Well, I finally did it.

[daviejones]

Yes a world of pointless arty-farty prettiness and a world of substance where you can actually get real bill paying work done.

Yep, arty farty is an excellent way to describe XP...

[To BI or not to BI?]

Yep, arty farty is an excellent way to describe XP...

I am not sure about the arty part though....

[daviejones]

I am not sure about the arty part though....

On seconds thoughts, you may be right. I do like XP for games though.

[Cowboy Bob]

How much for a C++ development environment?

This comes free with every Mac.

[OrangeHopper]

Xcode is a free optional extra provided on the Leopard DVD.

Don't you people feel you should have seen the light many years ago?

[Churchill]

This comes free with every Mac.

Thanks.

Ordering one, purely for research of course...

[DaveB]

Thanks.

Ordering one, purely for research of course...

"One of us, One of us"

Seriously, having had it for a few days now I can't belive how much easier it is.

What struck me first was the quality of the hardware and attention to detail.

The keyboard is a solid slab of aluminium; the remote control looks like an iPod Nano; the sound quality from the built in speakers is so good you dont need any external ones; hell, even the cloth they give you to wipe the screen comes in it's own resealable plastic packet and has the Apple logo on it.

The tilt mechanism for the screen is simply the best I have ever come accross. It moves smoothly and evenly, takes no effort, and still stays *exactly* where you put it.

Once I got it up and running I sat down to start downloading the things I needed to make it run the way I wanted, just like you do with a PC. After 5 mins I thought "well what do I actually need?"

Out of the box it has an excellent browser; a nice straight foward mail client; a practical calendar that also integrates with the mail client; A media player; PDF creation for documents and iTunes for the MP3 Collection.

I've ordered a copy of Office 2004 ( educational version for my son ) and the freebie upgrade to Leopard, but thats about it.

The PC hasnt been switched on since I finished copying my files across from it.

The only thing I've actually installed on it since I got it has been World of Warcraft. Which, by the way, looks bloody gorgeous on this screen

The only slight niggle has been in getting used to the new GUI and the mouse, but most of the time even that has been a case of 'Why didnt they do it this way in Windows?'

Speaking of the GUI, the Finder is simply amazing. Want to find somthing on the system, just open the Finder and type the name you want in the search box. Nine times out of ten the file you want in listed in the results pane before you've even finished typing. It makes Windows Explorer feel positively antiquated.

The built in help system is just as good. Not sure how to do something? Just type a related couple of words into the search box and you get relevant answers as you type, add more detail to the search and the results narrow down in real time.

TBH I wasn't expecting to be as impressed as I have been so far. Mac zealotry has long been a subject of ridicule. Based on my experiences so far I now have some idea about what causes that zealotry, and belive me it's nothing to laugh at. When was the last time you sat down and posted 500 words about a new PC, just because you wanted to?

[scooterscot]

Wait until you actually start using for work purposes. It just took a squeeze of the mouse to jump to this screen, amongst the 10 or so I had open, to start using this screen. It's just so quick in XP the hard drive would be grinding before your giving the choice. It's just small things like this that makes the whole experience that much more improved.

You will find in time productivity grows and yourself feeling less frustrated at the end of the day.

[daviejones]

[QUOTE=DaveB;349835]"One of us, One of us"

Out of the box it has an excellent browser; a nice straight foward mail client; a practical calendar that also integrates with the mail client; A media player; PDF creation for documents and iTunes for the MP3 Collection.

I've ordered a copy of Office 2004 ( educational version for my son ) and the freebie upgrade to Leopard, but thats about it.

QUOTE]

Do you use Mail? I found that Entourage (Mac version of Outlook) is better. Also iPhoto is good for organising all of your photos but I prefer Aperture. It has more features.

The iCal is good. You can choose between work and home calendars, which is very handy.

I like the look of the G5. I saw inside one and it it just so organised. Everything in it's right place and quite frankly, like no other PC I have seen.

I have the MacBook Pro but I need to convince the missus that a G5 with 32" screen would be lovely in the office.....

[DaveB]

Do you use Mail? I found that Entourage (Mac version of Outlook) is better. Also iPhoto is good for organising all of your photos but I prefer Aperture. It has more features.

The iCal is good. You can choose between work and home calendars, which is very handy.

I like the look of the G5. I saw inside one and it it just so organised. Everything in it's right place and quite frankly, like no other PC I have seen.

I have the MacBook Pro but I need to convince the missus that a G5 with 32" screen would be lovely in the office.....

I started out using Mail, and installed Entourage yesterday. TBH I prefer Mail. It's faster, simpler and does everything I want.

The only applications on the system that show any lag on startup are the MS Office ones, everything else is so fast as to be instant to all intents and purposes.

I don't have that many photo's to worry about so I havn't played with iPhoto much.