New iMac
Yesterday, my wife surprised me with a new iMac. Wow! What a fantastic gift! I am very excited to have a new computer! My existing computers are about 8-10 years old, so getting a new computer is a very welcome surprise!
As tempting as I was to rip open the box, I decided not to open the box right away. I know of a website that tracks when the best time to purchase an iMac and recommends if it's a good time to purchase.
Sure enough when I checked, I discovered that Apple is overdue on refreshing the iMac product line and new iMacs could be announced as soon as next Monday. So, I decided to wait on opening the box and see what happens on Monday at the WWDC.
Its so hard to wait. Knowing that a new iMac is sitting in the living room, waiting for me to open it and explore all the new features. Intel Processor, Mac OX Lion, Facetime, Thurderbold, AMD graphics, and a nice quiet machine that starts up really fast.
Meanwhile I can start planning...
New Computer, Dual Monitor
When I set up my new iMac, I want to connect my 20" Apple Cinema Display as a second monitor. Fortunitate for me that the Cinema Display uses a DVI port so all I need is a Mini-DVI to DVI Adapter which costs about ~$20 at the Apple store or about $15 in other retail stores online.
Hard Drive Docking Station
The new computer comes with 1TB hard drive, which is pretty much bigger than anything else that I have right now. I'll have to get a hard drive docking station to moved some of my old data to the new computer.
New Software
I'll have to checkout the advantages/disadvantages of various Window emulators such as Parallels, VMWare or Bootcamp. I have some old Virtual PC instances that I may want to merge over to the new computer. However, since I haven't run Windows at home for many years, it may not be worth the effort.
Software Upgrade
I'll have to update several of my applications to use the latest Intel technology. Here's the list of applications that I'll probably upgrade:
- BBedit - $39 upgrade (Better than getting Textmate.)
- Transmit $19 or Interarchy $29.95 upgrade - Haven't quite decide which one wins. Leading towards Transmit.
- Audio Hijack Pro - Looks like no update is needed.
- Fission - Looks like no update is needed.
- Snapz Pro X - $40 upgrade
- Toast - Toast 9 to 11 upgrade cost $79.99. Not sure it's worth the cost.
- DiscLabel - $15 upgrade at some point.
- Textexpander - $15 upgrade at some point.
- Indesign - CS2 to CS6 at some point.
- Photoshop - CS2 to CS6 at some point.
That's all I can think of for now. Very excited about getting a new iMac!