- By Richard Meagher
- Business & Technology
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iMac
My colleagues in our IT department have given up and finally downgradeiMac for Business or Homed their PCs from Vista back to Windows XP. Like the latest Apple commercial with the PR lady - "they upgraded to an older way of new Windows experience". Many companies that have upgraded their systems to Vista have held off due to many glitches found since its release. Microsoft is now pleading with its business customers to give it another look.
Why take that chance? Say Hasta La Vista to Windows and get a big screen iMac desktop. Right out of the box - your new iMac is ready to go.
The new thin single piece all-in-one design with its avante garde aluminum shell only requires one cable and that's for power. Gone are the monitor and ethernet cables that have snaked behind your desk and gathered dust bunnies. If you select the wireless keyboard and mouse configuration, you only need to plug it into your surge protected power strip or outlet and you are good to go.Windows never looked so good
Cannot live without your favorite Windows applications? No problem; with the Intel Core 2 Dual Processor, your new iMac can run Windows either virtually or using Boot Camp (included in Mac OS X Leopard version) which allows you to boot your iMac into Windows. That's right - all of your Windows applications that you ran with Windows-XP will run natively in the Mac once it is booted into Windows even your 3D games. You can boot back to your Mac anytime or stay in Windows. One caveat is that you will need to purchase a licensed copy of Windows or use the Windows CD from your old PC if you are not using it anymore. The new iMac can run Vista as well as the more reliable Windows-XP operating system. If you are a fan of Linux, you are also in luck as it can other operating systems like BSD or Linux.
Dual Boot or Virtualization?
All new Macs now come with Boot Camp as part of the latest Leopard operating system. Boot camp allows you to partition your hard drive so you can install and boot into Windows or Linux everytime you start up. If booting is not your style - you can actually run Windows while running your Mac. This is known as software virtualization where your Mac will load Windows virtually and you can continue to perform your Windows tasks as if you are running your PC. Two popular packages are available - Parallels and VMware Fusion. They are both easy to use and of course require a licensed copy of Windows and your favorite Windows applications. One downfall to software virtualization was its ianbility to support advanced graphics for gaming. Now they offer support for both DirectX and OpenGL graphics, but I will evaluate these packages later and write about it then.
Security Blanket
One big selling point about the Mac besides the fact that it can run Windows and that is the Mac OS itself. It has just released its newest version - Leopard this fall and I can assure you - this new cat lives up to its name. It continues to be immune to viruses and email attacks due to its highly secure and reliable Unix operating system.
Get so much for so little
The Mac OS also includes as standard some of the best and highly rated photo and video editing tools available- iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD. These applications are designed to work with any USB or Firewire connected camera and get this - they work right out of the box. If you are a novice photographer - plug your digital camera into your Mac with the camera's USB cable and iPhoto launches - walking you through every step from uploading your pictures to posting them in a web photo album.
That's not all either. All the new iMacs come standard with iSight, a video and still camera built-in on top of the monitor and an application that you can launch to capture your face and apply many effects. You can log into iChat or AOL AIM and chat online using the camera.
Also standard is a very capable email program and of course the Safari browser which offers many nice features like tabbed browsing. There is also iTunes which manages your music, video and TV episode collections as well as keeping your iPod synchronized and up to date. There are too many other features to mention but I am sure you will be tempted to at least check this out at your nearest Apple Store or online.
Recommendations
The iMac not only comes in two desktop configurations, but also two notebooks, MacBook and MacBook Pro, a powerful stand alone CPU with a Quad processor and a mini that requires keyboard, monitor and mouse sold separately. I own both a desktop 20" and a 13" Macbook that I can take with me. The 20" is big and very sharp even though I was tempted to buy the higher end 24" with its fast 2.8ghz processor.
If you do buy the the 20" - dig in your wallet a little deeper and get the faster 2.4ghz processor. After you bring it home - get online and order more memory up to 4gb RAM which you can save by purchasing separately from online retailers like OWC, MacZone or Crucial. The more memory you can get, the merrier (no pun intended).
Along with my purchase of the hardware - I also got some software - Apple iWorks - for only $79.00 instead of MS Office which retails for nearly four times more. iWorks is very different but does provide plenty of features that even rivals that of the Office applications. I will also save this for another time.
Hasta La Vista!
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