While enjoying the latest episode of "Top Chef" tonight (thanks to Cris for not spoiling it and yay to Richard for still being in), I saw a commercial for a company called "Finally Fast" that advertises a "free" computer scan (followed by a not-free "cleanup" of any problems it finds) for your PC. As a note unrelated to my amusement factor, what they're really selling is the same service that Spybot provides (except that Spybot is robust, highly recommended . . . and free), so what they're actually doing is cashing in on the computer-illiteracy of the average American.

What earned a laugh from me, though, was something completely unrelated in their ad. The opening and ending of the commercial, the "book ends," if you prefer, feature a young man first complaining that his computer (which "used to be so fast") is now crawling and then, after running Finally Fast, bragging in overly enthusiastic tones about how fast his PC is now. Except his "PC" is a 20-inch iMac (newer generation, either the last of the G5s or the first of the Intels). So the software the company is promoting wouldn't even install on his computer, let alone do anything to speed it up.

It's the details that get you.

Labels: amusement, funny, imac

I realized today that Flickr's format may not have correctly conveyed the accomplishment with which I was being enamored regarding my video conferencing test. This is a more accurate representation of what Cris saw on his computer (although, of course, it will vary by viewer based on monitor size and screen resolution). According to Skype, that's supposed to be 640x480 at 25 fps, although we didn't test it long enough to verify that it will actually maintain that.

Labels: computers, imac

Yes, that's me on a web cam. Rest assured I will not be charging $2.00 a minute to strip for strangers or anything of that sort (although for a copy of Photoshop . . .). I set up my iSight for the first time last night (both in iChat and in Skype). This was Cris's view of what is apparently a pretty decent quality (both in framerate and screen size) live video chat with me. Humorously, he didn't have a Web cam hooked up, so while I was speaking normally (like a phone call with video), his responses were typed into the chat window, a somewhat disjointed experience that nevertheless holds promise for live video conferencing with family and friends (everyone go download Skype).

Labels: computers, imac

I'm adjusting to the iMac fairly well. The close buttons on the opposite side, check. Dock and Dashboard, check. Menus in the top bar instead of the window, check. Programs running even when closed until actually quit, check.

The minor annoyances that still require acclimation: keyboard map, command keys, equivalent programs. I haven't found an HTML program I like yet (iWeb is useless and RapidWeaver *says* it will do what I want but the documentation and trial-and-error hasn't produced it yet).

Most of my actual complaints have been hardware. I really didn't like the Mighty Mouse. Even with right-click enabled, the mouse would routinely interpret my right-clicks as left-clicks (even when I was almost on the right edge), and the short cable really isn't compatible with a large screen. So I bought an MX Revolution wireless mouse, which had some early kinks (less-than-stellar OS X drivers that kept switching the scroll wheel mode on its own and a charging station that took some fiddling to make work) but that seems to be working pretty well now. And the built-in speakers, despite the reviews, sound awful (or more accurately, they sound like a stereo without any bass). Soundsticks seem to have solved that problem. All I think I'm really missing at this point is my Adobe Suite (you don't want to see Jay in Photoshop withdrawal . . .).

Labels: computers, imac

My new Soundsticks are here and attached to the iMac, adding yet another diffuse blue LED glow to the collection of lights in the corner of my room (the USB hub and the Lightscribe drive being the other two, along with the green lights on the cable modem). That freed up my old Altec Lansing 251 speakers (a 5.1 speaker system won't fit on the new desk, hence the "downgrade" to 2.1 speakers). Given their likely (low) value, I "converted" them into television speakers (they're certainly not true surround sound, especially given the wires are too short to place them anywhere but on the entertainment center itself, but they sound better than the television's built-in speakers). One interesting quirk is that the "static" that the bass unit has been experiencing for the last several months, when I actually put my ear down by it while hooking it back up in the living room, revealed itself to be the faint murmurings of at least three different radio stations. So much for shielding.

In other news, despite the possible contribution crystalline water may have made to the emergence of life (and hence me) on this planet, I remain completely unimpressed with its insistence on returning on a seasonal basis. Read, shoveling snow (a task completed last night, only to be resumed tonight), while not on par with, say, invasive surgery or financial bankruptcy, remains an unenjoyable task. Lisa has openly scoffed at my plans for a superheated compressed nitrogen "gun" capable of flash-steaming snow off the sidewalks (and has suggested I just buy a small snowblower instead).

Labels: computers, imac

Home improvements are expensive. Word.

The bedroom project is nearing completion. The paint is long since dry, resplendent now with its shimmering highlights and metallic copper accents, reflecting a hybrid Frank Lloyd Wright/Stargate Atlantis/Myst theme seen only in the surroundings of bachelors with some degree of creativity and spending money, certainly nothing ever seen in a room requiring the input of two people. Most of the furniture is moved back in (including, thankfully, my bed, sparing me from the discomfort of my spare beds that in most situations I reserve only for visiting guests). The old computer desk is still partially assembled and the Dell is still running, mostly because I haven't finished migrating files but partially because I still need it for a handful of applications (mostly Photoshop-related) that the iMac is not yet capable of handling. Once it's gone I should be able to move the dresser into its place and be done (sans wall decorations, which may require some re-evaluation given the new color scheme).

The iMac itself has been a mixed blessing. The culmination of a year-and-a-half of saving and a good dose of longing, it sits in blissful pretentiousness, ignoring the sullen glares of the Dell. At the same time, it has frustrated me just a little bit. I don't like the Mighty Mouse (the lack of context for the right-click has annoyed the hell out of me) and the smaller keyboard will take some adjusting after using the same (very big) ergonomic keyboard for (and I'm not joking here) 12 years (it's a hell of a keyboard, even if it's a faint yellow instead of white now and some of the keys have been worn blank). I haven't yet figured out why Apple (the industry standard for incorporating design and convenience into their products) doesn't make an ergonomic keyboard, or why the grand march forward toward larger screen space (this is a 24" monitor, after all, which dwarfs even the 20" screens at work) is mirrored by a gradual shrinking of the keyboard to laptop size. The keyboard layout is similarly unfamiliar for the time being (in particular, I'm used to the backspace key being at the upper right edge, and frequently use the edge as context to find it, which on the Mac keyboard lands me on the DVD eject button, not to mention the additional "modifier" keys that Tim advises me will become lifeblood in the near future). The other major frustration, unforeseen in my switch plans, is that the "easiness" of the Mac (one of its selling points) comes at the expense of tool sets I take for granted; iWeb, for example, a program for making Web pages, has no option to actually edit HTML (and won't open my old HTML pages), instead supplying a series of pre-made templates awaiting text, a fabulous program for people with no HTML experience but a worthless one for those of us who just want to open our previous recipe pages and update the text and pictures. Firefox also has some odd limitations (the bookmarks, for example, while fully draggable and editable as-is in Windows, are locked on the Mac version until you actually open the bookmark editor). It's as though the programs were made "idiot proof," at the expense of convenience.

I have no doubt that a month from now I'll have either adjusted to the new settings or found alternate Mac programs that do what I want them to do. And I'll probably have a new Logitech Revolution mouse (especially if any of my readers are feeling generous . . .).

On to tiling the bathroom!

Labels: computers, house, imac