My new iMac came late yesterday, and so did its separately ordered memory, so I spent several hours getting the OS updated, various applications installed, and a bit of World of Warcraft played.

Yes, Paul, it's an iMac. Not an iBook, but an iMac. A 20-inch screen built onto a 1.8 GHz CPU, 160-GB harddrive, 2 GB RAM. Fast. Big. Pretty. And very white, so I've named it Gandalf. (See QTVR object movie below from Apple.)

For a long time I've been fluent in both Mac and Windows, but I have never purchased a Mac because they tend to be on the expensive side, but more importantly just showed a dopy icon if the system had problems. Now that Apple not only facilitates getting down and dirty with the OS, but relies on Unix as the OS, they did away with my biggest irritation. I even have a book on how to control Mac applications via Perl scripts running on the base OS.

As for expense, I'm sure Gandalf cost more than a Windows system, but I have some expensive panorama development software that I did not want to have to re-buy for Windows, plus this guy has the large integrated flat screen, so it seemed to be a good deal. Futhermore, this system is semi-portable so I can move it around the house and even out on to the patio in nice weather, yet not be limited to small laptop screen.

Tonight I'm going to start working with the panorama stitching software and benchmark some speed comparisons between it and the iBook. I suspect there will be no doubt about Gandalf toasting the iBook in such cases.

And then I'll take Gul out for a little more adventuring in the area around Auberdine.