PigPog

I’ll say this right up front – I’m posting this at least partly in the hope of getting more free stuff.

If you use a Mac, though, and you haven’t seen this year’s MacHeist promotion yet, it’s well worth checking out. You get a bundle of apps, for one price: $39. Many of the apps would cost more than the bundle on their own, and 25% of the money goes to charity.

So, what are the highlights? That will depend on what you have a use for, but for me:

• Two great fun games – World of Goo and Cro-Mag Rally.
• Acorn – a reasonably well-featured photo editor. I trialed it a while ago, and decided to pass, but it’ll do nicely when thrown in with so much else.
• Picturesque – makes it very easy to apply some simple 3D effects to photos – I certainly wouldn’t have bought it at full price, but it’s cute, and works well.
• Espresso – looks like a very nice web editor. It’s locked until they reach $500,000 raised for charity, but it seems pretty likely they’ll manage that.

I took part in a ‘TweetBlast’ to get a couple more apps, including the fun Delicious Library.

If a couple of people use the following link, and decide to buy the bundle themselves, I’ll get a couple more freebies, including the rather decent Koingo Utility Package.

It’s well worth a look, and probably worth buying if there are a couple of items there you’d use – there are only two days left to buy.

• MacHeist Bundle 2009

This post is part of a series of posts about switching to a Mac – here are links to all the posts:

• Switching to Mac Part 1: The Decision
• Switching to Mac Part 2: The Retail Experience
• Switching to Mac Part 3: The Unboxing
• Switching to Mac Part 4: In Use
• Switching to Mac Part 5: Finding a Photo Editor

I’ll start by saying there are no photos here, and no videos.  Sorry.  I’m sure that’s been done plenty of times before.

I’ve unboxed a pretty good share of new PCs from various makes.  It’s mostly a pleasant enough experience, though there’s usually that big chunk of time at the end removing all the crapware that’s been preinstalled for your convenience.

So, how is opening an iMac different?

Well, the box was quite well designed, with the introductory bits sitting neatly at the top, so you get to them before the computer, but that’s not too unusual.  I was a bit puzzled by one of the little CD-sized packages, which turned out to be a plain black microfibre polishing cloth, with a small embossed Apple logo.  A simple extra, but nice.  Gives you a little message up front that you’ll be wanting to look after this machine, and care for it, rather than just agreeing to lots of EULAs.

The machine itself was heavy.  Especially considering that at the moment, it’s just sitting on a folding table that wobbles rather more than I’d like.  The power cable plugs neatly into the back, and has a ring around it that fits flushly with the back of the machine, to make it look more like a hard-wired cable.  There are a few other sockets, but nothing else was needed to get it going, as my keyboard and mouse were wireless, and it has WiFi built in.

On powering on, the machine seemed to know it should have a wireless keyboard and mouse.  It displayed a couple of diagrams, showing me where to put the batteries in my mouse, and how to switch it on.  Once I’d done that, it found the mouse, and a ‘next’ button appeared.  It found the keyboard without much trouble, though I don’t think it actually explained where to put the batteries and find the power button in that case.  It wasn’t difficult.

I told it what account to set up, and confirmed that I didn’t have another Mac to migrate from, and I was pretty much done.  There are apps preinstalled that I may never use, but it isn’t full of demo versions and crap nobody would ever want.

The main impression I had on having it all set up and running at home, after seeing it in the store, was that it was big.  It didn’t look small in the store, but in our living room, it really looks big.  I guess it’s not long ago that 24″ would have been a pretty impressive size for a TV set for a family to watch from the other side of the room.  Now I’m sitting at a screen that size to work and play.

The odd thing is that if anything, I seem to have more desk space spare than when I was using a small notebook PC.  It’s a big screen, but a small footprint on the desk.  The keyboard is tiny, and when I’m not using them, the keyboard and mouse can both sit on top of the ‘foot’ the machine stands on.  It’s all very neat.

I’ll continue soon with more thoughts on how I’ve settled in to using a Mac after I’d had a bit more time to get used to it.

This post is part of a series of posts about switching to a Mac – here are links to all the posts:

• Switching to Mac Part 1: The Decision
• Switching to Mac Part 2: The Retail Experience
• Switching to Mac Part 3: The Unboxing
• Switching to Mac Part 4: In Use
• Switching to Mac Part 5: Finding a Photo Editor

I recently bought a Mac after years of using Windows PCs.  If you want to know how I came to the decision, see part 1.  The act of buying a Mac from an Apple store is kind of unusual in itself.

