Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have A Winner (White vs Beige)

13May2006 [wishlist]

Back in Round 4 it looked like White was coming out on top with the 17" iMac. Well the final results are in; I've just bought (well, using Dad's Amex -- thanks!) said iMac, upped to a gig of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. Somewhat limits my expansion capabilities, but figure it's going to give me enough until I can afford a real editing studio (and perhaps a home to put it in). There's one free RAM slot so I can up to 2GB down the track; a firewire connection lets me plug my external 300GB drive in (and can easily add more storage later); could even, theoretically, plug a DV deck in that way; and a mini-DVI connection means I can add another video output if I want; am particularly interested in plugging an old TV in for colour-checking. And thanks to Apple's Bootcamp I can load up Linux or Windows as well for any other software (or games!); word on the nets is that Apple is working on virtualisation technology too -- an abstraction layer of some form will allow Windows to run inside OS X without a reboot, meaning my Windows version of Studio MX 2004 might come in handy (neither it nor Studio 8 run natively on the Intel Macs yet).

Also got Final Cut Studio while I was at it; Final Cut Pro alone is going to be useful, but it comes with soundtrack, titling and motion graphics software as well. Now I'll be able to do some work on the editing projects I've been putting off -- still have lots of footage I shot last year that I want to cut into something watchable.