I was going to buy it last summer.<\/p>\n
I don’t like to use a laptop as my main machine.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t like the keyboard and trackpad, nor the usually underlit only viewable from one angle screen.\u00c2\u00a0 So, I only use my PowerBook on the road, or whilst on my bed, my everyday machine is my desktop, which was long in the tooth, to the point where my POWERBOOK had a faster chip, but until recently laptops came with reduced speed hard drives, far from the 7,200 RPM ones in my desktop, so I stayed with my old machine.<\/p>\n
Then I sold an asset and garnered some cash, and friends were going to help me out by buying me a monitor, but I couldn’t pull the trigger, I was traveling so much, I was afraid they were going to upgrade the machine, and for this kind of money, I wanted the latest and the greatest.<\/p>\n
And waiting turned out to be a good idea.\u00c2\u00a0 A month after I’d planned to purchase, they DID update the Power Mac G5.\u00c2\u00a0 But then it was already October, why not wait till Macworld in January?<\/p>\n
And that’s what I did.\u00c2\u00a0 Having a deal with myself that no matter what I’d purchase the machine then.\u00c2\u00a0 Until Steve Jobs took the stage and said they were going to transition to Intel WITHIN THE YEAR!\u00c2\u00a0 And then in "Newsweek" admitted even HE wouldn’t buy a Power Mac G5 unless he absolutely had to.<\/p>\n
The only reason you’d HAVE to buy a Power Mac G5 is if you were making a movie, a FEATURE FILM, or were the professional photographer of all time.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what you use top of the line Macs for, high level media work, which I don’t do, so, once again,\u00c2\u00a0 I was forced to wait, perusing the rumor sites DAILY for info on when this new Intel-based top of the line machine was going to be released, meanwhile feeling stuck in the slow lane with my old G4.<\/p>\n
And then everybody was sure, the Power Mac G5’s replacement would be announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in August.\u00c2\u00a0 I watched the real time report on macdailynews.com.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, it came up on the screen, the Power Mac G5 replacement was HERE, the Mac Pro!<\/p>\n
With a slate of travel booked, and always wary of initial production glitches, I decided to bide my time, but was absolutely firm that after I came back from Portillo, I’d pull the trigger.\u00c2\u00a0 And I did.<\/p>\n
This is what I purchased.<\/p>\n
a. Mac Pro<\/p>\n
2.66 GHz Quad Xeon
2 GB RAM
500 GB Hard Drive
16x SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT Graphics Card
Bluetooth 2.0 and AirPort Extreme<\/p>\n
b. Apple 23" Cinema HD Display<\/p>\n
c. Assorted extras…\u00c2\u00a0 Like AppleCare, Microsoft Office and a "free" printer (well, I upgraded to an all-in-one, so I’ll end up paying $44.00).<\/p>\n
The story:<\/p>\n
1. I bought the computer over the phone.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew what I wanted, but I figured I’d let the Apple salesman sell me, after all, I don’t know that much about graphics cards.<\/p>\n
Jerry said I only needed to upgrade the card if I were making movies, which, of course, I’m not.\u00c2\u00a0 But, if manipulating photos, or even using iMovie instead of Final Cut Pro, a faster chip would help.<\/p>\n
I figured the 2.0 GHz chips (you get two dual-core chips in a Mac Pro) would be enough.\u00c2\u00a0 But Jerry noted that I could get an additional .66 for around $300, whereas the top of the line, the 3.0, was another $1,100, and that this was a good price to performance ratio and he sold me.<\/p>\n
He didn’t think the 2 gigs of RAM were absolutely necessary, but I was not cheaping out.<\/p>\n
As for the 500 gig hard drive…\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t want to run out of space like I had with every other computer I’d purchased.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to buy the biggest.\u00c2\u00a0 You can put FOUR hard drives in a Mac Pro and after it arrived I wondered if I should have purchased two, for automatic backups with the yet-to-be released Leopard, but knowing that storage only goes DOWN in price and that supposedly installation is a snap, you just slide new drives in, I’ve calmed down and relaxed.<\/p>\n
