ok, sorry for the delay...hard time getting through to the boards...was beginning to think it was the new computer!!! but i'll blame it on AI instead....
first... iTools rocks...damn that was simple...put up a few pictures this morning...seen them at
the fan is quiet...the superdrive is much noisier....with the iSub on the tabletop and the drive spinning it vibrates the table quite a bit...thinking of putting a slab of rubber under the iMac to hold down vibrations....the up side of a fan is that this iMac is never warm to the touch (my old one gets quite hot)....the fan does not spin when the machine is asleep if you sleep in the same room as your imac (don't think it would keep anyone awake though...its a nice gentle hum)...
used the minidv camcorder for the photos, so the quality is not so hot....iPhoto is a bit slow, but has a nice user interface...nice slideshow stuff....
there is now more room on my desk as i moved the iHub and cd burner out with the old iMac....on the plus side i moved the iSub up from the floor...think it looks great on the table top....plus the iSub finally sounds great with os x and iTunes 2....this is the best the iSub has ever worked (was underwhelmed with os 9 and the iSub)....
what should be improved (to help battle the tag i have as a apple apoligist)....
Longer cable for keyboard and mouse (still)
need four usb plugs on the back and one usb and one firewire on the front...keyboard and printer and scanner go to back, along with a zip or other devise...one usb in the front for camera, one firewire for camcorder or iPod.....
having only three usb in the back and two on the keyboard works ok right now as i have the iSub to the usb port in the keyboard opposite the mouse...when i want to download photos by usb i just undo the iSub and use that port...but more usb and connections to the front would be nice...
superdrive is fairly loud
my scanner is not currently usable in X
many os 9 apps wont print in classic....have to go to 9 to print and then reboot to x
classic is slow to load
os 9 is faster than X at this time, but X is stable as hell...haven't been able to crash it yet...and i've been trying
new entourage still won't recognize old entourage...may have to reload vs redo all my addresses and rules etc
burned a cd with Toast for my wife...worked fine, but slower at 8x
still feel like i will have a learning curve with X...used the old os for over 10 years....
but dang this is a pretty computer...and i'm constantly moving the screen a little this way, then a little that way...trying to get it just right damn i love that swivel....g
dang this computer must be fast...somehow i posted back in time with it...it's like 8:30 at night and AI has me posting at 10 am....it must be a SuperDrive in here g
has anybody burned a dvd with the new iMac yet?? as soon as i can get the girls to edit some of their movies, i will burn a one with iDVD and let you all know how it goes...g
still no freezes with X....now if i can just get drivers for my scanner and updates to my cd label program (magic mouse...that program is "da bomb"....if they enlarge the amount of text it will hold it will be just about a perfect cd label app...) and quark and photoshop for X, (plus os X 's speed boosted a bit) i will never need to see os 9 again...g
ok, the boards seemed to be down last night so i couldn't post anything...so here goes...this will be all over the place
got home around 7 pm and went straight to the box....actually not as small a box as i thought it would be...open it up and find out why....it is 70% packing and air...the computer takes up little space in the box....very well packed and lots of little covers on the usb ends and stuff...well thought out....the metal arm/handle is thick...much thicker than i thought...very sturdy and easy to carry the computer by....screen moves very easily, but stay put right were you stop it.....adding ram was easy, but always have to push harder than i remember...afraid of breaking 215 dollar ram, but give it a good shove and it was in.....people say the base is big, but didn't really strike me that way, and when you position the screen to a viewable angle , the base almost disappears (the pro speakers are larger and fatter than i thought, but cute)...system started right up and the screen is bright...much brighter than the crt iMac sitting next to it..has a very wide viewing angle....the tiny on light is white (and dims and brighters white when sleeping...doesn't have two colors like the old iMac)...the screen is lovely with no dead pixels....seems big enough, but apple will probably sell me another iMac in two years with they have a 17in all in one iMac with G5...if i keep it up i can have an iMac in every room....the superdrive opens and shuts smoothly with a touch of the eject button (last button on the upper row).. i really liked the action of the drive, seems firm yet quiet....mouse is lovely and moves well....will use for a while, but i like a scroll wheel, so it may be replaced...too bad, as it is the nicest feeling mouse i have used and sexy looking ...wife thinks the white keyboard will show dirt, but it strokes beautifully---softly yet solid....osX is fast and really nice, but i still have a lot to learn...going to classic environment is slow...very slow, but useable....it