Yep, I am waiting for the sight and sound of brown, the UPS truck scheduled to bring my new Aluminum iMac today –Al-You-MIN-E-Um, that is, for any Brits reading this. After a month or so of reading reviews on the latest iMac and test driving one on a few occasions at a local CompUSA, I opted for the 20 inch base model. I am not a gamer and the 128 meg video card in the base configuration has 16 times more video memory than the 9 year old IBM Aptiva that the iMac is replacing. As soon as the iMac arrives I will add a 2 gig memory chip that I bought from OWC –the money spent to boost the memory in my configuration seemed more preferable to the additional cost incurred in purchasing Apple’s high end 20 inch model and the 24 inch model, while spectacular, was overkill for my purposes. This is also the first Mac with which I have purchased Apple Care –ordered separately from PowerMax and discounted $20 dollars off the Apple Store price. You’d think Apple would extend the best prices to its customers at its own store. VMware Fusion has not been delivered despite being shipped 4 days ago. Although I think it is a toss-up between the two principal virtual software titles, Parallels and VMware Fusion, I opted for the latter. Since Apple allows Intuit’s CEO to sit on its board with impunity, a state earned by unashamedly offering a hamstrung and embarrassing version of Quicken for Mac, I need to run Windows so that the 15+ years of data I have accumulated in Quicken will not be lost. At the moment Quicken is the only program I plan to use on the Windows virtual machine, aside from AVG, Spyware Blaster, Spybot Search and Destroy, CCleaner, and Ad-Aware, which are all necessary to help minimize the threats to the OS.
I haven’t settled on my approach to create a Windows virtual machine on OS X. All of my versions of Windows are legal and licensed; however, my copies of XP Home are upgrade versions. I do have a full stand alone Windows 98 SE that I haven’t used in several years, which I could install in a virtual machine on my iMac first and then upgrade that to XP –I’ve already slipstreamed one of my upgrade XP CD’s with SP2 and made it bootable. I haven’t been able to find any comments regarding the feasibility of this approach. I’d rather just use my slipstreamed XP CD and swap in my Win 98 CD when the installation process asks for proof of a qualifying OS but all the accounts I’ve read regarding this technique result in failure as there is no way to eject the upgrade XP CD and insert the Win 98 CD –sure seems like an oversight on the part of both VMware and Parallels! Of course, I could buy another copy of XP, but that feels more like adding insult to injury than a viable solution.  I’m open to suggestions. Meanwhile, back to waiting.
