...more recent posts
Stephen finally received his new iMac. We set it up yesterday. Everyone was impressed by how it looked. And by the lack of setup instructions. All the PC people were like "what do you mean you just plug it in?" It really is very simple to get going. Well, except that we plugged it in, powered it up and nothing happened. Nothing. I took off the bottom to check that the memory was seated correctly. It was. I looked for a reset switch but couldn't find one. Called Apple. They were very nice. Had me do a couple of things but it still wouldn't boot. So much for impressing the masses. Apple bumped me up the tech support line, and the next person had me remove the bottom again. Turns out there is a reset switch, but I guess they don't want people using it too much because it is very hidden. Under a membrane of plastic so you can't really see it. If you have the iMac on its side, with the bottom off then either the airport is on the left and memory on the right, or vice versa (depending on how you layed it down.) If the memory is on the left and the airport slot on the right, then under the bottom right corner of the airport slot you can just make out a square button under a sheet of plastic. That's the reset. Pressed it once, put the cover back on, and it booted right up.
The screen is very nice. Of course I'd like a bigger one, but the quality is great. I could work on it without complaint. The machine boots into OS X which I think is great for beginners and experts alike. The Windows tech in the crowd had no idea OS X was BSD at it's core. I popped open a terminal window and SSH'd into my server. I think he was impressed. But for the beginner (or just the regular user) the best thing is all the applications it comes with. I ran through iTunes and iPhoto and these programs are really well thought out in a traditionally Apple way. That is, they are powerful, but the interfaces are very simple. They make it so you can actually do something, right out of the box. Stephen's Canon G2 connected without a hitch. His HP printer connected after a no-hassle driver download. For someone accustomed to the hell of Windows program installation, the idea that you can just download a program and drag it to your hard drive to install it is quite a revelation.
We also downloaded Pod Master 1000 which is by far the best of the iPod utilities. Using that I could transfer the entire contents of my iPod into Stephen's iTunes (I mean theoretically - my lawyer made me put that in.) And not only is it the best utility I've found, it also has the best dialogue boxes. When you first connect it pops up a window that says "Pod Master is probing your iPod." Yikes.
Had a nice drive back in. We were passing the iPod around the car taking turns as DJ. Seems like everyone falls in love with that gadget once you get to handle it. Bruno made a really good suggestion that I wish Apple would consider including. While a song is playing you can browse the library without effecting the current track. That's good. But you can't select the next song until the present one is done (or if you do the next track starts playing immediately, interrupting the current selection.) Bruno's idea is to have another mode so that any song you select just goes into a buffer to start playing as soon as it's turn comes up. This would be sort of like making a playlist on the fly. I guess it would be called DJ mode. They should do that.