Thread: I have taken the plunge and become a "Mactard" :)

Ordered my new Imac 27 inch quad core i5 today, delivery in one week, I have never used or tried a Mac before but felt it was time to try something new, I am really looking forward to getting to know my Mac and to play with it over Christmas where i will have the house for my self so I wont be disturbed to much.

I ordered IWork with the machine too, I could choose between the Mac office 2008 or IWork and chose the latter.

Now it is just the waiting time before it arrives, I confess with stuff like this I'm like a little boy that have a hard time waiting for my new toy

enjoy the new toy Larvid, hope the two of you are very happy together!

I'm sure you'll have it figured out in no time at all Larv

Originally Posted by larvidchr

quad core i5

that is a fair bit of number crunching power - maybe a new camera so you can use that power to edit your cleavage and panty movies before posting them.

Did you get a better camera too???

one of these would go with it nicely!

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 Review - Digital Camera Reviews - TrustedReviews

I look forward to reading the inevitable exchange of posts that you'll be having with Butterfly! I got the 24" just over a year ago, so can't justify an upgrade at this time. I would recommend getting a Time Capsule though, that works as a wireless router with automatic back up of your HD, with either 500Gb or 1TGb capacity.

Welcome to the 'Mactards'.... life will be....errr....

Welcome to the Gay Mac club !!!

can't wait for your whining posts on why it doesn't work or why it's so clumsy etc... etc... but maybe you won't tell the difference as you will have become a brainless mactard

I hope you took the expensive AppleCare with that, because they usually break down pretty fast, not matter how much money you put into them

the average life of a mac is 2 years, so be ready to buy a new machine soon

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Welcome to the Gay Mac club !!!

can't wait for your whining posts on why it doesn't work or why it's so clumsy etc... etc... but maybe you won't tell the difference as you will have become a brainless mactard

I hope you took the expensive AppleCare with that, because they usually break down pretty fast, not matter how much money you put into them

the average life of a mac is 2 years, so be ready to buy a new machine soon

Also have a 17" MacBook Pro, 2.5 years old, brilliantly durable and never any grief whatsoever. Didn't think it would take very long for your predicted first barbed remark!

^ so why did you buy an iMac for ? expecting end of life for your little mac toy ?

Originally Posted by Butterfly

^ so why did you buy an iMac for ? expecting end of life for your little mac toy ?

No, specifically for Photoshop work. The extra large screen is great for editing, coupled with wireless keyboard and mouse.

Originally Posted by PAG

The extra large screen is great for editing,

because the macbook can't accommodate an external large screen ?

Originally Posted by Butterfly

I hope you took the expensive AppleCare with that, because they usually break down pretty fast, not matter how much money you put into them the average life of a mac is 2 years, so be ready to buy a new machine soon

where did you get this info from, microsoft? I had one running 24 hrs a day for 8 years, never went wrong once.

Welcome larvidchr and have fun with the machine. The 27" looks really great.

I would recommend to have an external firewire hard disk for Time Machine and a bootable backup SuperDuper!.

You don't need applecare anyway. Having an imac might be a shock after a pc especially if you have been using vista as on the mac the search will actually find what you want. On my acer explorer will not work (good) media player 'cannot' display jpegs any longer and the [at] sign still does not work, no viruses, trojans etc, just a shit machime with an even shitier OS.

Thanks to all who have replied with good advise and well wishes.

I have not bought Apple care, It's a thing with me, I usually refuse to pay for extended guaranties and insurance on products I buy, the one year guarantee is sufficient I feel, if a product have problems they usually show up within the first year, and I think the extended guarantees/Insurances are a bit of a scam really, but that's just me, and I have been lucky so far with my usual approach that is research a bit before deciding what brand and product to buy- cars, computers, homes, flatscreens, stereo, you name it, read tests and never go for just the cheapest offers, knock on wood that has so far worked out fine for me

I was initially impressed by the backup system with time capsule, but after having read that quite a few people are having problems with just that Apple product I decided to wait and see if Apple will get it right later, there is no rush, but an automatic backup on an external hard-drive is smart and it is something I would like to get later when the reports become more consistent.

Apart from that it is great to have so many knowledgeable Mac people on the board, so I feel confident that there is help at hand for any problems/questions I might have.

Finally also thanks to Butterfly for his homely predictability, you know you open the fridge in the dark but know the beer is to the right and the coke to the left- it's home and it's part of the joy of TD, without him the place would be more boring.

Originally Posted by larvidchr

I was initially impressed by the backup system with time capsule, but after having read that quite a few people are having problems with just that Apple product I decided to wait

You don't have to use a Time Capsule for the backup, you can use any external disk with USB or firewire. For a while I was using a Western Digital external hard drive with a firewire cable and it worked fine.

The Time Machine app is very useful.

Agreed with what Slackula said about Time Machine -- it's the software/utility, not the Time Capsule hardware that makes it work. You can plug any external hard drive in, and the Mac OS will ask you if you want to use it for Time Machine - it'll even properly format it for you.

Time Capsule is convenient, that's it, by combining an Airport Extreme router, and a hard drive into one convenient package -- but you can also get an Airport Extreme, and plug any external USB drive into it, and get the same thing - or just plug the drive into your iMac, and you also get the same :-)

One nice thing with Apple's Airport Extreme is that the USB port will also accept any printer, and make it instantly available over both the wired and wireless network via Bonjour - no address to know, no configuration to tackle. You can also attach a printer and a drive to the AE's USB port - the advantage of having the drive shared on the network is that you can then backup both your laptop and the iMac via Time Machine, if you have multiple computers.

Lastly, regarding AppleCare - you are smart in your decision having researched the issue, though I generally get AppleCare for any device that has moving parts that could be stressed (like a laptop). The only things that can fail in an iMac are the internal hard drive, the DVD drive, and the RAM -- all of which are technically user replaceable as well after the warranty expires, and for which you can get better parts by then, for less money, anyway.

larvidchr, did you buy your iMac from the Thai Online Store?

The best thing I did for my iMac was to install Linux.