Last time I wrote about computers here, I mentioned that I was planning to get a Mac. Well, I found a good price for a dual processor 1.25gHz G4 with 512Meg of ram and a Superdrive (DVD recorder), so I pulled out my VISA card and bought it. I was even able to get Applecare (3 year extended warrantee) on it (for the usual fee).

It was running an older version of OS X, 10.2 Jaguar, so within a week I went to the local Applestore in Tyson’s Corner (partly to check the store out), and I left with a new copy of OS X 10.3 (Jaguar). A week later I got a copy of iLife 04, to get the improved iPhoto, and to have a copy of Garage Band to play with.

My initial impression is that its a very cool computer. When I install software, it
requires that I “authorize it” by entering my UserID and system password. I bet Microsoft systems would be a lot more secure if they used such a feature.

So far the only time it has restarted (booted) is when I turn it off, or when it has installed a major change in software (security updates, etc).

Most of the setup was painless – I took an ethernet cable and tied it to our router (does NAT and Firewall duties for our network from the cable modem)
and a few moments later I was on the internet. It seems Emma’s Win98 machine and can read the Shares there just fine, but it can’t get into my old Win2k machine. Of course, I’ve had that problem before – trying to share files from the Win2k system to Emma’s PC – so thats not new., just annoying.
All my old emails are in Outlook 2000, in a 210 Meg .pst file – I haven’t found a way to move them to the Mac yet, but I did get the Mac Mail program working with my ISPs and aliases.

I bought a copy of Photoshop 7 for Mac on eBay, I have no desire to pay $600+ for Photoshop CS, and I use version 7 at work, and had it on my PC as well, so the learning curve should be small. I got a copy of PageSpinner, a basic HTML editor for the Mac, based on comments in Jeffrey Zeldman’s blog
$30 seemed reasonable for a web editor – $180 for BBedit doesn’t. And I’ve heard bad stories about DreamWeaver on OS X

I’m still sorting out FTP on the Mac – I’ve tried Fetch and Transmit and neither seems at all intuitive – guess I was spoiled by WS-FTP …

I have bought a few accessories for it – I found a set of those Apple Pro Speakers on eBay for $22 shipped, so I got them (they look like glass balls).
It uses a USB keyboard and mouse, so I did get a powered USB hub for other gadgets. I looked into hooking up one of my older Zip-100 drives to it – I have an external parallel drive as well as a SCSI – but my older PCI SCSI card was not recognized in the operating system, and the Mac uses USB instead of parallel for printer ports. So, I got a 128 meg “pendrive” for carrying files to and from work, and I’ll use my old PC to burn any current files off my old Zip discs to CDR.

I also bought a Stealth Serial Port from geethree.com. I plan to run my x10 style Home Automation gear on the Mac, and may be able to use it for Midi later on.

I also got a video to USB adapter from ExhoFX. This should allow me to use my old Phillips deskCam with the Mac – tho I doubt I’ll be running it with CuSeeMe – that software dates back to 1998 and predates USB … but there is iChat. More on these extras later.