In the previous Story we seen how the iMac had left the building and this meant for me that my existing desktop / Laptop machines would come back as the main machines and be used as they say – “In Anger”. I shall go into how I found it working full time Windows (Vista / Windows 7) as my only operating system.
Desktop Machine
The desktop machine of choice was either a Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz (E6600) or the Athlon 64 3700. The problem initially with both of these was noise – when the things warmed up, the fans churned and this was unlike the iMac which was quiet all the time. We first started on the Intel machine and I put new paste which I bought on both the CPU and the Graphics card and at first I thought this solved the problem but nope, back to loud, I also noticed in games graphical glitches – maybe not such a good idea to re-paste the card? I swapped the 7600GS from the other machine for now – this proved both quieter and the games I play seemed to carry on the same (GS does not have as much grunt as the GT).
My last resort was to put back the power supply (350Watts) which came form the desktop instead of the decent 450Watt I put in there, my thought here was that the 450Watt had a BIG fan on the bottom and may have been disrupting the airflow. This did the trick, the machine now stayed quiet no matter what I did to it.
Athlon64 3700
I re-pasted this, fitted a new Southbridge heat sink as the one I had fitted was not on properly and I was sure it was generating a lot of heat – this also got quieter – not silent but better then it was. I was semi happy now that both machines were as good as they maybe would get, the Athlon 64 was showing it age now with its Single core but it would do for something I am sure.
Living with Vista over OS X
I missed Spaces, this is a feature on OS X that allows 4 Virtual Screens and you can jump around, I often had a program per space such as Mail, Safari, iTunes and IRC Client. The other aspect of course was that the iMac was 24” Screen which meant 1900×1200 and now I was working across 2 20” Screens – this was 1680×1050 x 2 of course.
I tried mIRC and was not happy with this, it was quite simple on Colloquy to connect to many servers and now I had to put in various commands to get there. I found Xchat Free Version working much like Colloquy and now happy again. I now took to using Chrome as the only Browser (I have Firefox + IE8 installed as well) and this is fantastic.
Instead of Apple Mail, I went ahead and tried Thunderbird and it does the job personally. I am not a big fan of Contacts as I have nothing to Sync with so it does me as long as I have there email address and as I use GMAIL – I have every single email every sent. I could install Microsoft Office 2007 and use Outlook but for now, happy enough with what I have installed.
I kept on using iTunes and it does the job (to a degree) but I do not bother to Scrobble what is been played any longer to Last.FM, I failed to see what it achieved apart from a number. I can now use Live Writer to do my Blog posts (much better) and there is certain programs we have to live without such as iMovie, Garageband and iPhoto.
Do i miss the Mac?
To be totally honest, I can do what I do on any operating system, if I installed Linux I can have the Spaces type display back but it present other problems and my only main concern is the noise of the average desktop PC. On the Flip side, I can upgrade and add as much as I feel the need and can swtich monitors / speakers off and leave the machine running – something you cannot do on the iMac (you can only Blank the screen). In reality, if you spent HALF the money of the price of an iMac, you get quad core, 4+ GIG’s Ram, Blue Ray, decent graphics card and so forth. Can Apple carry on selling such high priced machines in the current climate?
