It's kind of like buying a new car...

Jumped ship and landed in an Apple tree. Very nice. iMac. They have an economical option, the MacMini, but just didn't seem powerful enough for what I wanted it to do. My Dell has passed it's prime and I spend more time waiting on it to gulp, gulp, gulp...so LAD and I went shopping a couple weeks ago. I test drove a couple at the Apple store and decided, what the heck. He (thankfully) slept thru the WHOLE thing (it was after the Zoo trip) I would have liked one of their towers, but they start at, like, $2799 (I gulped)...thought I better choose a cheaper model, just in case I fall out of the Apple tree later...which I don't think will be happening anytime soon anyway.

As you can see, the monitor (which is actually the WHOLE computer) is quite large compared to my old 17 inch model. This one is 24, what the heck, only 300$ more from the 20 inch version. I was using 2 monitors on my Dell (2nd was flat panel CRT), so now I think I can get by with just one, but could add a second if I wanted to, the hardware is already in place. I lucked out and got in on the Back to School specials they had going on, a 100$ rebate on the price of the computer, a free printer (HP print/scan/copy), and a free iPod Touch.

iPod Touch...be still my heart, is the most amazing thing on earth. It's not something I would have just gone out and bought, but since they were just giving them away, what the heck! It does it all except make phone calls (they have a version of that, with AT&T, but not for me). I can sync my contacts/mail/calendar, load music, videos, podcasts, movies, AND it has wireless internet, so can browse the web, check email, etc, and a whole lot more. Plus you can download about a million applications and put on it. It's amazing what it can do, for such a tiny little thing.