My Mac

Last month (September '06) Apple quietly released a new update to their iMac line. They introduced the Intel Core 2 Duo chips to them. For those that don't know, I've been a PC user for most of my life. I started with an XT 10 Mhz IBM Clone (that's what we used to call the non-IBM computers back then) with 1 MB of memory and two 10 MB hard drives. I've been using Windows ever since 3.1.

For the last couple of years I've wanted a Mac. Why? I don't know. Well, ok, I do, but it is kind of a lame reason. When Apple announced that they were going to move to Intel chips I thought that the time would be right. When they came out with their first Intel products in January I was underwhelmed. I wanted an affordable one and the iMacs and the MacBook Pros at the time weren't fitting the bill. So I waited for the inevitable budget laptop MacBook. It came out in May and I was underwhelmed by the price and specs. I felt it was a little too pricey for what it was offering. So I continued to wait.

Then came last month and they finally offered me something that was in the price range I was willing to spend and specs that would satisfy this computer geek. So they now offer four different iMacs. I opted for the second one for $1200. (For the record, I did not buy mine from the Apple store. I bought mine from Amazon.com. First off, I didn't pay any tax from Amazon, got free shipping, got $100 mail-in-rebate, 0% interest for 6 months by applying for and getting a new Amazon.com credit card, AND got $30 off from that credit card on my first purchase. All said and done, I will have paid only $1069 for it AND no interest. Compare that to $1305.92 PLUS interest if not paying cash. That last figure will vary depending on what your sales tax is. In California we have to pay not only sales tax but we also have to pay an environmental tax for anything that has a screen.)

I have now had my Mac for a little over a month and I must say that I love it. There are a few little things have taken some getting used to in Mac OS X, such as using the Command button for many keyboard shortcuts rather than using the CTRL key that I would in Windows, as well as the Close, Minimize, and Maximize buttons being in the top left corner versus the top right corner. All in all, it has been a smooth transition. I will still keep a PC because there are some things that you can only do with a PC. But that may change if I ever getting around to installing Windows on my Mac.