The iMac Cometh

Image: Colin Galbraith

Yesterday was supposed to have seen the traditional August at the Fringe gathering of The Diners but alas, one or two of them messed up their schedules and it had to be canned. It will be rearranged for as soon as possible, but it meant that with me having taken the day off to accommodate the get-together, I now had a free day (once the day job was out of the way). So there are no reports from Charlotte Square from yesterday, I’m afraid.

Since the start of the Edinburgh Book Festival my house has slowly deteriorated into a bit of a mess. Clothes piles have built up (no time to put a wash on), dinner plates have slowly gathered, and the animals are growing tired of being rush-fed.

My office is strewn with papers, books, empty water bottles and a general mish-mash of things collected while at the book fest, and the garden has been sadly neglected and now resembles a shady patch in Amazonia. Plus, there’s a large box that’s been crying out to be opened.

My half day could not, therefore, have come at a better time.

After lunch I set about the house, cleaning, tidying, making the place look decent again. Then I picked up the large box that’s been sitting at the end of my bed for the last few days and laid it out on the duvet. I unclipped the seal, slid my finger inside and teased the flaps apart. They opened with ease, and as I slid my hand in further, I could feel the object of my desire deep inside.

I know what you’re thinking but I can assure you at this point in the story I am not about to have sex with a computer.

I pulled it out (the object), slowly, and deliberately, until finally it lay on the bed beside beside me. It looked gorgeous. It was shapely, shiny, silvery and sleek, and goddamn it yes, it looked fucking sexy. It was an iMac and by jove if I didn’t want to just sit there and stare at its wonder for hours on end.

But I wanted to see what it could do. All it took was one plug into the wall and confirmation of a couple of settings and it was good to go. Seriously—no messing around. It takes about 1 hour 40 minutes to setup a brand new Windows PC—installing, configuring, etc.—this took all of 3 minutes.

The iMac is going to take a lot of getting used to. The communal programs are fine—OpenOffice and the likes—but the shortcuts are going to be a big hurdle for me to get over. As are the general workings of the operating system, i.e., how to find things and manage the desktop. There are also new programs for me such as Mail and iPhoto but I have to say I have found the keyboard to be very natural and conducive to typing.

Naturally, the first program I installed was iTunes—I need to have music!

Ps. Steve Jobs’ resignation as Apple CEO was nothing to do with me opening this box.

Book Fest Update
The mystery sculptor has struck again! After the SPL and National Library were hit earlier this year, this time a sculpted tree was left in the book fest foyer yesterday afternoon. Nobody saw who left the piece created out of a copy of James Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner and it looks awesome! Everyone is *very* excited!

Book Fest Media
Catch up on all my reviews and articles on my sister site, the (Unofficial) Edinburgh Book Festival Blog

For visual enjoyment of the Edinburgh Book Festival, click over to my constantly updated photograph feed at flickr.com/colinthewriter

For audio enjoyment, why not subscribe to my Book Festival podcast on iTunes or listen to the stream on SoundCloud.

Ciao for now!

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