will be nice when everything is set for X...i think X will be very fast when it is complete....one of the highlights of the evening was transfering via firewire from old iMac to new iMac...so damn simple and FAST....it was great...i have never used that before and it was really fun....was nice how the old iMac HD shows up as a firewire drive on the new iMac's desktop....sweet!!... played with the system till around 2 am moving files, looking through the system, trying to learn X some, loading office etc....system never locked or froze once...even with adding downloads and patches (toast patch, printer patches, sims patches, etc)....very stable considering i was mucking about quite a bit....still have tons to do and learn, but it should be fun....i never had an iTools account, but i opened one last night....will try to load photos and such today or tomorrow as i learn and play with iTools (depends on if i go skiing tomorrow or stay home to play with computer)....my favorite photo is of the About this Computer screen showing "Os 10.1.2 with 768 of ram" weeeeeeee!! have to move the old computer and play somemore today....hope you get yours soon...know i'm leaving lots out...sorry i don't have photos yet....hopefully soon...but i'm an old man and not as versed as the youngins with this computer crap ...all the best g
ps...how do i transfer all my entrourage settings from 2001 to v.X?? thanks g
ps i love it....having the new iMac sitting next to the old iMac really shows the difference...love the old iMac, but it is diffenently out classed by the looks of the new iMac.....oh, and the fan.....didn't even notice it till around 1:30 am when the house was very quiet...you can hear it, but it is very quiet, much quieter than the voices in my head , and doesn't really move very much air....the system is a very quiet system even with a fan....g
When you first launch Entourage it will ask you if you want to import mails and settings from another program...it gives you the choice to move it from Outlook/Entourage. That will bring all of your mail, settings, rules over to Entourage X.
Or you can go to File Import if you have already launched it.
Well, as a future owner of a new iMac, I'd be innarested in some benchmarks... Quake 3? Carbon Fractal Demo? How many gigaflops is this bad boy? Things like that.
Nice review, and it's nice to see an actual iMac sitting on someone's desk after just gawking at it over at apple.com for weeks.
The iSub does look a little odd up on the desk though... aren't they supposed to go on the floor? You would feel the base better I would think - that's where I have mine, anyway. You wouldn't have to worry about the vibrations on the desktop that way either.
I also thought that plugging the iSub into the keyboard USB slot wouldn't get it as much power as plugging it into a "real" USB port at the rear of the machine. Have you tried both and noticed a difference?
One thing I have been wondering about these - does the SuperDrive have buffer underrun protection?
If you went skiing and left that iMac sitting alone all day, bad things are going to happen to you man. Karma. We're all sitting here praying for ours to arrive, and you leave yours sitting there... IT'S INSANE!
need four usb plugs on the back and one usb and one firewire on the front...</strong><hr></blockquote>
It is hard to get the correct cable length and I've always found them to be to short or to long. I agree with you about the ports though. But I'm still annoyed that you got your iMac before me.
ok....day three with my beautiful new iMac....the screen is just so bright and pretty....i love it....
questions: actually the cable length is fine...the keyboard moves where i want and the mouse has plenty of play...they just look a bit short and i was worried....as you can see from my pictures i have arranged things so cables are not seen all over the place...it all looks very nice and neat i think....
i like the iSub on the table...always thought it was too pretty to sit on the floor...plus, i was underwhelmed with it on the floor with 9.1 running it....with X it sounds much better...as for power from the keyboard....well it has it's own power source plugged into the wall, so im not sure if different ports would change that...really happy that the keyboard usb ports really seem to work....with my old iMac i could use the mouse and a joystick and such....but real work needed the hub and sometimes needed direct connection to the imac itself....i have used the keyboard usb to run my iSub and to download photos....it has all worked great....so in the back i have placed the keyboard plug, the printer and the Zip 250 (which X noticed with it's own drivers)...on the keyboard i have the mouse and the iSub...i am going to check to see if the zip works through the keyboard so i can plug my scanner into one of the back usb ports when i finally get a umax driver to work with X and my astra mx3....one solution would be to either get a firewire scanner or get an all-in-one printer/scanner....but my printer is like 2 months old and my scanner works great when i use it...but i really don't scan too offen, especially with the camcorder to take photos....as for iSub rocking the table...don't mind that, that's cool...just don't like superdrive rocking the table...
