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I arrived back from the city on Friday afternoon with a big, brown box.

After carefully removing the seals, I encountered another big box.

A peek inside.

Low and behold, a wrapped iMac.

Introducing my Apple iMac, featuring a 24″ display. The back is as elegant as the front.

First boot, it works!

After relocating my desktop computer and cleaning the work desk, my iMac sits nicely.

Specifications:

• 24″ LCD Display (1920×1200)
• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz
• 2GB DDR2 667
• nVidia 7300GT
• 250GB SATA 7200RPM HDD
• Built-in bluetooth, wireless and webcam

I purchased the iMac with the intention of becoming my workstation. I place an emphasis on work. The display is amazing, it’s insanely huge and the colours are vibrant. I haven’t had any difficulty adjusting from my dual 17″ LCD displays, an issue that I was concerned about.

Ultimately, I’m more than pleased with my purchase. If you’re interested in additional pictures, you can take a look here.

Over the previous six months I have been pondering over the thought of purchasing a laptop of my own. Before this, I had been borrowing a rather low spec’d Gateway laptop from a family friend. I think it’s great to have a portable computer that I can take anywhere. More importantly, I can access zingers from anywhere in the world, provided that I have internet. I’ve never liked the idea of using public terminals as I’ve always preferred to use my own computer. It’s been configured the way I like it and I can assure myself that some snotty grub hasn’t previously used it. Therefore, I present Nuggets the iBook!

After much discussion with various people I concluded that a Macintosh laptop would be suitable. Originally, I had anticipated purchasing the Dell Inspiron 6400 for around $1500. Undoubtedly, it would outperform my iBook and I could at least run Arch Linux on it. However, after seeing a fair few 12″ screen laptops at uni I quickly become attracted to them. They’re tiny screens meant ultra portability, perfect for fitting into my backup and riding on the motorbike. At the same time, I’ve always been captivated by Mac OS X and it’s beauty. Having owned a PowerMac before I’d like to continue owning or at least, have interaction with a Mac. While I’d prefer to use Linux on anything, having Mac OS X provides me with a greater understanding of alternative operating systems. I will not deny that Mac OS X is very nice, it works out of the box and it works well. It’s better than Windows, but I still feel restricted by it which ultimately holds me back. In comparison, my favourite image editing application, Adobe Photoshop operates natively on Mac OS X. This means I can finally use Photoshop without having to use Windows, a big plus. The inter-semester break draws closer and this will provide me with ample time to load Linux on to the iBook and dual boot Mac OS X and Ubuntu.

I managed to purchase the iBook for $750 from the OCAU For Sale forums. It’s specifications are a G4 800MHz, 256MB DDR266, 30GB 4200RPM HDD, ATi Radeon 9200, Airport Extreme (Wireless), 12″ Screen. A rather good price relative to eBay, don’t you think? I’ve since upgraded it to 512MB of RAM and a 40GB 5400RPM HDD which has significantly increased its “speed”. All in all, this is about half the price of the Dell and it’s suitable for web browsing, IM, IRC and word processing. Maybe when I have some more money to my name I can resell the iBook and purchase one of those fancy Macbooks (Similar spec’d and priced the the 6400). That would be awesome.