Ok, after checking around a bit, looking at demos, speaking with Apple staff, I decided to take a bite out of the Apple for myself. Got the 27" IMAC. I also bought the MC Office for MAC. iBeautful graphics, lots of whiz, but - at this point in time, am regretting the decision.
 Got it home Sunday AM after getting my files and docs loaded up from my PC and getting a 1 hour introduction.
Froze up about 3 times that night and had login issues with passwords and had to make a few calls to Apple-care.
 
 Festool has a simple Excel sales order form used for dealers to place their Festool orders and am unable to get past the Excel error message, even after long calls to Apple support and talking with the Apple in store help. I am going to have to speak with MC about resolving this issue. My warehouse uses a Citrix based login system and was unable to log on - due to error messages - even Apple staff were unable to get on. Finally a friend got  me logged on, but the F9 key (the most used key for me to check inventory) does not work properly (even after holding the fn and command key). So at this point am using my older PC to check inventory.
 
 Now, I totally understand that there is a learning curve from PC to Apple - and a huge learning curve for older, untechy guys like me; but the 2 most important/most used areas - using Excel for Festool ordering and checking inventory have yet to be accomplished - this after almost a dozen service calls and hours spent on work arounds.

 I so do understand why some people like the MACS, and I want to like it too, but right now, it ain't working for me. Soooo, I will continue to muddle through, go to the classes and call that help line, but unless things change 180, I'm going to return it.

Bob

Bob,

What happen whey you press F9?

Fidel

That doesn't sound right... Apples generally work right out of the box.  Excel files not opening even though you got Excel installed?  No.  Something is not quite right.

... and with that, I declare I have nothing further to add.  ) too funny.

We have both Macs and winPCs in the office. We have one application that does not work on the Macs so we to use the Windows version of Cirtrix. Which is basically just a dumbed down version of Citrix. It works great, no problems.

Even with all the Apple WWDC hype (lion, iOS5 and iCloud) I still feel that Apple is a much better computer for the home and personal use.  When is comes to business and the business environment Windows seams to be to goto operating system and applications. 

OK, duck for cover and keep the flak jacket on....

Bob,

F9 is assigned to one of the Exposé functions by default, so the OS is intercepting that particular key before the application gets to see it.

Try changing the key assignment to something else to free up F9 and see if that fixes the problem:


Under the Apple menu, open System Preferences.

Click on Keyboard, then select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab.

Select "Exposé and Spaces" from the list on the left, and either turn off the "All Windows" option (which is assigned to F9 on my Mac -- probably on yours as well, as this is the default), or double-click on the "F9" in the list and assign a different key for that.

See if that fixes your issue with accessing that feature under Citrix.

I had to take a similar approach to moving the Dashboard button from F12 to F13 because of needing F12 for use within Blender...


Also, another tip: on the "Keyboard" tab, there is a checkbox "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys", which inverts the behavior of the "fn" button -- if you check that, then the Fn keys act as Fn keys by default, and you hold the "fn" button to get the pictured behavior, instead of the other way around.

I just found that one myself and turned it on; pleased to have done so, as I would rather have the Fn keys easier to access -- I believe I will wind up using them more often.


You certainly shouldn't be experiencing freezes or anything of that nature; is everything up-to-date from Software Update?  You can choose that from the Apple menu to check; also, try opening Disk Utility (open the hard drive, then the Applications folder, then the Utilities folder; should be in there), select your hard drive from the list on the left, and click on the "Repair Disk Permissions" button.  See if that comes up with anything; sometimes a rogue installer (even Apple's software updates on occasion) or will mess up permissions on something important somewhere; that feature of Disk Utility will usually be able to find and correct that in the event it comes up.

I don't use Excel on my mac, but I've opened some Excel files with other programs before and never really had trouble with the limited use I needed to get out of them.  OpenOffice.org has a free version out that seems to handle the majority of them fairly well... regardless, what error are you getting?

Get bootcamp.  Set it up to dual boot Windows and osx - and you'll be happy as a clam. 

 

Something is definitely wrong with that computer, and like the previous poster suggested, it sounds like bad RAM.  Take it back to where you got it, and exchange it for a new one.  I bet all your problems go away.  Don't resign yourself to the purgatory that is the world of Windows just because of one bad stick of RAM. 

Why would you say bad RAM?

 I just may bring this into the store next week. Lots of quirky things - like right here on the FOG; when I scroll down to the last post, the screens shoots right back up to the top of the page, I mean like ?
I will give it more time as I see some of the beauty of the beast, but right now, there's more beast than beauty.