underrun buffer....well i use toast and it has underrun buffer with this computer....and i always have used it before....but last night i tried burning a cd for my wife without it for the first time (daring aren't i)....it worked fine...will try it both ways and see if one or the other is better...also will try iTunes to make a cd and see how that goes....just always have used toast and love it, but iTunes seems pretty sweet too....
leaving my iMac alone...yes, i couldn't risk karmic retribution....my wife and youngest wanted to learn snowboarding, so they are taking lessons today and staying on the bunny hills, my eldest wants to hang with her friends...so i would have been alone on my two skis on the black diamonds....i really like skiing a couple of runs by myself and getting a feel of the trees and surroundings....but for all day skiing one needs company....so i bailed....need to play with the iMac, clean the car, watch the superbowl etc anyway...will go next week probably...plus i think we will still have snow....check out this view out the front and rear of my house....nothing like buffalo or canada, but nice...
as for quake 3 tests and other benchmarks....sorry, don't have quake and i have never done a benchmark in my life...wish i was more of a geek like that, but i'm just a computer dabbler (even more the reason i shouldn't have been one of the first with this machine...not that i'm complaining)
see ya all.....g
look ma, no wires...my favorite photo so far...will try for a better one today
Well, one easy easy benchmark thingy you could do to make us happy is to run <a href="http://daugerresearch.com/fractaldemos/altivecfractalcarbon.html"; target="_blank">Altivec Fractal Carbon Demo</a> (probably with no other apps open) and tell us the GFLOPs you get. That would be cooool.
Also, I love your setup. Very classy. I can't wait for mine to come, although I spose I'm going to have to...
Comments
first... iTools rocks...damn that was simple...put up a few pictures this morning...seen them at
<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/gavinmcc/PhotoAlbum1.html"; target="_blank">http://homepage.mac.com/gavinmcc/PhotoAlbum1.html</a>;
soon i will be making tributes too
the fan is quiet...the superdrive is much noisier....with the iSub on the tabletop and the drive spinning it vibrates the table quite a bit...thinking of putting a slab of rubber under the iMac to hold down vibrations....the up side of a fan is that this iMac is never warm to the touch (my old one gets quite hot)....the fan does not spin when the machine is asleep if you sleep in the same room as your imac (don't think it would keep anyone awake though...its a nice gentle hum)...
used the minidv camcorder for the photos, so the quality is not so hot....iPhoto is a bit slow, but has a nice user interface...nice slideshow stuff....
there is now more room on my desk as i moved the iHub and cd burner out with the old iMac....on the plus side i moved the iSub up from the floor...think it looks great on the table top....plus the iSub finally sounds great with os x and iTunes 2....this is the best the iSub has ever worked (was underwhelmed with os 9 and the iSub)....
what should be improved (to help battle the tag i have as a apple apoligist)....
Longer cable for keyboard and mouse (still)
need four usb plugs on the back and one usb and one firewire on the front...keyboard and printer and scanner go to back, along with a zip or other devise...one usb in the front for camera, one firewire for camcorder or iPod.....
having only three usb in the back and two on the keyboard works ok right now as i have the iSub to the usb port in the keyboard opposite the mouse...when i want to download photos by usb i just undo the iSub and use that port...but more usb and connections to the front would be nice...
superdrive is fairly loud
my scanner is not currently usable in X
many os 9 apps wont print in classic....have to go to 9 to print and then reboot to x
classic is slow to load
os 9 is faster than X at this time, but X is stable as hell...haven't been able to crash it yet...and i've been trying
new entourage still won't recognize old entourage...may have to reload vs redo all my addresses and rules etc
burned a cd with Toast for my wife...worked fine, but slower at 8x
still feel like i will have a learning curve with X...used the old os for over 10 years....
