I In iMac Means Internet
by Don Rittner

Only a year ago computer industry pundits were writing Apple Computer's obituary. Today, many of those computer journalists are eating their digital words! Apple Computer, like the mythical Phoenix, has risen from the ashes. Last August they released a new version of the Macintosh called the iMac. At the end of four months, they had sold 800,000 iMacs. This is the best launch of any personal computer in history.

Not missing a beat, Apple released a faster and lower cost version of the iMac in January, 1999.

Let's Look Under the Hood!
The translucent, Bondi Blue (fancy word for teal), egg shaped, futuristic looking, state of the art PowerPC sports a fast 266 megahertz G3 microprocessor (that means it's snappy, fast). It has a 6 gigabyte hard drive (huge) for storage. Internally it has a 24x speed CDROM drive, a 56kbs modem, stereo sound, fast Ethernet for networking (or high speed Internet), Universal Serial Bus (USB) for connecting peripheral devices like printers or scanners, a built in crystal clear high resolution 15 inch monitor, and 32 megabytes of Memory. Round that off with a nice bundled assortment of software. The price? How about $1,199, less than the price of a good refrigerator!

Net Ready Too!
It takes you about 20 minutes, if you're slow, to take it out of the box and get on the Internet. You connect the power cord to the back of the computer, the keyboard to the computer, the mouse to the keyboard, and plug a phone line into the modem port. Use Apple's Internet Setup Assistant, and you're on the Internet. Don't have an Internet provider? It will sign you up to Earthlink, a national one. It can't be any easier. It takes more time to program your VCR.

No Floppy?
The iMac does not come with a floppy drive -- pure genius on the part of Steve Jobs, Apple's interim CEO. The floppy is dead. When was the last time you used one? The popularity of removable storage like Iomega's Zip and Jazz drives, or Syquest removables, have put the kiss of death on those old 1.4 megabyte floppies. A single Zip disk can hold the equivalent of almost 80 floppies!!

If Zip isn't a good reason to kiss the floppy goodbye, the final death nail came at the end of 1998 with the introduction of the new SuperDisk technology, created by Imation Corp. For around $150 (the price of the old floppy drives), a SuperDisk drive can read and write PC and Mac formatted floppies and their own 125 megabyte SuperDisks (around $10 a piece). That's the equivalent storage of 85 floppies. You easily connect the Superdisk drive to the iMac's USB port on the keyboard (or a hub) and you don't have to shut down the computer to do it. Don't feel sorry for the floppy however. It's been around since 1968.

But It Has No Software, Right?
Another old argument about the Mac, now finally dispersed, is the lack of software for the computer. Media Metrix of New York recently published the 50 most used home software applications on the Wintel platform . Of the 50 leading software titles that run on PCs with Windows, 43 of them also run on the Mac.

With a PC software emulator such as Virtual PC or SoftWindows (both emulate a Pentium® MMX® PC ), you can run almost every Windows-based program on the iMac. You can also run UNIX and Linux and more than 50 software emulators, covering every operating system from CP/M to Nintendo 64. Connectix Corp was recently selling a SONY Playstation emulator for around $50. Now you can play hundreds of games with your iMac as well.

Finally, there are close to 2000 software titles that only run on the Mac and not on any PC platform. In reality, you can run more software titles on the Mac than any personal computer.

The I means Internet & Innovation!
Wait, there's more!. Apple has added some new functionality into its system software. Sherlock is a program that goes out to the Internet and searches almost every search engine or database on the Net, and then some. Web sites everywhere are busy writing little Sherlock plug-ins that let you search their sites too. You can search online book stores, Web search engines, online news services, Web sites, databases and more, all from your desktop. This makes your iMac a complete built in Internet Search tool. Type one keyword and search the world! Searching the Net couldn't be any more, well, elementary!

So, if you are looking for a new computer that can do it all, at an affordable price (with five designer colors), you might want to look at Apple's new iMac. iLike iMac. You will too!-----

Got a good Web tip or Web site you want to share? Send me a postcard with then name of this column on it and what kind of computer you use to Inside The Net, P.O. Box 50216, Albany, NY 12205. Each month I will draw a special one and you will win free software or other goodies. Send Don email at don@rittner.org.