This weekend I ordered my third Mac computer.  My first was a MacBook Pro, about a year and a half ago, then later I got a MacMini, specifically for use as a media server.  This new one is going to be a 27″ iMac with the i7 processor, due out in November.  I had anticipated buying another MacBook Pro in a year or so, whenever I started to feel limitations on my current one.  Then, with last week’s announcements of several new systems from Apple, my plans changed.  Interestingly, not just my purchasing plans, but my recognition of how I use a computer and what I need from it.

For the last 10 – 15 years, my primary system has been a laptop.  I wanted the freedom to work wherever I wished and to be able to have the full functionality of my everyday computer with me when I traveled.  But after examining years of computing habits, I realize that when I’m home I usually sit in the same place every day, not really taking advantage of mobility. Further, the one spec of my current computer that I almost immediately outstripped was hard drive space, and that’s always the tough one for laptops.  My solution has been to string a flotilla of external hard drives from the sides of the machine, making it not-so-portable. When traveling I find I’m not doing much that requires more than a solid mid-range laptop.  So, I’m going to give desktops a try again.  And the big new iMac was just too good a deal to pass up.

Marco.org yesterday published an excellent post describing the very special qualities of the screen on the 27″ iMac.  It really is like nothing else available. The base model is $1700. A lot of people are going to look at that and say that’s a lot for a desktop computer. But if an extremely high quality screen with uniquely high resolution for the size matters to you, the price is amazingly low.  As the post points out, it’s very nearly like buying a very large, very high res display (for a fair price in that market), and getting a computer capable of some very demanding work thrown in for almost free.  The one I chose will have an i7 quad core processor, 1 TB internal drive, and 8 GB of RAM that can be easily upgraded to 16 GB when I feel the need.  I’ve talked the specs over with my friends who do video production, and they feel it will serve me well as I do an increased amount of editing and compression next year.  The screen can even be used as an added display for another system, a configuration I hope to try out with the use of a switch.

So, the iMac influenced me to try another use model for my computing. I’ll still be keeping the MacBook Pro in the mix, for occasional portability, and I look forward to exploring the best ways to keep certain files synched between the two.  If I have any interesting insights or discoveries while using the new system (and integrating it with some others) I’ll share them here.

The VMware installation (and Windows XP within it) went very smoothly. The only bump was when I needed to insert the Windows install disc, but couldn’t because the previous install disc was still in the drive, which the VM had already taken over, and the on-screen methods of disc eject were not available to me.  Later that night the disc eject key was pointed out to me; I’m not sure if that would have worked or not in that situation.  But, it was a simple matter of shutting down the VM, ejecting the disc that was in the drive, inserting the Windows disc, and starting the VM again. 

I am very impressed by the speed of start up and shut down.  The night I was installing the VMware, I first powered up my Windows machine, then started the Mac.  The Mac starts up in maybe 20 seconds; the Windows machine is five or more minutes.  I started the VMware installation, and it was 80% complete by the time the Windows machine was finally booted and ready to do work. Shut down is even faster, probably five to ten seconds.

There’s a lot about the Mac that I appreciate, but I’m definitely still in the adjustment period.  There are times when it’s good to put it away for the last half-hour of the evening and just do a couple of things in the familiar Windows environment.  But I’m aiming to have my last applications with frequently changing data (iTunes and email) migrated over in the next couple of days, then hopefully I can just start up one computer in the evening, rather than two.

I’ve got a bunch of Windows software, some of which is not available for Macs, and I’ve known all along that I would be employing some technique to run apps from both operating systems.  The three main choices are Apple’s own Boot Camp, Parallels, and VMware Fusion. Boot Camp is a straight-forward multiple boot option: When you start (or restart) the computer, you have an option of loading whichever operating system you wish to use.  It’s probably the simplest and cheapest way around the problem, but it does require a restart, which makes it less appealing to me.  Parallels and VMware are both virtual machines that allow a simulated instance of a full computer to run as an application within another computer.  So essentially, the Mac would be running an application that exactly mimics a windows machine, and within that, Windows software can be run.  My research indicates that both these virtual options are pretty evenly matched, but I use a version of VMware at work, so I’m already fairly comfortable with that.  This adds up to my decision to go with VMware Fusion, at least initially.

