Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Random Musings about the iMac

Remember way back in September when I did this...
I drafted this post a few weeks later and have revised it a few times, but have never managed to get it posted, so here it is, finally!



The 24 inch screen is awesome!

I miss Picasa for simple editing and uploading to Blogger. iPhoto just isn't going to cut it, not robust enough for my tastes. I've moved on to Lightroom and it's working OK. Plus a third party blogging software.
***UPDATE*** Picasa has finally developed a version for the Mac! Be still my heart, blogging has just gone back to being easy! And it figures, now that I've paid for the Flickr upgrade, and third party software and all that.
Picasa is great, very simple and easy to use, and uploads directly to Blogger. My friend Janet also raves about it here. And their new version has even greater features!

I miss ACDSee for easy work flow and basic photo editing but have migrated to Lightroom and again, it is working, it's just different and not that much of a learning curve from Photoshop. I tried Photoshop Elements (basic version of full photoshop) but in Apple it uses Bridge (Photoshop) and I just don't like the flow of it, so Lightroom it is.
***UPDATE*** ACDSee has also finally come out with a version for the Mac. But since I've switched to the Mac and have started using Lightroom more, I actually like it better and will probably stick with it. However I really liked ACDSee for some of the same reason's I really like Picasa.

My computer desk top is not a very good surface for an optical mouse. It skips all around. This is not Mac specific, but a continuing annoying issue. And who wants to be corraled by a mouse pad!?! I have since put down a large piece of poster board on my desk to resolve this issue.

Apple keyboard oddities that I've found:
That the 2 delete keys on the keyboard can do totally different things at different times.

That the Home and End key don't always do what I expect them to do.

Even the iMac doesn't have an Any key. (inside computer supporter joke!)

When you have the CAPS lock on, and you hit Shift, it keeps it in CAPS and doesn't make it in the opposite lower case! This is cool!!!

That the Command key does weird shit when you use it with the Shift key in Photoshop to resize a photo, in essence, it doesn't, you have to use alt/option shift, otherwise it skews or something...ie-unlearning Windows! Turns out it behaves the same in Windows, I've just never happened to mash all the correct keys at the same time during resizing. The Apple keyboard has keys in a slightly different order for Ctrl/Alt/and their Command key.
***UPDATE*** Now, at work, I sometimes find my self using the wrong keys for the PC that would be the right keys for the Mac! Duh-hu.

All computers LOVE RAM. The iMac came with 2GB and I knew I would be upgrading to 4, but could do it cheaper after market, and now it's time!
***UPDATE*** It's on order and should arrive soon. 50$ vs 300$, easy as pie to install (knock on wood).

I love the Spaces feature. It's kind of like multiple desktops. One desktop space can have email and web browser, etc open, and another space can have Photoshop, Lightroom, etc open, and when one space is open, you don't see the program windows that are open in other spaces. They are still running in the background, just not cluttering up your screen all at the same time.

The mac has a feature on the mouse, an extra button and when you push it, it displays all the items you have open as smaller windows. Then you just click on the window you want to go to and it brings it to the front. Vista may also have a similar feature but I'm not sure how to turn it on. At work I find myself trying to mash this button, which I don't have, all the time! It's a really nice feature!

Did I mention the 24 inch screen is awesome!

1 comment:

Ma said...

In Windows Vista, there's a button on the quick launch bar across the bottom, on the left, says "switch between windows". That puts all open programs in a stack like a card file on the desktop.