but dang this is a pretty computer...and i'm constantly moving the screen a little this way, then a little that way...trying to get it just right
still no freezes with X....now if i can just get drivers for my scanner and updates to my cd label program (magic mouse...that program is "da bomb"....if they enlarge the amount of text it will hold it will be just about a perfect cd label app...) and quark and photoshop for X, (plus os X 's speed boosted a bit) i will never need to see os 9 again...g
got home around 7 pm and went straight to the box....actually not as small a box as i thought it would be...open it up and find out why....it is 70% packing and air...the computer takes up little space in the box....very well packed and lots of little covers on the usb ends and stuff...well thought out....the metal arm/handle is thick...much thicker than i thought...very sturdy and easy to carry the computer by....screen moves very easily, but stay put right were you stop it.....adding ram was easy, but always have to push harder than i remember...afraid of breaking 215 dollar ram, but give it a good shove and it was in.....people say the base is big, but didn't really strike me that way, and when you position the screen to a viewable angle , the base almost disappears (the pro speakers are larger and fatter than i thought, but cute)...system started right up and the screen is bright...much brighter than the crt iMac sitting next to it..has a very wide viewing angle....the tiny on light is white (and dims and brighters white when sleeping...doesn't have two colors like the old iMac)...the screen is lovely with no dead pixels....seems big enough, but apple will probably sell me another iMac in two years with they have a 17in all in one iMac with G5...if i keep it up i can have an iMac in every room....the superdrive opens and shuts smoothly with a touch of the eject button (last button on the upper row).. i really liked the action of the drive, seems firm yet quiet....mouse is lovely and moves well....will use for a while, but i like a scroll wheel, so it may be replaced...too bad, as it is the nicest feeling mouse i have used and sexy looking ...wife thinks the white keyboard will show dirt, but it strokes beautifully---softly yet solid....osX is fast and really nice, but i still have a lot to learn...going to classic environment is slow...very slow, but useable....it will be nice when everything is set for X...i think X will be very fast when it is complete....one of the highlights of the evening was transfering via firewire from old iMac to new iMac...so damn simple and FAST....it was great...i have never used that before and it was really fun....was nice how the old iMac HD shows up as a firewire drive on the new iMac's desktop....sweet!!... played with the system till around 2 am moving files, looking through the system, trying to learn X some, loading office etc....system never locked or froze once...even with adding downloads and patches (toast patch, printer patches, sims patches, etc)....very stable considering i was mucking about quite a bit....still have tons to do and learn, but it should be fun....i never had an iTools account, but i opened one last night....will try to load photos and such today or tomorrow as i learn and play with iTools (depends on if i go skiing tomorrow or stay home to play with computer)....my favorite photo is of the About this Computer screen showing "Os 10.1.2 with 768 of ram" weeeeeeee!! have to move the old computer and play somemore today....hope you get yours soon...know i'm leaving lots out...sorry i don't have photos yet....hopefully soon...but i'm an old man and not as versed as the youngins with this computer crap
ps...how do i transfer all my entrourage settings from 2001 to v.X?? thanks g
When you first launch Entourage it will ask you if you want to import mails and settings from another program...it gives you the choice to move it from Outlook/Entourage. That will bring all of your mail, settings, rules over to Entourage X.
Or you can go to File Import if you have already launched it.
Is it still silent?
Congratulations, you lucky bastard
Nice review, and it's nice to see an actual iMac sitting on someone's desk after just gawking at it over at apple.com for weeks.
The iSub does look a little odd up on the desk though... aren't they supposed to go on the floor? You would feel the base better I would think - that's where I have mine, anyway. You wouldn't have to worry about the vibrations on the desktop that way either.
I also thought that plugging the iSub into the keyboard USB slot wouldn't get it as much power as plugging it into a "real" USB port at the rear of the machine. Have you tried both and noticed a difference?
One thing I have been wondering about these - does the SuperDrive have buffer underrun protection?