Getting In

The Apple store in Exeter is welcoming.  Very welcoming.  Maybe a little too much so, with staff on both sides of the doorway waiting to pounce, and numerous staff around waiting to speak to you as you look around.  They’re not pushy, though, just chatty.  I felt a bit uneasy going in – I’m nowhere near hip enough to enter an Apple store, and wasn’t sure if I’d be allowed in without becoming much cooler somehow.  It turned out not to be a problem.  I suspect I got away with it because I had a Lowepro bag – there are probably special rules to let photographers in even if they’re a bit unhip.

On the second visit, I was there to buy.  I bypassed the door guards swiftly, and headed straight for the 24″ iMacs.  A friendly assistant called Hannah turned to ask if she could help, so I just said “Yeah, er, 24-inch iMac, wireless mouse, and a copy of Aperture”.

There was a short pause, and she said “Oh.  You want that?  That was easy!”

Choosing

She explained that upgrading to wireless keyboard as well as mouse was almost no difference in cost compared to buying the extra wireless mouse, so I went for that option.  She then explained a special offer they had on printers, that would give me a fairly decent HP inkjet for free through a cashback offer.  Since our only printer at that point was a Windows GDI printer, which wouldn’t work with a Mac, I took that too.  She offered me Apple Care, which I turned down, but may consider later anyway.

Ringing up the Sale

This part was the first real surprise.  There are no tills.  Hannah just opened a browser on the display machine we were looking at, and logged into Apple’s retail system from there.  The sale is rung up through a web browser on the display machines, and set for delivery to one of the two desks in the middle of the sales floor.  The browser then showed the progress of the order being picked and brought to us while we just chatted about cameras.  Sam wandered off to fondle the iPod Touch.

After a while, the stuff was all brought down the glass stairs.  Hannah pulled a card machine off a holster on her belt, and took the payment.  She took my email address, and the receipt was emailed to me there and then.  No paper needed.

…and Out

All done.  She made sure I had the details of their training courses and demos, and where to do the rebate for the printer.  The iMac box turned out to be surprisingly heavy, but I turned down the offer of help taking everything back to the car, and made away with my new toys.

This post is part of a series of posts about switching to a Mac – here are links to all the posts:

• Switching to Mac Part 1: The Decision
• Switching to Mac Part 2: The Retail Experience
• Switching to Mac Part 3: The Unboxing
• Switching to Mac Part 4: In Use
• Switching to Mac Part 5: Finding a Photo Editor

I’ve used Windows PCs for a lot of years now – since the days of Windows 3.0. My first PC ran MS-DOS 4.01. The last time I bought a new computer, I considered the idea of getting a Mac, but ended up with a Tablet PC instead. That little tablet has done me quite nicely since, although I never really used it as a tablet any more. It was starting to show the strain, though, when processing RAW files from new 12-megapixel cameras.

We’d decided a while ago that when we sold our house, we’d both be buying new computers. I considered a Mac again then, but decided to spend the money on a new camera kit instead.

I started speccing up a new PC, and it started to get quite pricey to get the sort of machine I wanted. Still cheaper than a decent Mac, but not as cheap as I’d been hoping. On a wander around PC World, I came face-to-face with the 24″ iMac screen. Wow. Big, bright, clear. I started to consider spending the extra to get a Mac again.

• I’d tried out Adobe Lightroom, and liked it, but it didn’t really fit well for me. I wanted everything in one catalog, so I could search all my photos. That seemed a pretty basic thing to want to do, and Picasa could manage it just fine. Lightroom seemed to start having serious performance issues with a big catalog, though. My photos folder comes to just over 30,000 files. Aperture may be better, but I had no way of trying it out without having a Mac.
• I started doing a bit of searching around online to see what people thought was best for a photographer to use. Some people didn’t think it made a lot of difference, but a lot through a Mac was much better. There don’t seem to be many people who think Windows is actually better for photography.
• Big screens are expensive, especially if you want quality. I could find a PC much cheaper, but adding a good quality 24″ screen soon pushed the price way up.
• I’d changed phones recently, and was now using a Nokia. Before that, I used Windows Mobile, which was a bit limited when syncing with a Mac.
• They’re way prettier than almost any PC. When looking at PCs, I was considering a Sony Vaio, mainly because it looked so nice. If I was willing to pay extra for Sony’s design, Apple’s design was certainly worth a bit.

The one thing that was stopping me was the thought that if it turned out I really didn’t get on with MacOS, it would be a very expensive mistake. Then, I woke up at around 04:00 in the morning thinking “Bootcamp and Parallels! Idiot!”. Of course, if I didn’t get on with MacOS, I could buy a copy of Windows Vista, and use the Mac as a PC. OK, I’d have over-payed somewhat for a very pretty PC, but I’d still have a good quick PC with a great screen.

So, off we went to the Apple store in Exeter to hand over a whole lot of money. But that’s for Part 2.