Wendie made me go down to Lenox Mall today knowing that I dislike malls and knowing that I outright avoid them during the pre-Christmas rush. As we browsed at Williams-Sonoma, she told me that she’d planned on getting me an iMac, but would need me to pick it out. She’d planned to be sneaky to find out what I wanted but would rather just do it the right easy way.
We go to the Apple Store and I decide I want a 27″ iMac with an Intel Core i7 processor. I ask the guy working there if they have any. He says they don’t but that if I order now I might be able to get it in time for Christmas. He questioned why I wanted an i7 instead of an i5 but if I’m getting a computer to use for 3-5 years, I try for the highest specs I can get at the time I buy it.
Since he couldn’t sell me an i7, I left and ordered it from Apple’s online store.
Here are the specs:
- 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
- 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM – 2x2GB
- 1TB Serial ATA Drive
- ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB
- 8x double-layer SuperDrive
- Apple Magic Mouse
- Apple Wireless Keyboard
I also bought an Apple Remote. I made my iMac purchase using one of Discover Card’s affiliate links so I get 5% cash back on the purchase … which should cover about 75% of the sales tax they charged me. Once ordered, I immediately hit crucial.com and got myself another 4 GB of RAM for about $65 less than Apple was charging. Time to pick up VMware Fusion to go with this copy of Windows 7 Ultimate and I should be all set for the New Year!
Update: Buying the boxed version of VMware Fusion on Amazon was $10 less than buying the digital distribution version directly from VMware. Shame on you, VMware! I was able to use a $50 gift certificate I got for Christmas on Amazon so I essentially only had to pay $19 for VMware Fusion!
I was quite surprised by Wendie’s generosity and thoughtfulness. She is truly a great wife. Now I have to get her something better than this for Christmas. Argh!
Update #2: Since getting the computer, I’ve installed the following:
- Perian – additional video codecs for QuickTime
- Flip4Mac – WMV playback for QuickTime
- CrossLoop – For my familial remote tech support
- Google Chrome – The browser of the future
- HandBrake – Gotta keep ripping those DVD’s
- iSkysoft video tools – Ditto
- MozyHome - My backup solution of choice
- Tweetie – My Twitter client of choice … on the iPhone and elsewhere
- uTorrent – My favorite bittorrent client
- VMware Fusion – I still like to run Windows and Ubuntu
- Microsoft Office – I still need it
- Skitch – Sort of like Paint.NET except for Mac
- Skype – Gotta stay in touch
- uTorrent – Bittorrent … the bane of my bandwidth
- SABnzbd+ – Best. Usenet. client. ever.
- FileZilla – The best FTP client ever
- ORB – Only way to stream my files to my iPhone
- Paragon NTFS for Mac – A necessary evil for the time being
I’m now taking all of my external hard drives and converting them from NTFS to HFS+ and installing the beta of HFS+ for Windows by Paragon Software on my old Windows PC.
Reviews: Wired.com, tuaw.com, and Apple Reviews.
#1 by Chris Mackey on December 14, 2009 - 7:02 am
Dude, I am so jealous
#2 by Chris Mackey on December 14, 2009 - 7:13 am
Read this:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/12/14/a...
#3 by Brian Baggett on December 14, 2009 - 8:19 am
Yes, I'm aware of the problems. It's rumored to be a problem with the video cards. Glad I didn't buy them when they first appeared. They know what's wrong and hopefully mine should be free of those issues.
#4 by Chris Mackey on December 14, 2009 - 3:02 pm
Dude, I am so jealous
#5 by Chris Mackey on December 14, 2009 - 3:13 pm
Read this:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/12/14/a...
#6 by Brian Baggett on December 14, 2009 - 4:19 pm
Yes, I'm aware of the problems. It's rumored to be a problem with the video cards. Glad I didn't buy them when they first appeared. They know what's wrong and hopefully mine should be free of those issues.