If you went skiing and left that iMac sitting alone all day, bad things are going to happen to you man. Karma. We're all sitting here praying for ours to arrive, and you leave yours sitting there... IT'S INSANE!
<strong>
Longer cable for keyboard and mouse (still)
need four usb plugs on the back and one usb and one firewire on the front...</strong><hr></blockquote>
It is hard to get the correct cable length and I've always found them to be to short or to long. I agree with you about the ports though. But I'm still annoyed that you got your iMac before me.
[ 02-02-2002: Message edited by: imacSE ]</p>
questions: actually the cable length is fine...the keyboard moves where i want and the mouse has plenty of play...they just look a bit short and i was worried....as you can see from my pictures i have arranged things so cables are not seen all over the place...it all looks very nice and neat i think....
i like the iSub on the table...always thought it was too pretty to sit on the floor...plus, i was underwhelmed with it on the floor with 9.1 running it....with X it sounds much better...as for power from the keyboard....well it has it's own power source plugged into the wall, so im not sure if different ports would change that...really happy that the keyboard usb ports really seem to work....with my old iMac i could use the mouse and a joystick and such....but real work needed the hub and sometimes needed direct connection to the imac itself....i have used the keyboard usb to run my iSub and to download photos....it has all worked great....so in the back i have placed the keyboard plug, the printer and the Zip 250 (which X noticed with it's own drivers)...on the keyboard i have the mouse and the iSub...i am going to check to see if the zip works through the keyboard so i can plug my scanner into one of the back usb ports when i finally get a umax driver to work with X and my astra mx3....one solution would be to either get a firewire scanner or get an all-in-one printer/scanner....but my printer is like 2 months old and my scanner works great when i use it...but i really don't scan too offen, especially with the camcorder to take photos....as for iSub rocking the table...don't mind that, that's cool...just don't like superdrive rocking the table...
underrun buffer....well i use toast and it has underrun buffer with this computer....and i always have used it before....but last night i tried burning a cd for my wife without it for the first time (daring aren't i)....it worked fine...will try it both ways and see if one or the other is better...also will try iTunes to make a cd and see how that goes....just always have used toast and love it, but iTunes seems pretty sweet too....
leaving my iMac alone...yes, i couldn't risk karmic retribution....my wife and youngest wanted to learn snowboarding, so they are taking lessons today and staying on the bunny hills, my eldest wants to hang with her friends...so i would have been alone on my two skis on the black diamonds....i really like skiing a couple of runs by myself and getting a feel of the trees and surroundings....but for all day skiing one needs company....so i bailed....need to play with the iMac, clean the car, watch the superbowl etc anyway...will go next week probably...plus i think we will still have snow....check out this view out the front and rear of my house....nothing like buffalo or canada, but nice...
as for quake 3 tests and other benchmarks....sorry, don't have quake and i have never done a benchmark in my life...wish i was more of a geek like that, but i'm just a computer dabbler (even more the reason i shouldn't have been one of the first with this machine...not that i'm complaining)
see ya all.....g
look ma, no wires...my favorite photo so far...will try for a better one today
[ 02-03-2002: Message edited by: thegelding ]
[ 02-03-2002: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>
g
Also, I love your setup. Very classy. I can't wait for mine to come, although I spose I'm going to have to...
5.8 sec and 2297 megaflops with stuff running in background
5.1 sec and 2650.5 megaflops with just Os X and classic environment running....
second time---4.9 sec with 2721.6 megaflops
can i test it without classic running??
hope this helps and sounds about right...g
[ 02-03-2002: Message edited by: thegelding ]
[ 02-03-2002: Message edited by: thegelding ]</p>
<strong>anything for you wyntir.....
5.8 sec and 2297 megaflops with stuff running in background
5.1 sec and 2650.5 megaflops with just Os X and classic environment running....
second time---4.9 sec with 2721.6 megaflops
can i test it without classic running??
hope this helps and sounds about right...g
[ 02-03-2002: Message edited by: thegelding ]
[ 02-03-2002: Message edited by: thegelding ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thise numbers dont souand too good. I hope I am wrong and they are actually really good #'s.