Bob

I'm telling you... there's something wrong with that particular unit.  Apple would not be where its at selling defective equipment.

Intermittent and impossible to predict lockups and freezing problems are often indicative of bad RAM.  In the build-your-own PC world, it could also be the result of things like overheating or a too-small power supply, but you probably don't have to worry about those issues. 

I'd probably run a memory test utility like memtest (Mac version available here: http://osxdaily.com/2011/05/03/memtest-mac-ram-test/) to check it.  Let us know or PM me if you have trouble figuring out how to run it.

It probably wouldn't explain your login issues, though. 

good luck with that... let the experts do their thing.

Bob,

I have the same 27" IMac as you and I remember when I first got it that the Nikon software I was running would freeze from time to time, unlike on my previous generation 24" IMac. In time, Nikon released a fix and now it runs fine.

I also have the Microsoft office software on my IMac and it generally runs fine. Updates are being released all the time, however, so run a "Check for Updates" and see if you have the latest version.

All the best
Richard.

The mac ships with a hardware diagnostic you can run.  It should be on one of the install DVD's that came with your computer.  When you find it, insert the DVD and restart your computer.  Hold the 'D' key down on restart.   'D' stands for "diagnostics".  See this link for the Apple Support page for details.  An error code will be reported if there is a problem.

What he said... life is so much simpler when you dont feel compelled to personally repair every little thing.  It takes too much time, and costs more money than letting the guy who knows how to do it, do it.

  No, I bought it at the Apple Store; and  am bringing it in today.
It froze up again last night and I had to restart it.


Bob

If you have the so-called "magic mouse", the whole finger-swipe thing evidently takes some practice.  I'm using one right now because it came with my Mac Pro and I'm still in the process of getting things switched over from my iMac, but my Wacom tablet will eventually replace it.

I find that it can be tricky to manage the scrolling and such with that mouse, particularly when just getting started with it.

I suspect there are some other gestures involved too, because I occasionally find that I jump back a web page (as if hitting the "back" button on the browser) depending on how my finger manages to swipe the mouse (often by accident), though I haven't been able to nail down the actual gesture yet.

I'm not taking time to work it out though; like I said, the Wacom will be replacing it soon anyway...

Thanks Peter,


I'm going in at 11 am today and will let them see what's up
I just did a diagnostic test with the disk and it shows no
problems with the hard drive.  No more testing or playing
with the disks, keys or programs; I'll let the guys at Apple
take over.

Bob

Bummer Bob...

Bought my big iMac three years ago to get away from PC and have never had an iota of trouble from it...so I am betting it's just an unfortunate lemon....

I think once you get past the slight learning curve you will really like it...

Either way do tell what the resolution is..

Cheers,

Mike

Am at the Apple store and it froze up here and they are
setting up a new IMac.

Sweet... it has always been my experience that when I take something that's broken to the guy who can fix it, it always works.  Its not fixed, of course, and its why people who fix things think that those who dont are morons.

Bob:
You are a much more patient man than I. I would be furious.
Sorry this is happening.
I would have thought problems would have started to appear after about year or so...
Tim

Bob:

A good friend of mine that lives about a mile from here got a new iphone recently. He was using it to demonstrate some mobile app's for publishing and decided to upgrade the operating system Saturday morning to the latest and greatest.

Saturday, Veronica and I were taking her nephews to the farmer's market and my phone rang. It was my buddy's mobile number calling but nobody would answer so I hung up. Very soon after, it rang again. It was him and 'same thing, no answer. This went on several times and I decided to go to his house, which was sort of on the way and ask him to stop calling.

He saw us pull up and came out of the house with his phone in hand laughing. He quickly explained that when he upgraded the OS, the phone started dialing my number (the last dialed number) over and over. I told him to call the Apple store and let it call them over and over instead of me. He couldn't get to it to dial anyone else because it was too quick.

He finally turned it off and went to the Apple store. They argued with him and said what appeared to be some really stupid things like, it's impossible to revert to the prior OS (which worked). He explained to the guy that they could wipe out the phone and start over and they insisted that they couldn't install the previous OS.

Anyway, they gave him a "new" phone - it had the older, working OS and now everything is fine.

Apple is a good company but the mystique around them is a little overblown. They are certainly not perfect.


