iMacOur new Intel iMac arrived yesterday.  Last night, we spent a couple of hours rearranging our furniture and workspace to accommodate the new unit.  This "couple of hours"  included: (1) disconnecting the computer and all peripherals (2) moving all the furniture around to new aesthetically and ergonomically "better" locations (3) realizing that our new furniture arrangements were no good (4) moving all the furniture pieces back to their original positions and (5) reconnecting all peripherals and networking the two computers (old and new) together.  It was a textbook "Mike and Thomai" operation.

We got our new iMac from MacMall which had the best price we could find.  Our iMac has a 17" display (the 20" was a bit too pricey) and we got a RAM upgrade and a new Microtek scanner as well.  The new iMac is amazingly fast.  I haven’t checked out much of the new software and features, but I was particularly amazed by the new setup feature which allows users to connect an old Mac via FireWire and quickly import all applications, files, settings and keychains from the old computer to the new computer with just a few clicks of the mouse.  Maybe I am easily impressed, but I had never seen anything like this before.  It was considerably less intense than my last OS upgrade.

I am not accustomed to the flat screen display yet and I didn't like the new mouse at all, so I have replaced it with my trusty old Logitec trackball.  The iChat video conferencing feature has some minor problems with blurry video when chatting with 2 or more people at a time, but I am thinking this is a fixable problem.

All in all, it's an exciting piece of equipment and I think we’re going to get a lot of good use out of it!