Sunday, February 12, 2006

At Last... the iMac

On Thursday, I finally went out and bought myself one of the new Intel Macs. Since then I've had a lot of late nights messing around with it. This post is the first one done using the new machine.

It's definitely the coolest computer I've ever owned. I'm still learning my way around some of the deeper elements; I'm not exactly performing l33t h4xx0r feats from the command line yet, but I'm getting more and more comfortable with how it all works.

And that's the thing... it just works. I've never been able to have a computer work correctly out of the box before... I plugged in the internet connection, turned it on, and that was pretty much it. The iMac was even kind enough to take my picture on initial boot.

Using the simple "Photo Booth" app, I took a picture that I put up here on the blog (being hosted by Flickr). I chose this one because it made me chuckle... I didn't realize the computer hadn't taken my picture yet.

If I have any complaint about any part of my new computer, it is definitely the mouse that comes with it. The "Mighty Mouse" that comes with the Intel Mac handles very badly to me. You're inclined to handle it carefully because you don't want to accidentally click anything, but then when you DO want to click it doesn't seem very responsive. My first foray into World of Warcraft battlegrounds using the Mighty Mouse was an unmitigated disaster... I couldn't target things quickly, right-clicks only worked half the time, and I ended up a pixelated corpse many, many times.

I solved that problem by unplugging it and using a standard Microsoft mouse instead (apologies to the purists). So if anyone wants a free mouse, let me know.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not because I'm a purist, but I'm still using the single-button bluetooth wireless mouse. It's amazing how quickly I grew accustomed to it. Maybe because I'm still so comfortable with using the keyboard - I was a DOS system tuner and programmer for a long time.

For instance, Jason really likes using the multi-button mouse so he's got a the back button onboard, whereas to me that feels foreign. It's almost universally supported as ALT- LEFT_ARROW (or APPLE-LEFT_ARROW on the Mac), so moving form OS to OS has been super easy for me (as just one example), but conversely, I simply can *NOT* get used to the weird keystrokes in things like EMACS, and it's been so long since I used VI(m) on any consistent basis that I have to hit help for *everything*.

Give me those graphical text editors (TextWrangler ROCKS for the Mac, by the way) all day long, thank you very much.

It's all in what you wanna do, how you wanna do it and what feels most comfy... and of course, what you can adapt to.

Anonymous said...

I was very excited about the Mighty Mouse... until I got my hands on it. Just didn't work for me.

I've been a Mac owner and advocate for 3 years now- you're my 5th convert. As much as I dislike Microsoft, I've yet to find anything that compares with their mice, and my iMac has sported an Intellimouse (optical, original symetrical beige model) since I bought it. In fact, when my old Intellimouse started to die, I had trouble finding a replacement. When I finally found one on Amazon, I bought two. One is still in its package, sitting on my shelf. Whatever mouse you use, it's got to be comfortable for you.

Anonymous said...

Funny, the mighty mouse seems fine to me. Well....now that I know how to use the right click feature.

Anonymous said...

If you ever say anything remotely similar to "l33t h4xx0r" ever again, I'll be forced to revoke your "nifty" status and report your actions to the Poser Council.

Anonymous said...

Just punch him square in the forehead. He loves it at work.