Tom

Bob,

I sure hope you can get this worked out. We've converted to 3 macbooks over the past several years and recently added an iMac for my wife, who was a staunch holdout. I bought my iMac just before the changeover to the new one you have. Overall we've had very few problems other than the typical crummy Apple power cords and batteries. Occasional flakyness is usually solved by a software update which is easy. My daughter's Macbook Pro we bought her for college survived 4 years of undergrad and 2 years of med school and is still going strong with no issues!

If you're running some of the typical "corporate apps" like Citrix, you might consider the boot camp option or what I use which is VMWare Fusion running a very small Windows7 instance. Just for those occasions where the applications you buy aren't so friendly to OSX. It is very seamless to do though it opens up that whole malware/virus thing with the Windows partition.

Best of luck. Once you get there you won't turn back  

Tom

  Not yet, Peter.  Soon!
I bought the ipod touch when it first came out, then upgraded (or got sucked into) to the iphone.  That's as Apple as I am so far.  Funny thing is I called them today for tech support and had the same crappy experience plus got hung up on while waiting to be transferred to a higher level of tech support.

I always pay extra for the Apple Care.  It's definitely worth it in my opinion, when you get the right level of support.

Although the OP seems to have had a hard time with his Mac, I suggest we imagine what his experience would have been if he had bought a PC.  Would he be expecting a higher level of service ? Does Dell or HP or Best Buy or WalMart or Staples or wherever he buys his Windows machine from even have a place that he could take his computer to for semi-knowledgeable help ? Every time I've ever had to go to the Apple Store for service, I have been surprised at how well they have handled things.

 I have mentioned before that I had a Macbook Pro with a display problem.  I brought it in, they quickly diagnosed and confirmed the problem, took my computer.  They called me the next day to tell me it was ready.  They had already replaced the display.  What kind of turnaround could I have expected if I had bought a Windows laptop ? The best I would expect is that I would have received a courier box the next day, probably after running the types of diagnostics that the OP doesn't really want to run anyways.  Then the box would be in transit for at least another day, then I'd expect one or two weeks turn around time before the box would be on its way back again.  That is the best case scenario of Windows support  I can possibly imagine,  ( unless I purchased next-day onsite service) and I have lived in the Windows world a long time.

Finally, why argue with differing levels of tech support ? Why not just bring it back and get a new one ? You've already established that you're not interested in doing any sort of diagnostic work. Fair enough.   Just return the lemon and start anew.

I was not able to convince my son to get an apple instead of a pc laptop for college.
He gave me the tired reasoning that apple charges you more and you can get a cheaper pc.  I told him to compare apples to apples ( not pun intended).  Use the same components  from a mac book pro to have a similar windows pc, you know what happend. Prices were similar or higher than apple.  He didn't take it.

He got a toshiba laptop for college, that laptop broke in April this year, he called toshiba and he has given the turn around and the laptop is not fixed yet.  We finally sent it to toshiba instead of waiting for the parts.  That was 3 weeks ago.

I will always buy festool for quality and good customer service, same as apple.  I know machines can failed or have a lemon, but I need a company to stand behind their products and not just say "sorry for your inconvenience" crap andget some help from them.

And that is what make Apple service so great! You get a real , flesh and blood, person to fix your problem. No some phone center on the other side of the world that talks English in a way you can NOT understand them and they keep patronizing you.

And I'am basically a Windows PC user (home and office), BUT Over the last two years I have converted my home network to a Apple network products with a mini-mac music server.

Does this mean that you are using it to interact with us right now?

Peter

I'm glad the problem showed up in the store, Bob, intermittent problems can be really tough to troubleshoot. I hope things go well from this point on.

Reading through this thread has me puzzled though. I've been using PCs extensively for thirty years (business and personal) and haven't had a fraction of the technical and service problems being reported here.  I'm feeling kinda left out.  

Reading this thread about the problems and then mentally comparing it to threads about tool issues, the one thing that comes to my mind is that:  the more complex things become, the more likely there will be an issue.  No matter how much care and testing the manufacturers perform, things will slip by and not work.  As demand increases, the numbers of issues will increase, but that does not necessarily mean that the quality has gone down - just that more are being produced and put into use. Successful, painless rectification of the issues at hand is the difference between those companies that have a vibrant repeat business and product referral scenario and those that are stagnant and fighting for growth.

Just my 2.5 cents.

Peter

If you're having problems with it, no thanks. I'd rather feel left out. 

By the way, I've had a Dell XPS 1530 laptop for a couple years (now running Win 7) and it has performed flawlessly. However I did have another Dell laptop many years ago with a display that failed. I called Dell and within two hours it was picked up by a courier, and I got it back the next day. I was blown away by the speed with which the problem was handled. I do not recall any other time I've had to take or send any computer to anyone for repair. I did get a disabling virus once long ago, but that was due to my own carelessness. I have never let that happen again.

