Its all good.

I couldnt help myself. My poor old eMac is getting a little past its prime now, especially with the transition to the Intel processor, so I decided with the latest version, plus the fact that at the time of release, the Aussie dollar was very strong against the US dollar, so prices fell by around $400 and specs, of course, improved. If you are contemplating an iMac purchase, don’t wait – the next incarnation will likely be more expensive, the dollar is beginning to slide again, and with the way markets are behaving at the moment, it could potentially slide a very long way.

I opted for the 20″ model… its around the same size top to bottom as the eMac 17″ screen (a couple of cm taller) but its width is fantastic. I went to the store with the full intention of buying 24″ but they hadn’t got any, I was impatient, and in any case, the 24″ just seemed too big. Now that I have the 20″ on my desk, I realise it would have been completely unsuitable for my environment. I have got the best option.

The iMac comes with Mighty Mouse, an apparently buttonless mouse. In fact it has left and right force detecting buttons, as well as a button on the top which is the scroll wheel. I’d be happy with MM if I had more space on my keyboard tray for it to roll about, but since I don’t, I’ve left it in its packaging and continue to use my Logitech trackball style mouse.

The keyboard is amazingly thin. Its more like a laptop keyboard than anything, with very low profile buttons. Its made of the same brushed aluminium as the screen surround and is quite heavy, which makes for stability in the absence of the usual size of a keyboard. There are the usual additional USB ports as well, and in this keyboard, instead of being in the back, they are at each end and form part of the riser which lifts the keyboard from horizontal. I’m finding though, that I have to look at the keys more often than I used to, to make sure I don’t misfire. I’ll get used to it very soon, I expect. Ergonomically, its fine so far.

My new iMac also comes with a 320G hard drive (No idea what I’ll do with all that space, but I guess its like water… software, downloads and documents all tend to expand to fill available space), a 2.4Ghz Intel Core2Duo CPU which, as you might imagine, flies by comparison with my 1Ghz G4. I opted to leave the RAM at 1G for now, and will boost it to the max (4G) in time, but given the expense of Apple RAM, will buy from a different source. A camera, bluetooth and WiFi are built in. I’ll keep the old dLink dongle though, one never quite knows when it might come in handy. In addition to the 2 USB ports on the keyboard, there are a few in back, as well as firewire and ethernet. There’s no modem included these days, if you need a modem you have to get an external one. That’s no issue for me. If ever I have to revert to dialup, I’ve kept my Airport Extreme Base station which has a modem built in.

Setup was a snap, I had already saved out most of my essential files to the external drive, transferring them was as easy as drag’n'drop and during the initial setup, my Billion 7404VGP was detected and connected in the time it took me to remember what my password was.

All in all I am a very happy camper. Getting exactly the right machine is nothing more than serendipity, because I would have bought the 24″ had it been available.

Pix in this have been lifted unashamedly from the Apple Website. If they get persnickety with me I’ll take them down but not until.

I was watching the only American news show we get here in Australia, its the News Hour which shows on PBS. Last night there was a huge kerfuffle with a couple of people debating the effects of the new Bill which has been passed by Congress.

In brief: Congress has given permission to the NSA (and I guess to the FBI and CIA) to go merrily wiretapping not only all over the United States, but apparently all over the planet. Initially it was to be only on communications between “foreign” sources and the US. But apparently its more than that. Its domestic and international.

Read at the following links if you haven’t already
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005390.php
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/04/ap3988006.html

There will be a gazillion more, but those are the first I have found whilst looking for something else.

If you want to read the Bill itself go HERE