$1,200 and up • www.apple.com/imac
Apple's reconfigured iMac desktop -- a bright, shiny, wide-screen example of a home computer -- works beautifully ... unless it doesn't work at all or arrives with a cracked display.
Some reviewers and, judging from a survey of some Mac forums, some users, are encountering issues with some new models. The review team at Engadget, for example, found that their new Intel Core i7-based iMac would not boot up. (The 2.8-gigahertz Core i7 processor is sold as a $200 built-to-order option, and isn't generally offered on machines sold at Apple retail stores.)
And TechNews.AM reports that some customers who ordered the Intel Core i7 received cracked display screens, commonly with the damage near the bottom left corner, speculating the problem might be due to inadequate packaging for shipment. The defective products are being replaced by Apple.
This may give pause to some consumers who have been eyeing the iMac's gorgeous LED-lighted display and searingly fast processor. But many people have had another problem with the latest version of the iMac -- particularly the newest model with a 27-inch display. It's so big, it's hard to find a place in the house where it will fit.
A WAY TO PUT HOME MOVIES ON THE WEB
$15 • pixorial.com
Peer deep into the recesses of that hallway closet, and you'll probably find a pile of VHS home videos from the 1980s. You may even have thought about converting them to digital but haven't gotten around to it.
A new company called Pixorial (pixorial.com) aims to change that by providing a simple way to convert, edit and share old videos online.
Mail Pixorial your VHS tapes (or several other sorts of analog video media) and they will digitize them for $15 each and also put them on a password-protected part of the company's website. There you can use Pixorial's simple editing tools to cut the master tape down.
Once it is edited, you can share the video as you would a photo stream on a photo-sharing site. A hallmark of the service is that it offers a collaborative viewer in which your friends and family can watch and comment on specific scenes of videos in full resolution.