2. When you buy something from the Apple Store, you’re INUNDATED with e-mail.\u00c2\u00a0 None of that sitting at home wondering if your order went through, when you’re gonna get it.\u00c2\u00a0 Essentially IMMEDIATELY I got confirmation of my purchase.\u00c2\u00a0 And then, around midnight, shipping notices.\u00c2\u00a0 And the printer arrived the following day, and the monitor the day after that.<\/p>\n
As for the tower itself…\u00c2\u00a0 If I’d ordered a month ago, I would have had to wait two to four weeks for the Bluetooth and AirPort Extreme.\u00c2\u00a0 The website said shipment would occur in 2-4 days.\u00c2\u00a0 And on Friday night at midnight (I ordered the computer the previous Tuesday afternoon, two weeks ago tomorrow), the final notice arrived.<\/p>\n
But not the computer.\u00c2\u00a0 The computer didn’t come Monday morning.\u00c2\u00a0 When I had to leave the house, I left a note on the door, saying when I’d be back.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no FedEx slip on the door upon my return.\u00c2\u00a0 But, around five p.m., there was a knock on the door.\u00c2\u00a0 A FedEx Ground employee, empty-handed.\u00c2\u00a0 He wanted to make sure I was really here, because he didn’t want to lift the BOX!<\/p>\n
3. The Mac Pro is probably the biggest personal computer you’ve ever seen.\u00c2\u00a0 The FedEx man struggled to get it in the door.\u00c2\u00a0 And now, with all the equipment having arrived, I was intimidated, too anxious and worried to break it all out and set it up.\u00c2\u00a0 But, after a fifteen minute cool down period, that’s what I did.<\/p>\n
4. The myth is true.\u00c2\u00a0 Setting up a Mac is simple.\u00c2\u00a0 You basically just unpack it, plug in the cords in the obvious places and turn it on.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, I didn’t even want to read the manual, but having OCD…<\/p>\n
Turned out the manual was TINY!\u00c2\u00a0 I could read it in a session on the pot.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m glad I did, because before you turn on the tower, you must take off the side panel and remove some plastic strips, which I’m sure would have burned into the case had I not done this.<\/p>\n
However, getting the side panel back on the computer was not so easy, not like on a G4, where the panel always stays attached.\u00c2\u00a0 I was worried about scratching the aluminum, but then I got it in place.<\/p>\n
You just fire up the machine and register.\u00c2\u00a0 It works.\u00c2\u00a0 Internet and everything, out of the box.<\/p>\n
But then you’ve got to tweak it.<\/p>\n
5. You don’t really have to download that much software, but I installed RealPlayer, which doesn’t fuck up a Mac like it does a PC.\u00c2\u00a0 This was after installing the dreaded iTunes 7 and the latest QuickTime update, of course.\u00c2\u00a0 But, on a machine this fast, iTunes 7 has fewer bugs, but I’m getting ahead of myself.<\/p>\n
I went to download Windows Media Player, which is a generation behind on a Mac, but one needs it nonetheless.\u00c2\u00a0 And, unlike internet Explorer, it’s still available.\u00c2\u00a0 But I couldn’t decompress it,\u00c2\u00a0 because Tiger doesn’t come with Stuffit.\u00c2\u00a0 And I tried to download Stuffit, but a fake address wouldn’t work so I had to enter a real e-mail address, and that’s when the games began.<\/p>\n
AOL just wouldn’t install on my machine.\u00c2\u00a0 I send all my crap e-mail to AOL, and it’s buggy software and a lame service, but…the install kept hanging.<\/p>\n
So, I dialed Bangalore.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the employee told me I was an idiot and should have no problem and tried to get off the phone.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the problem manifested itself after I convinced him to stay on, he begged off, saying I had to get a DISC!<\/p>\n
Yeah, right.<\/p>\n
So, not wanting to get AOL e-mail through Mac Mail, and not wanting to fire up Mac Mail at all, wanting a clean break from the old machine, I decided to install Microsoft Office 2004 and set up Entourage.<\/p>\n
(Meanwhile, I ended up installing Flip4Mac, which plays Windows Media files within QuickTime, but I’d prefer Windows Media, since web files open up in their own resizable window.)<\/p>\n
6. Office installation went fine, but the set-up was INSANE!<\/p>\n
I know the words come out of the dictionary, but I swear the people up in Redmond don’t speak English.\u00c2\u00a0 I get my e-mail addresses inserted, after the wizard DOESN’T work, but then I keep getting these error messages, which make NO SENSE! And I’m clicking and unclicking boxes, which would not stay clicked and unclicked, and the error messages keep coming up and I’m burning time and finally I go to the web and read up and it turns out I’ve got to open a port, not that ANY OF THE ERROR MESSAGES SAID THIS!<\/p>\n
