I got a Mac!

I purchased a 24" iMac computer directly from Apple.ca two weeks ago. I had this plan to jump in Mac's world long time ago when I saw Apple moved to Intel. I hold this plan until leopard is released and stable.

Every thing is new for me. It has been quick adventure and exciting experience for me to learn the Mac computer. I have been Windows user since I started to use computer, back to DOS 3.0. Then I installed Ubuntu last year. The reason I tried to explore other computers is that I find out it is very hard to handle security and OS stable issues.

Any way, cut in short. This blogger will be my experience for Mac computer. My initial experience is a very exiting and happy one. As a long time Windows user, I always try to find out if there is similarities I can use in Mac.

First, I created several user account in the Mac. It looks very nice. I am admin and other family members are standard users. Each user has their own space and very secured, unlike Windows sometimes I can see other user's information, files, and applications. I think this separation in Mac is very well done. I hope I would not worry about other people to mess up my account any more.

I tried to use Safari first. However, I am not very happy with it. It would not save my tabs and I could not find good addins for Safari. Then I had to install Firefox. That is a very good decision. I know Firefox very well. All the addins I used before I can add to my Mac Firefox, with addition ones, such as Yoono and color tabs. I think Firefox is the best web browser!

For office jobs, I installed Open Office. The installation is very smooth. I also install other applications. Installation in Mac is so simple. Just copy the package to a folder and it is available right away. I don't like to install other party applications to Mac's default Application folder. I would like keep Mac's stuff there. What I did is creating a folder MyApplicaiton in the root. All my other apps are copied there (instead of copy to Applications as recommended by most installation package). In this way, I can easily to add an alias to other user's account(of course, I had to log in to add alias to other user's desktop, not directly from my account to do that!).

For emails, I use web based emails most. I used Mail for my Shaw account but it is not very commonly used.

For on line messenger, I tried iChat but not like it. It does not support adding people for other messenger users(may be I don't know). I tried PSI but with no luck to find a server. Finally, I find out Adium. It is a very impressive one. I can add my .Net messenger, Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger there. That is my first experience. I may have to further to find out how it works. By the way, QQ is available for Adium as well.

I installed RealPlayer and it works well.

I tried to open my mpg videos I recorded by Sony HD cam-recorder. I cannot open it in iMovie. I tried to find some other conversion tools such as iSquint, but no luck. This is a big concern for me. I think I have to purchase MEPG-2 convert tool either from Apple or other parties.

So far, I am very happy with this new computer. It is amazing computer. I like its interface, easy use and security. More experience will be added later on!