MY IMAC REPAIR IS DONE!!!!!

WOOOHOOOO! *rushes out the house*

Prepare for updates! >:]

Mac-less For 24 Days

As of today, my iMac has been in for repair for 24 days and I’ve been using a Windows machine for the meanwhile. But seeing that it’s going to take yet another week or so to get it back, I thought it would be suitable to share with you, some of the features that I personally miss about having a Mac:

Dictionary – place the cursor on a word, hit Cmd + Ctrl + D and you have its meaning. Instantly.
Bluetooth – every Mac comes with Bluetooth. Every single machine; it’s a standard. I don’t have to get a USB stick, or use a cable and install the drivers to my phone just to blog a photo.
Spotlight – searching for files takes seconds. No red torchlight please; I want results.
Maintenance – I don’t have to defragment my drive or update my antivirus/antispam/antispyware. Period.
Keychain – how can I keep track of all my passwords? Write a little text file on notepad? Install a third party app that may or may not work with all programs? Memorize everything and hope I don’t forget it? You tell me :/
iTunes – I’m aware that there’s a Windows version, but Macs, don’t come bundled with the annoying Media Player 11! >_< Seriously, how can people navigate it when most of it is contextual?
Spell Checking – Firefox 2 has it, Word has it, but that’s about it on Windows. Macs have it system-wide.

There are a few more, but thanks to modern web-based applications like Gmail, Google Calendar, etc… you don’t have to use the programs that come on Windows anymore.

Update On Power Supply

Just to clarify, my iMac’s power supply has been damaged probably because I haven’t turned it off for approximately two years. It’s currently in KMS‘ workshop and they estimate it would take two to four weeks for a replacement to arrive. So no, there won’t be a funeral :P

(Good thing this blog isn’t hosted on my iMac, otherwise you won’t be seeing this @_@)

My iMac Died :(

I heard a weird whining sound this morning that came from my iMac, but I figured it was just a clogged fan so I ignored it. A couple of hours later, while browsing the web, and without prior warning, the computer turned off!

Money Well Spent

A 17″ iMac with 2GB RAM costs $25 less than its equivalent 20″ iMac with 1 GB of RAM and bigger hard drive. That means 1 GB of RAM is approximately worth three inches on screen, and 90 GB of hard disk space.So which one should you go with, more RAM or bigger screen and hard disk? I’d say go for more RAM for the following reasons:

• External HDs are continuously getting bigger and cheaper that by the time you run out of space, you’ll be able to afford a huge drive.
• RAM prices are very steady throughout the computer’s lifetime so it’s best to get them early.
• Even if you can’t afford an external HD, you can still make DVD backups of your data for the meanwhile.
• If you can’t afford RAM, your system will use virtual space and further shorten the lifetime of your hard disk.
• More RAM means you can do multiple simultaneous tasks faster. This is especially useful if you have multiple-core CPUs.
• RAM is rarely idle; a few widgets, a program or two with iTunes in the background and you’ve consumed a large chunk already, whereas your extra 90 GB won’t be consumed until you manage to fill the first 160 GB.
• The 3 inches? Not really important considering you can manage with the scroll bars. Also, watching movies still requires that you sit at your desk or stream to something like AppleTV.

Play Wii on iMac

I don’t have enough money or room space to purchase a new TV so I opted to play my Wii on the iMac. The USB eyeTV hybrid accepts composite cable and allows for full screen viewing. In addition, the included software lets you record and/or encode video directly to Quicktime or iPod format. The quality isn’t great (as expected from any analog signal source), but playback is responsive with virtually no latency.