I am now three weeks into iMac use, and I have to say that not everything was an obvious upgrade. So was it worth doing? Well, read on…
The 24″ screen is beautiful – the Internet has never looked better. When you’re on line at least 8 hours a day, that makes a massive difference to everything. I am using Safari as it’s quite slick, but not all sites support it; for example, eBay checkout pops up an “unsupported” dialogue box, but then seems to work OK – go figure.
My own sites look fine on the PC, but a bit squint on the iMac, so I am redoing them all, as well as building sites for people like my good buddy Carlo, who is starting a Fuchs wheel refurb business. I used iWeb to make his site (not finished yet) and a few other bits and pieces, and it’s not bad. Am giving RapidWeaver a shot next, then will try Freeway and make a decision after that. Think I may end up on Dreamweaver, as I like a bit of coding here and there, but will know when I have had a proper play.
Minor upsets include a dearth of USB slots and the lack of drivers for my Canon MF scanner (pain in the rear as Canon told me it was supported), though the printer and fax in the same unit work fine. I am trying the MYOB business accounts package which seems very good. I like that Mac software seems cheaper than PC stuff, that the downloads are so well managed by the iMac with no restarts required, and also that the software providers all seem to allow trial use, no questions asked and no registration beforehand.
This is the thing about Mac use: it genuinely seems like a friendlier environment to work in. No slow software updates from Windows and antivirus software, no mega waits for boot up, and all the lovely widgets you can stick on your dashboard. I am running weather, calc, dictionary, converters, hourly chimes, and loads of other stuff too. Really great.
I have managed to get my Symbian Nokia N73 phone sync’ed to iCal and the address book, and the Fetch ftp package I downloaded is also really good to use. I also downloaded GarageSale, as eBay’s own Turbo Lister is not Mac compatible. Good job too – Garage Sale is much better, kicks Turbo Lister where it hurts.
So three weeks into Mac ownership, was the switch worth it? Yes, yes and yes again. To top it all, the same spec Dell would have cost more than I gave Apple, so count me in as mega chuffed.
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Have come across a few more probs with the Mac – trying to burn pics to a CD for example left me almost in tears. So easy on a PC yet so around the houses on a Mac. Part of the problem is language; you associate terms/words with jobs on a PC and they simply do not apply on an Apple. Google is no help either! Eventually figured it out, but it was really frustrating.
Main benefits of a Mac to date? No antivirus software choking up the works, and NO IE 7.