Well it's been a little over a week since I got my iMac, and so far it's been a week of goodness. In answer to certain comments of "Why a Mac? You can't do anything on a Mac..." etc etc, I can tell you that I can do everything on the iMac that I could do on the PC. Everything. Some programme development lags are aggravating, but I can still do everything on here that I was doing a fortnight ago on the PC.

That said, there are still a couple of grievances. There always will be when you make any kind of change in your life, as you retrain your habits. However to balance these out there are many, many pluses.

On the negative first (so we can end with the happy note):

• Firefox isn't Safari. Safari isn't Firefox. Camino isn't Safari with all of the goodness of Firefox added to the goodness of Safari. None of the above quite scratch my itch. Safrai is pretty good. It's the browser that comes with OS X, but don't start getting mental images of IE woes. It has a bookmark bar, with drop down groups, including RSS feeds in the browser. It has Tabs, and now that I have relented and installed the correct Logitech software, my mouse works the way it should in relation to said tabs (mostly). It integrates beautifully with OS X, with speccy functions like drag and dropping URL's to the desktop making a desktop shortcut. Basically it's a v. v. nice browser with a very similar UI to the Fox. It is the missing bits that I find jarring. Now to be fair the "missing bits" I am talking about aren't stock standard on your basic install of Firefox. I likes my extensions I do, especially Tab Mix Plus, Reload Every, Paste and Go, Add Bookmark Here, and Adblock. Safari just doesn't have the extensive extension community that Firefox has. Yes Pimp My Safari does have some hacks/extensions/whatever, but nothing there seems to offer the control over my Tabs that I really want, nor can I filter out the ads. I want to have a SINGLE browser window. I want any pop ups (whitelisted) open a new tab, not a new window. I want to be able to simply go into my bookmarks drop down menu and add a bookmark in the folder I want it, instead of navigating my way there the long way.
  
  I really, really want to be able to scroll through my tabs when there is more tabs open than a single page can handle - At least then I can close the active tab...
  
  Breath In, Breathe Out. I actually like Safari. I also like Firefox. I just wish I could combine them. To make a SafariFox.



• Dislikes, dislikes... Oh yeah. For god's sake when I put a programme into HIDE mode then damn well stay hidden. I don't care if I have just put a new CD into iTunes and thet the computer is going to start backing it up. I KNOW THAT YOU DUMBASS COMPUTER - I PUT THE DISC INTO THE DRIVE MYSELF! I want you to just rip it, then eject it, AND STAY IN THE BACKGROUND WHILST YOU DO IT, YOU EXTROVERTED, EGOMANIACAL SOCIOPATH!!!
  
  This may be more noticeable simply because I now have a much bigger hard drive that requires filling up. Demands it even. So disc goes in, disc goes out. And iTunes keeps popping up into the foreground.



• Single optical drive. It's annoying when the multitasking you have planned in your head involves ripping a disc and backing up your documents at the same time. Or perusing the Mac magazine's latest cover disc. A firewire optical drive is in order I think



• The much touted USB plugs in the keyboard. I plug my iPod into it and nothing happens. Scratch that, I get a message saying "Hey asshole, you like overloading the USB plug that the keyboard is plugged into?? huh? huh?" The Keyboard itself is a USB device, with two USB plugs built into it, making the keyboard into a double adaptor. Obviously not a double adaptor for things like iPods however, no I have to dick around at the back of the display to plug that in...
  
  If the plugs in the keyboard can't handle eveything the plugs in the display can, then the keyboard shouldn't have plugs. End of discussion. Instead there should be two, nice and easy to get to plugs at the front of the display, or possibly on the underside, next to the speakers.



• I can only do a drag resize on my windows via the bottom right hand corner doodad. My brother, quite acerbically pointed out that this is this doodad is the same across Linux, Windows and OS X. That may well be, but I don't know that. Linux and Windows both enable resizing of windows by dragging any edge or corner of said window. This one is just an old habit/new OS complaint



• Open Office. More to the point NeoOffice/J (which is OpenOffice ported to OS X using a Java interface instead of via X11) is only available up to 1.1x I really liked OOo 2 beta



• There isn't as many freeware/OSS type projects around for Mac. Everyone wants (usually a fairly minimal) payment.



• The cable on the keyboard is ridiculously short. We had to buy an extension cable just to get the keboard to reach the keyboard drawer

On to the positives...

• Goddamn it's pretty. The ENTIRE computer is in the display, and it's only marginally thicker than a noraml flatscreen.



• The UI is likewise extremely well designed and aesthetically pleasing.



• I can do pretty much everything (bar the aforementioned quirks) that I was doing last week. Roxio Toast works like a charm for burning to CD or DVD, and it converts DivX on the fly to VCD/playable DVD, just like Nero di on the PC. Azurues works exactly the same (so it should, it's a Java programme). iTunes...ditto (except even more obviously - it is Mac software after all), NeoOffice/J works exactly the same as OOo, in fact OOo works exactly the same as OOo, just through X11 (basically a Linux emulator), it's just not the V 2.0 beta that I'm used to. Proteus works on GAIM architecture, but gives it a polish that makes you think it's completely different. iLife programs - they just work together. I can't describe how well they integrate, so I'll just say they're good.



• Talking about Azureus, I have set up azureus exactly the same on the mac as I have on the PC. On the PC, with a 512 ADSL connection, the best download speed I ever got was 50 kps. Last night I got 156 kps on the mac. I have NO IDEA what the difference was.


• Spotlight. yum. I no longer have to be anally retentive about file organisation. That won't mean I won't be, I just don't have to be.



• Active screen corners and Expose. Unless you've seen this you won't know what I'm talking about. If you have seen it you're probably already jealous.



• Networking with a windows machine was simply a case of plug it in and provide the password.

There is more Pluses and, more negative, but you get the idea. The negatives are usually little aggravations. The pluses are massive, revalatory phase changes. I feel like I've stepped out after a thunderstorm, standing blinking in the sun.