[LadyStardust]

Hi all. Thanks for your thoughts re OEM Windows. I am now seeing how much a copy of XP will be through a scheme at my place of work. Nothing's ever easy!

Oh, and the reason I need to run Windows is because my old Sony Clie PDA syncs with Palm Desktop and a few other apps that won't run on a Mac. It might be that I invest in a new PDA and scrub round running Windows. Haven't quite decided yet.

Re 4GB of RAM. Yes, you're right, it may be overkill, and I've actually read somewhere that only about 3.4GB of the 4GB will be used by the Mac. However, at just £60 for 4GB it just makes sense to do it.

Unfortunately, I've got a streaming cold and am off work today, so let's hope I get back on form soon as I think the iMac will be delivered at my place of work either today or tomorrow. I need to be able to think straight!

Thanks again for all your thoughts. I will let you know how I get on...

Lucy

[LadyStardust]

Hello all. Just an update - and won't keep adding them here as I know this isn't a blog!

Well, I eventually picked up my shiny new iMac on Friday and my hubby and I set it up when he got home from work. We were both very impressed with the speed and ease of set up, and in particular, how QUIET it is! I'm amazed. My Dell PC sounds ridiculously noisy compared to this. I am using the Mac now to type this, and I must say that I love the keyboard, it's gorgeous. Not sold on the mouse yet (got the wired Mighty Mouse) but I'll give it time.

I've had a good fiddle with apps and settings and everything seems very logical and clear. The task of moving my data across will have to take place after my holiday, as we're off to the Maldives tomorrow for a week. I'm looking forward to doing the data transfer and taking my time, then being able to use iPhoto etc to play around with my pics and files.

In a nutshell, so far, I'm over the moon. It's such a gorgeous, quality piece of kit and the screen is superb. Quick and quiet, what more do you want? Oh, and my hubby was blown away with the remote control that you can use to access all your movies, iTunes etc. He really liked that.

Well, had better go and put the final touches to packing.

Thanks again to everyone who helped me with this dilemma, and in particular, Woody. All I can say is, I am pretty sure I've made the right decision.

Take care all.

Lucy

[bbarny]

LadyStardust how has the intervening conversion gone, I am pondering the switch to an imac but am unsure. How did you solve the compatibility problems with your other gadgets go.

[LadyStardust]

Hello there. Well, I must say that after doing a bit of research before purchasing the iMac and checking out the options for software etc, it has been pretty painless. I got used to the different ways of moving around a Mac very quickly and really look forward to using it when I get home from the mundane Windows environment at work!

Saying that, I did consult two excellent books during my progress and they undoubtedly helped me understand this new world much more easily. I have also referred to them both since making the switch, as I like to use keyboard shortcuts so am educating myself in the ways of the Command key and other new features as well.

The books are:

"Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard" by Robin Williams (excellent graphics and very clearly explained throughout)

"Switching to the Mac, Leopard edition" by David Pogue

I made one mistake. I tried to save $10 by using Thunderbird to export my Outlook email to it and then import that into the default Mail app that comes with the Mac. It seemed to work but then I noticed that quite a few emails were missing. In the end, I stumped up $10 and purchased O2M by Little Machines. This was very easy to use and successfully exported all my thousands of emails and contacts to the Mac without a hitch.

My next quandary was whether to shove all my photos (12,000+) into iPhoto. I didn't want to lose control so have retained my folder structure on the Mac and only copy across pics to iPhoto that I want to put into albums on the Apple servers with my .Mac account. To view, edit etc I use Bridge in Photoshop.

To run the one app that is simply not compatible with the Mac ('cos it's so old) I installed VMWare's Fusion and installed Windows XP on a virtual machine. It was simplicity itself to set up and keeps my old Sony Clie PDA still going strong.

All in all, I love the machine, the way it works and how it makes computing fun again. I am looking forward to learning so much more and am a complete convert.

To be honest, I don't think you will meet anyone who has bought a Mac and not been blown away by it, especially with this latest version of the OS.

If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me or carry on openly in this thread. There are many others in Pixalo who helped me make my decision and who could provide more experienced input than me, so that might be your best option.

Good luck - you know you'll make the right choice!

Lucy

[Boofers]

Some of us slow movers in the mac world are still using the power pc structure, some of the machines I have won't even update to the new software unless it has at least a 1.6 processor. Still, even though I run native microsoft apps for mac on my machine,,,I run into little problems,,lets say like the software for the book I won for photo's I can't use because I don't run a version of XP or Vista on my machine. I know I could spend the extra money for those times, it's just not worth the money for me to run windows on my mac. I have gotten use to this and some day it will go away because that is the direction computers are going,,just a little insight into what you live with when your in a little world surrounded by the rest of the world. I guess apple was right to give into the windows invirment so people can use any software they want now. It is a good thing.