My Concerns About Macs

You may remember I posted this entry exactly one month ago today about my PC breaking. It was subsequently fixed and worked for almost a month until Friday, when it broke…again. I thought it was the power supply as the computer just turned off and refused to turn back on again but those motherboards are crafty and had made me believe it was the PSU.

I took it down to my tech guy (who is a fantastic chap) to whom I’ve very loyal and he’s giving me a call back today to sort out prices for what I want to do.

Whilst I dislike my PC breaking in the first place, I do know that I have a chap I can go to who will fix it quickly and won’t charge me the earth for doing so. It’s reassuring.

However, I have my Mac Mini as a spare for when my PC does give up the ghost and it also means I can split work and ‘play’. That being said, having two screens is giving me an RSI in my neck I think, constantly switching between them. Ideally I would like to combine my computers and run just the one.

I would probably donate my PC to my mother and get myself an iMac which I can use as the PC replacement. I’d go for the 3-year protection plan because technology seems to dislike working for me but the thing I’m worried about is what happens after 3 years if/when the iMac goes wrong? My tech guy won’t touch Apples, he just works on PCs.

I don’t know whether I’ll be able to afford to replace it in its entirity (if I can it’s not an issue) but I’ve had my PC for about 10-15 years. It’s been upgraded completely (in stages) but I’ve had it for that long.

Am I worrying justifiably or does anyone have any suggestions which will put my mind at ease and sway me more to the iMac?

Return On The Mac

Well, here we are, my first update from the new Mac. I was going to post this earlier but 1) I was having too much fun playing with the Mac and learning all the ins and outs of it and 2) my broadband connection died last night so I’m only getting around to it now – in between watching Smokin’ Aces and listening to Rachmaninoff.

So, yes, the Mac arrived “on time” on Monday morning and was VERY easy to set up. I’ll cut to the chase…I’m a Mac convert. I’ve liked Macs for a long time but I’ve never had the funds to do a complete transfer over from PCs; I still don’t, which is why I’ve only bought a Mini rather than a Mac Pro – that’s to come at a later date.

It is slightly confusing to be using two mice and two keyboards but with some sort of order and practice I’ll get there. The Mac keyboard is especially lovely to type on, despite the @ and ” keys being the wrong way round, that does catch me out quite often; with this in mind, I think I may even transfer my novel over onto here, just so I can use this keyboard. However, the mouse does seem to be a little bit dim-witted when trying to make fine adjustments. I don’t have the same problem with my PC mouse and I tried swapping them, ending up with the same results. Not sure what the problem is but this may make Photoshop work quite tricky. Time will tell I suppose.

I’ve spent most of the day networking the PC and the Mac together and transferring the 16 odd gigabytes of websites and photography over from PC to Mac. I think once Christmas is out of the way, I’ll be able to get back to work. I have a few websites to make to pay for the Mini and get myself a new television, so it’ll be interesting to see how well the Mini copes with it.

There was a slight moment of shock, the reason for which I am still a little confused about, when I realised my photography looks totally different on the Mac than it does on the PC. As you can see in the above left picture, the monitor on the right (Mac) looks much bluer than the monitor on the left (PC). The camera didn’t pick everything up but the Mac monitor seems to be generally much clearer, crisper, brighter and slightly more saturated.

I’m not sure whether it’s the colour profile, the graphics card, the age of the monitor or even the build of the monitor – glass vs matt – but it’s certainly something I’m concerned about. Many of the ‘darker’ pictures I’ve taken now show up incorrectly exposed and the colour on some of the others looks a bit off. I think I may have to either invest in a monitor calibration tool or a new monitor for the PC. We shall see.

On the whole though, I love it. Advice? Buy a Mac!

In other news, a friend of mine showed me a fantastic musical double-act earlier today, called Igudesman & Joo. A comedy concert I suppose you could dub it; their show seems to contain equal amounts of humour and classical music, very cleverly combined.

For more info and videos, visit www.igudesmanandjoo.com

Also, I use Firefox on my Mac which, if you don’t, is a great browser. Check out Stephen Fry’s blog to find out how best to ‘pimp your browser‘.

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