- Joined
- Jun 25, 2006
- Messages
- 171
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 18
- Location
- Gatineau, QC, Canada
- Your Mac's Specs
- 24" 2.4Ghz C2D iMac, 2GB RAM, 320GB HD - iMac 17, 1.83 GHz C2D - Mac Mini - Airport Extreme Base
Hi,
I bought a 17" iMac last week and after a few days, I find this to be a little jewel. I've been a Microsoft user since MS-Dos with the old A:> prompt (no hard disks at the time, only 5 1/4" single-sided floppies) and have been curious about Macs for years but never got around to trying one out. After so many frustrations with WinXP (viruses, adware, hackers, registry problems, bad DLL's, bad or conflicting drivers and codecs, problems with firewalls, antiviruses, adware removers, reloading XP several times, etc.) got me angry and paranoid enough to make the switch. Mind you, the first couple of days were a bit frustrating finding my way around the new interface (plus the lack of right-click for sub-menus on most applications) but I'm now enjoying this little gem and it's stable operating system.
OK, enough blah...
Questions:
I'm used to the old ascii codes (ALT 130, etc) for inputting accented characters in e-mails, documents, etc. (I sometimes need to write in French or Spanish), is this possible on a Mac?
Is there some kind of built-in automatic "luminance" detector in the iMac? Sometimes the brightness level on my screen changes several times in rapid succession then settles. Could it be a refresh rate adjustment? Also, the is a slider for brightness only in the "displays preferences" box, isn't there one for contrast or do you have to use the keyboard shotcuts (CTRL-Option-Apple-> or <) all the time?
Out of curiousity, why are the application's file sizes much bigger for OS10 vs. Windows or Linux (ie. Firefox 1.5; 16 Mb for Mac and 5 Mb for the Windows installer?
Also, how long is the flat screen usually good for (MTBF)? Where's the best place to buy quality RAM for this baby? I'd like to upgrade it to the max.
Last question (for now, LOL), do you people think I made a wise choice? It was time for me to get anothe PC (my old one blew) and I was also looking at a Gateway wih a dual core processor, 1 Gb RAM, 250 Gb HD, nVidea graphics, etc., L.G. 20" flat screen monitor, WinXP with Media Center for a couple of hundreds less than the iMac? I made a deal with the store that I could try the Mac for 2 weeks and if it didn't work out for me, I have the option to return it and get the Gateway.
Thanks,
Gene
ps. has anyone tried loading OS-10 on a Pentium based PC box?
I bought a 17" iMac last week and after a few days, I find this to be a little jewel. I've been a Microsoft user since MS-Dos with the old A:> prompt (no hard disks at the time, only 5 1/4" single-sided floppies) and have been curious about Macs for years but never got around to trying one out. After so many frustrations with WinXP (viruses, adware, hackers, registry problems, bad DLL's, bad or conflicting drivers and codecs, problems with firewalls, antiviruses, adware removers, reloading XP several times, etc.) got me angry and paranoid enough to make the switch. Mind you, the first couple of days were a bit frustrating finding my way around the new interface (plus the lack of right-click for sub-menus on most applications) but I'm now enjoying this little gem and it's stable operating system.
OK, enough blah...
Questions:
I'm used to the old ascii codes (ALT 130, etc) for inputting accented characters in e-mails, documents, etc. (I sometimes need to write in French or Spanish), is this possible on a Mac?
Is there some kind of built-in automatic "luminance" detector in the iMac? Sometimes the brightness level on my screen changes several times in rapid succession then settles. Could it be a refresh rate adjustment? Also, the is a slider for brightness only in the "displays preferences" box, isn't there one for contrast or do you have to use the keyboard shotcuts (CTRL-Option-Apple-> or <) all the time?
Out of curiousity, why are the application's file sizes much bigger for OS10 vs. Windows or Linux (ie. Firefox 1.5; 16 Mb for Mac and 5 Mb for the Windows installer?
Also, how long is the flat screen usually good for (MTBF)? Where's the best place to buy quality RAM for this baby? I'd like to upgrade it to the max.
Last question (for now, LOL), do you people think I made a wise choice? It was time for me to get anothe PC (my old one blew) and I was also looking at a Gateway wih a dual core processor, 1 Gb RAM, 250 Gb HD, nVidea graphics, etc., L.G. 20" flat screen monitor, WinXP with Media Center for a couple of hundreds less than the iMac? I made a deal with the store that I could try the Mac for 2 weeks and if it didn't work out for me, I have the option to return it and get the Gateway.
Thanks,
Gene
ps. has anyone tried loading OS-10 on a Pentium based PC box?