Genie Mac ☀
As I wrote previously, I ordered the new 27 inch iMac from apple.com/store.
It took a few weeks to ship and arrived last Friday.
So I thought I’d chronicle my experience with the new machine thus far, as well as some tidbits on transferring my applications and data from my old MacBook Pro.
First, the 27 inch 2560x1440 resolution monitor is absolutely gorgeous. Upon initial gaze, it appeared too enormous, but I quickly got accustomed and now delight in its glow. Though, pure white backgrounds are a bit blinding. And I had to bump up the font size in some applications.
As large as the screen is, the keyboard that ships with the machine is netbook sized, a sawed-in-half version of the thin touchpad I was expecting. Been giving it a whirl, though I’m fumbling about with it. Unlike the MacBook Pro keyboard, my fingers never seem to be anchored properly. Plus, needing to tap the fn key for paging functions is a major annoyance. One finger please! Though if I can get the touch typist positioning squared away, typing on it will be a charm. And wireless is nice.
Perhaps my perspective on the tiny keyboard is warped as my existing desktop keyboard is an old school heavy duty Mac keyboard that I purchased from a clearance bin back in 2003 when I became a Mac switcher. I love that keyboard and the tension free behavior of the keys (unlike cheap Windows machines, where you have to press a little harder) that harkens me back to those fabulous old IBM keyboards. Big fat esc and control keys (and a control key on both sides of the keyboard) along with a number pad (that does get used).
The space savings not so great an incentive as in my home office as I have a pullout keyboard drawer with ample room for a full sized keyboard and mouse.
Which brings me to words that I never believed I’d ever utter about an Apple made mouse — the new Apple Magic Mouse is incredible. Finally, after 25 years of first pioneering and then engaging in just about every foolhardy gimmick imaginable, Apple has delivered a wonderful mouse.
Before I unpacked the machine, several people alerted me that I would not like the mouse and that it again, was a major fail point for Apple. A few days before delivery, I visited an Apple Store (to replace another pair of headphones my cats destroyed) and tinkered a bit with one of the display machines. I noted that to make a truly pleasurable mouse experience, the System Preferences Mouse settings needed some toggling. To enable right clicking and to ensure scroll with momentum is set. Then you can scroll like you do on your iPhone, with a web browser or any other application. Flick up and down for rapid scrolling.
Typically, new machine migration is a painless endeavor, but this time I encountered a few hiccups in getting setup with all my old applications and data on the new machine.
- The firewire data transfer took a lot longer compared to previous transfers. It took nearly 2 hours to move 100G from the MacBook Pro to the new iMac. And it didn’t the aid the cause when I first mistakenly plugged the firewire cable into an ethernet port on back of the iMac.
- Time Machine could not access the backup USB hard drive that hangs off of the Airport Extreme wireless router. At first, figured this was a complication due to the new machine being a Snow Leopard v. Leopard (had not upgraded to Snow Leopard on the old machine) OS matter, but manually connecting via Finder and adding the authorization to the keychain appeared to have resolved the issue. But before solving, Google searches were popping up weird sorts of solutions, like the act of using a non Time Capsule Time Machine setup was an unofficially supported construction.
- X11 applications (i.e., Gimp, Inkscape) no longer worked. Easily fixed by reinstalling “Snow Leopard friendly” versions.