And, I’ve got to tell you, Entourage 2004 is MUCH better than X.\u00c2\u00a0 But Mac Mail’s junk filter is better.<\/p>\n
7. Apple includes software that will automatically transfer your settings and data from a previous machine.\u00c2\u00a0 Yeah, right.\u00c2\u00a0 Like I want problems from an old machine on a new one?<\/p>\n
But legendary FireWire Target Disk Mode, wherein you plug a cable into each machine and your data zaps across speedily only works with the FIRST DRIVE in your system and all my good data is on my second drive in my G4 so thank god I had an external hard drive to transfer to and from but it took me a bunch of time to figure all this out, never mind do it.\u00c2\u00a0 (Meanwhile, for this very same reason, the automatic transfer wouldn’t have worked.)<\/p>\n
8. If you keep your songs in your Music folder, within iTunes Music, it’s automatically organized and you can delete it from within the app!\u00c2\u00a0 Who knew?\u00c2\u00a0 I only figured this out trying to delete tracks from my iTunes library on my PowerBook to make room on the hard disk.\u00c2\u00a0 So I imported all my tracks and everything was hunky-dory except I was missing ninety eight.<\/p>\n
Do you just move on?<\/p>\n
Took me the better part of an hour to find out these tracks were on the first hard drive in my G4.<\/p>\n
9. Address book…\u00c2\u00a0 If you think I’m going to reenter this data…<\/p>\n
You MUST buy David Pogue’s "Missing Manual".\u00c2\u00a0 Despite not believing a word it said, I followed the instructions, exported from my old machine in vCard format and the import was almost INSTANTANEOUS!<\/p>\n
Ditto with 20,000 plus e-mail messages from the old machine.<\/p>\n
10. iPod.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got a fourth generation and a Nano.\u00c2\u00a0 The Nano only uses USB 2.0, the iPod either that OR FireWire.\u00c2\u00a0 So, I hooked up the iPod dock using USB 2.0.\u00c2\u00a0 And I could only sync my 40 gig iPod once.\u00c2\u00a0 Made me fucking CRAZY!\u00c2\u00a0 Until I researched the discussion groups on apple.com and found out that with fourth generation iPods you MUST use the FireWire cable.\u00c2\u00a0 So, I’ll just plug the USB cable into my keyboard when I want to sync my Nano.<\/p>\n
Speaking of cables, they sold me an extension cable for my keyboard, it being far from my tower.\u00c2\u00a0 But it turns out you just plug the keyboard into the MONITOR, so the cable was superfluous and I had to get on the phone and get an RMA number and return it.<\/p>\n
11. Pocketmac.\u00c2\u00a0 To sync my Blackberry.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t get it to install, and then I found out the message, which comes up slowly in any event, was hidden under the manual page.\u00c2\u00a0 Another hour burned.<\/p>\n
12. Printer…\u00c2\u00a0 I figured let the games begin.\u00c2\u00a0 But I just plugged it in and it was instantly recognized and worked!<\/p>\n
13. I’m leaving out all the tweaks, all the preferences I set to get the machine EXACTLY how I like it.<\/p>\n
So what do I think?<\/p>\n
Well, at first I wasn’t that impressed.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, with so much I do I’m reliant on the speed of my internet connection, which is pretty damn fast.\u00c2\u00a0 And Microsoft Office…scrolling wasn’t effortless.\u00c2\u00a0 And then I realized it’s running in Rosetta, in emulation, it’s not native and THAT’S why.<\/p>\n
But YouTube…\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, it’s like watching a MOVIE!\u00c2\u00a0 There’s so much horsepower!<\/p>\n
And PICTURES!\u00c2\u00a0 Jaw-dropping on this 23" HD screen.\u00c2\u00a0 Which gives me enough room to do work side by side.\u00c2\u00a0 Makes me wonder if I should have paid double the price for a 30" monitor…<\/p>\n
And I can search the aforementioned 20,000 e-mail messages INSTANTLY!<\/p>\n
So, if you’re wondering where I was last week, now you know, I was in computer HELL!<\/p>\n
Now on the other side, it doesn’t look so bad.\u00c2\u00a0 But, for a while there, I thought I’d NEVER get over the hump!<\/p>\n
I figure I’m good for three or four years now, having bought essentially the best available.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ll SEE!!<\/p>\n
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