A Mac Owner, Once Again

Have I ever said how much I love websites like eBay and Craigslist? Really, those who are patient and persistent can find some amazingly sweet deals on the interwebz.

I decided I wanted to start looking for an older used Mac again. I narrowed it down to an iMac G4 or G5 or a PPC Mac Mini (call me old fashioned, I like those old PPC chips).

I had been scouring eBay, Craigslist, and other websites for about a week or so. I found some promising leads, but nothing really stood out as an amazing deal.

Then, I saw it. On eBay. A beautiful 20" iMac G5 1.8GHz, 512MB RAM, 160GB HD, in working condition, with keyboard, mouse, and extra software...for only $255 "buy it now" + free shipping!

I had seen similar units going for at least twice that much!!!

I refreshed the page a few times to make sure I wasn't seeing things, checked the seller's feedback, which was spotless, and snapped the thing up before anyone else could.

I upgraded the RAM to 1GB as soon as I got it and will soon max it out to 2GB.

I'm writing this post on it!

I have to say, for a 5+ year old machine, this thing looks and runs extremely well. The fact that it's an all-in-one is particularly appealing to me, as I have limited desk space. But the whole Mac experience is just a wonderful breath of fresh air (even if the are is a bit stale from age).

I'm running OS X Tiger (10.4.11) and let me tell you, I've noticed some features I really enjoy that not even Windows 7 has.

For example, expose. Hit F9 or give the Mighty Mouse a squeeze, and you can instantly see every open window arranged nicely on your desktop and click on the one you wish to work in. Windows 7 has some good features - like when you mouse over an icon in the taskbar you can see a preview of the windows for it. And there's also Flip 3D. But still, I don't use either of those features on my netbook as much as I use Expose on my Mac.

Now, I'm one of those guys that likes all three major platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux) for different reasons, but at this point, if I had to pick one OS I'd prefer to use, it would be Mac OS X.

My tastes are always changing and evolving, so that's obviously not set in stone. But OS X seems to be set up more in line with the way my mind works.

It's great to have a Mac again!