Respect Sakura

So, as I aluded to in my previous post, I am the proud owner of a recently purchased, shiny aluminum iMac.

Sidenote: I also got off my ass, and finished replacing Saber with Mahoro - a 3GHz Core 2 Duo system, with a new P35 chipset board and an 8800 Ultra which sure enough, it runs everything but the Crysis demo “like buttah” - but enough of that, lets get back on how the new Mac handles.

What can I say? I’m spoilt now. I don’t want to use my Macbook anymore, because it’s just not the same as the sexy, sexy 20″ beast residing on my desk. Yes, I’m a cheap bastard in that I opted for the midrange iMac model - the 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, with the Radeon 2600 HD, with 256MB of VRAM, and the 320GB HD. Why? Because a). the base 24″ model has the same specs, only with a larger screen, and b). if I want a 24″ screen, I can always get one for it later as I have a DVI adapter for the mini-DVI port.

There’s been quite a few reports of horrible, horrible crashes and freezes with these new model iMacs, but I must have lucked out or something, or perhaps this issue doesn’t occur under Leopard, because I haven’t had any problems whatsoever for the week and a bit I’ve had it - and I’ve given it a hell of a workout. In fact, I couldn’t be happier with how it’s been so far. I’m sitting at work right now, after a two week leave, and I’m already getting withdrawal symptoms. If I could, I’d take it with me to work and use it as my work PC, but a certain group of individuals responsible for security would be opposed to that notion.

In regards to Leopard, depending on who you talk to, it’s either the greatest anything ever from Apple as usual, or it’s an overpriced service pack with a fresh coat of paint slapped on to make people think it’s entirely brand new. I’m somewhere inbetween. I’m not wowed by OS X’s headline features at all. Spaces is nice, but is somewhat too irregular and tends to forget my settings, making it a pain in the ass. I’m not using Time Machine yet, because I haven’t cleared off the 400GB backup drive - and by the sounds of things, I may want to invest in something a little larger as a backup drive, or wait for the next point release to see if I can, in fact, use an SMB share to save this crap onto. Aside from the third party HoloGit effect, that whole iChat/Photo Booth backdrop thing doesn’t work at all for me, because my lighting sucks downstairs, and I have committed the unforgivable sin of not contrasting against my background well enough. Mail’s new notes & todo system is pretty cool, but I’m still unsure I’ll ever put them to good use.

So, really.. Leopard for me is about the little things. Things here and there which are nicer than how they were in Tiger. That’s the kind-of more unified look, the addition of grammar checking with spelling in all Cocoa apps (although I keep having to enable the bastard in Adium’s text field), the better contrast between foreground and background windows, the ability to scroll in non focused windows with the mouse wheel, the Japanese-English plugin and Wikipedia plugin for Dictionary, etc, etc. People will argue ad infinauseum whether this is worth $158 or not, but I couldn’t give a flying shit about that argument because my iMac (kind of) came with Leopard anyways, and admittedly, that’s how most people get their OS upgrades. Because it’s a new computer with a fresh OS X install, I can’t say whether the upgrade process makes it run “like buttah”, or like ass-flavoured shitbiscuits. Leopard’s been good to me, but as always, YMMV. My recommendation is that if you own some kind of decent G5 or Intel based Mac, then buy, buy, buy. Anything less, well… it depends.

Unfortunately, now that my new Mac desktop is this kick ass, I’m going to have to get an equally kick ass portable Mac to accompany it. Yes, folks, I’m talking about one of “those”. Granted, due to the copious amounts of money recently spent on expensive all-in-one aluminum computers and Queen albums on iTunes, and the fact that f%#@ing Christmas is a bee’s penis away, any more copious money spending is going to have to wait until next year. There’s also the matter of a backup solution for Konata, now that animu size > total available storage on my backup NAS. I also have a powerful need to eat over the next few months, so this is all throwing a spanner into the works, so to speak.

There were days when I never thought I’d need a notebook. Now, my next plan is to not only get one, but replace a perfectly functional one with something hellishly expensive and rather outlandish. Funny how things work out.