All in all, PCs have served me well for decades, and I have no complaints.

I do hope that Bob's new Apple serves him just as well. I know that that OSX's (or Boot Camp's) Windows emulation is not always flawless, and I have had problems with running some software on my MacBook Pros. I hope that Bob does not have that experience with any software he needs to run his business.

JMB,

Let Bob just get used to the iMac working first.  Go for the concept first and then go for the "system".  Where have I experienced that before?

Peter

Maybe this is a sign of Apple growing so FAST and so BIG (larger the Microsoft) that they are having some production, quality, and support  problems. Just like all the other big guys?

I am holding out for the humancentipad.

While I have not used PC's for as long a John, (I am not that old ) I have used them extensively for at least the last 29 years I have not had these problems either. That is not to say others I have worked with haven't had problems with them because they do. The shear number of users with PC's vs Macs (7%) increases the probability of increased problems occurring. Previous to that I only used Apple machines.
In our home we have 4 working PC's networked wireless to the internet and to a printer and after each Microsoft update they need to be reconnected to the printer. I fairly certain that this wouldn't be a problem if I had an apple. We may soon add an apple to the stable. My son who is going of to university next year is contemplating getting an apple so if will be interesting if he does indeed get a Mac how the integration into the existing network goes...that is if he ever comes home again
Because we use computers so much, whether you use a Mac or PC a porter cable or a Festool it's really infuriating to have these problems.
Tim

Few people are.  



Tim, we have two PC desktops and a network printer hard-wired in our system, plus a centrally located wifi hub for our Dell laptop and two MacBooks. And when our daughter and son-in-law visit, they always bring their MacBooks. We have had no problems with any of these devices working together on the network. In fact, the machines sometimes get along better than their owners.  

I have been using Apple products since before the Mac. After, let me count, 23 machines from an Apple II to a Mac Pro and a number of phones and ipads, I have had ONE machine that died or needed tech assistance. In my book, that's a pretty good track record.  But then again It's just my experience.

That's why I took the time to mention my good experiences. Unhappy people generally make the most noise. There must be millions of users like me with little to complain about, so we're seldom heard from.   

I thought it was funny too.

Bob posts about a problem with his new Apple, the first page or so of posts is mostly disbelief that an Apple could even have a problem, then it moves onto the assertion that his problems would have been much worse if he had bought a PC.

So, even when it's an Apple that breaks down it's the PC that gets the criticism.

Some of you younger folks might not remember, but there was a time when we could take days thinking about what we wanted say in a letter, and then put more time and thought into actually writing it. Correspondence was a lot slower back then, as well as less frequent. But as I recall, it was usually a lot more meaningful and interesting to read. 

Ken, it sure does seem like some kind of luck is involved, either good luck for me or bad luck for you. I can't say which, I know there are a lot of 1530s out there, but I really don't know what their over all reputation is.

Woodguy,


About the Imac!  YES YES YES AND.................... YES!  I would buy it again!    It craps all over a PC!    I dont think ill ever go back to a PC  their are 3 laptops next to me and another 2 some where else and a Macbook and a PC which is not setup any more and the only computers I use are the Imac  Macbook Pro and Ipad!     Reason!  They run soooooo smoother  they all start up and shut down SO fast  they run extremely fast not had any crashes or faults or any signs of them slowing down no error messages or anything like that!   

All 5 laptops and 1 PC all have had errors crashes faults all at some point and  lets put prices for more comparison

Every Laptop here  when bought where no less than £1200  the PC I built cost me £2000 in parts at the time. 

So total of £8000 on laptops PC



Macbook Pro is  £ 2000

Imac £2200   (with student discount)

Total £4200    so half the price but 10x better than than pc laptops mentioned above.

I spec mine up to £2600 I think  you get like £400 of student discount

Yeah 27 is the way to go dude!


The reason mine was alot more aswell is I added Solid State harddrive!  Which I would highly recommend you add to be honest I wouldnt by an Imac without a solid state harddrive it would be a waste of power running a system on a normal harddrive.

JMB

joraft - what happened to taking the time to write more meaningful responses. Oh, and repeatedly posting a  after your comments doesn't make them appear any less condescending.

Happy New Year by the way!

I don't use either one any more.  Wacom tablet.

I have  all of them including Wacom

The only one I use out of them 3 is the Magic trackpad the rest lay dormant.