The other switching issue I was a bit concerned about had to do with the file format of my recently instituted Drobo.  It’s PC-formatted and although it contains a number of files from my primary laptop, like photos and my iTunes library (management of which I’ll be moving to the Mac), It also contains files from my quad-core video editing system. Until I get proficient with Final Cut Express (not going Pro just yet), I’ll be wanting Drobo-style protection for files being worked from both systems.  From what I hear, the drives that comprise the Drobo should be accessible from either platform, which is good news.

Finally, for productivity software, I’m sticking with my old friend MS Office, but in the Mac-only 2008 version.  I considered both OpenOffice and Apple’s own iWork suite, but for the moment I’m sticking with a small slice of the familiar, and hoping the developers haven’t changed Absolutely Everything.

So there are a few software packages I need to get, then I’ll just settle on my front porch, looking up hopefully every time the UPS truck drives by.

It’s a smaller range of choices than when looking for a new PC, because (obviously) you’re dealing with the products of a single company. In Apple’s current product line, that’s the MacBook (their low-mid range machine), the MacBook Pro (their high end machine), and the newly released MacBook Air, their super-thin, super-light object of desire. In the wake of the Macworld keynote, the Air seemed like the only possible choice, but that’s what you’re supposed to think when Steve Jobs stops talking. On second, third and fourth thought, I knew that it was a fine computer for some people, but not me. It would be great for a frequent traveler or daily coffee shop denizen who wants a machine for e-mail, web, and light, productivity-type apps, but I tend towards a need for greater horsepower.

Which brought me to the next filter: Would this be a little test machine, just to give me a taste of the hardware and software of Apple? Or was I going to truly attempt to replace my primary computer, a two-and-a-half-year-old Dell Inspiron 9300? The Dell has long since outstripped its internal storage and I’ve been off-loading those duties to a number of external drives. Its 1 GB of memory is starting to feel a bit strained. So, yes, I can justify a new primary computer. I started checking out configurations of the 17” MacBook Pro. I was about pull the trigger on a maxed-out configuration when Neal Campbell advised me that the buzz was that a refresh of Apple’s high-end laptop was right around the corner. I’m the guy who bought the iPhone two weeks before its storage was doubled, so I knew it would be worth a bit of a wait for the newest laptop Cupertino could offer. (Thanks, Neal!)

So that’s where I am, now, waiting for the new MacBook Pro, which I anticipate maxing out on the specs, to give Apple a real chance to prove itself to me. The Mac community seems to feel this could come on almost any given Tuesday, the new release day for the company.

Waiting… waiting… waiting…

I’m not completely inexperienced with Macs. Back around 1984, one of my friends got a first generation Macintosh through Apple’s student discount program and it was the first computer with a mouse that I ever used. In 1995, I was teaching and schools were big for Macs. Our school decided to put computers on all the teachers’ desks. I got some good daily experience with a Mac then, and I found it to be highly comparable to a Windows PC, in both good and bad ways. It was able to run similar productivity software and it was completely capable of throwing near-indecipherable error messages. I didn’t see that the Mac was that much more user-friendly than the PC, and I did see that there was a big gulf between the two platforms in available software. I had no interest then in trying a Mac at home.

Recently, though, I’ve been exposed to a number of people, both online and in the real world, who speak very highly of the current state of Macs. These are people who used to be Windows users and have made their own conversions. Their reasons for preferring Macs sound convincing and I respect their opinions on multiple other subjects. This combines with my past three years or so using iPods and the Apple TV, both of which have really impressed me. So maybe there is something to this whole Mac business, and I’m ready to try a computer that inspires such passion.

So now, as Apple would ask, which Mac am I?