Finally a new computer...

[Marcos]

So after five years my Dell laptop finally gave out. Probably the hard drive or something because it won't even boot up. I have always wanted a Mac and being a casual home user only I don't think it really matters what platform I am using. I have asked family for Apple giftcards for the last year and a half for all holidays and birthdays etc... and after the Christmas I had enough to take the plunge. CP on a 24" screen is even better! I purchased a book called Mac OS 10.5 Leopard The Missing Manual and have been reading it every night for the last month or so. The transition was pretty seamless except I am having trouble getting some of the dedicated function keys on the slim aluminum keyboard to do their function. If anyone has any ideas please let me know. Other than that minor hangup I am pretty happy so far. Hopefully I ill experience the stability and no viruses/ spyware etc that everyone says comes with this but we will see.

 

[Ludwig]

What function keys cant you get to work?

 

[JHolmes763]

What function keys cant you get to work?

The Windows key seems to be broke... ???

 

[Marcos]

F1 and F2 which look like they represent screen brightness, F7 through F12 which are audio controls. Some other ones were functioning but doing the wrong thing but I was able to reassign them and get them to work.

 

[moki]

F1 and F2 which look like they represent screen brightness, F7 through F12 which are audio controls. Some other ones were functioning but doing the wrong thing but I was able to reassign them and get them to work.

System Preferences->Keyboard&Mouse->Keyboard -- uncheck the "Use all F1, F2, etc. as standard function keys"

Also you can change various hot keys here:

System Preferences->Keyboard&Mouse->Keyboard Shortcuts

Congrats on the new iMac. It's a nice machine.

 

[Marcos]

Thanks, that worked! Btw I'm going to add some RAM and was wondering who you would purchase from. Crucial, OWC etc...? What would you buy for yourself? Thanks again Andrew!

 

[moki]

Thanks, that worked! Btw I'm going to add some RAM and was wondering who you would purchase from. Crucial, OWC etc...? What would you buy for yourself? Thanks again Andrew!

I use Crucial.com -- go for a total of 4gb, and you'll be more than fine.

 

[emodx]

Cheekie is a big apple fan. So is my mom. Funny enough, both are big into graphical arts. When mom comes down, she is going to install the entire Adobe suite on her system. I bought her Poser for Christmas. We have a second black ibook that we haven't even connected yet. I want to put Boot Camp and Parallels on it. I have to use XP to VPN into my work. If it wasn't for that, I would be running Linux or Apple exclusively.

I haven't touched Vista yet. XP is a resource hog as it is, and I can't afford to keep buying computers to run the latest OS and apps that run on MS OS's. If you ever get an old box or laptop, try installing Kubuntu. It looks and feels like an apple OS. Plus, almost all of the software you'll ever use is free. Plus Kubuntu is absolutely free.

-Emo

 

[moki]

Cheekie is a big apple fan. So is my mom. Funny enough, both are big into graphical arts. When mom comes down, she is going to install the entire Adobe suite on her system. I bought her Poser for Christmas. We have a second black ibook that we haven't even connected yet. I want to put Boot Camp and Parallels on it. I have to use XP to VPN into my work. If it wasn't for that, I would be running Linux or Apple exclusively.

You sure about that? MacOS X has VPN support built in.

 

[BlindedByScience]

You sure about that? MacOS X has VPN support built in.

...I know our company uses proprietary VPN software that runs on Windows only. Emo may be in the same case. No question that the Mac OS has the hooks to do it.

I haven't touched Vista yet. XP is a resource hog as it is, and I can't afford to keep buying computers to run the latest OS and apps that run on MS OS's. If you ever get an old box or laptop, try installing Kubuntu. It looks and feels like an apple OS. Plus, almost all of the software you'll ever use is free. Plus Kubuntu is absolutely free.

-Emo

We run XP on all the systems here, and as far as it being a "resource hog" we could debate that. No interest in Vista; can't see the benefit. Ubuntu or any of the variant Linux distros are pretty cool. But, as soon as you ask any of them to run a GUI there are going to be some minimum hardware requirements that you have to meet. XP will boot and run on 128 MB of RAM, but it's painful. The days of 64 MB of ram and 20 GB hard drives are probably behind us....

Good luck, Emo - B.B.S.

 

[jgohlke]

One of my favorite Mac apps is Quicksilver. I don't use it to the max, but the "hot-key find" thing is very handy.

The iMac is a great machine. We switched over to Mac products a couple of years ago and now use our house iMac as our main machine. We also have 3 Mac laptops (2 MB, 1MBP) but they haven't turned out to be as good. We'd buy another iMac in a heartbeat though.

Since you are recent switcher, you'll have to post how you are doing. The family members with the least Windows exerience/understanding did the best (my wife), those with a long history of Windows use (me) struggled for a while. One thing we all agreed on...that mouse sucks! ha, ha, ha

Another useful bit of advice I can offer is to reboot occasionaly. We got in the habit of putting the iMac to sleep and then waking it rather than turning it on and off. It works great, but as time went on without a reboot, the system got a little flaky. Now we reboot about once a week and it seems happier.

Since the machine is new, I figure you are running Leopard. Time Machine is a pretty easy backup process and comes with the OS. I bought a 300G external USB drive from Compusa (discounted since they are going out of business) and connected it to the iMac. Backups are automatic and recovery is very easy. It worked so well, I bought 2 more...1 for each of the laptops that we use everyday. My son just used his TM backup to fully restore his MBP. The only thing not restored was his iTunes authorizations.

Ubuntu is nice but just doesn't support iPods or digital cameras well enough for casual use by non-techies. We go around with Ubuntu about once a year and just recently gave up on it after a short trial. It is cool but not quite ready for prime time.

 

[Marcos]

Overall I am very pleased with the machine. I have only used Windows based systems my whole life but at the same time I never did anything too in depth. Internet, documents, Photoshop Elements etc... I always looked at their hardware as more appealing strictly from a visual standpoint. The quality appears to be good. I found it attractive that the same company makes the OS and the machine, and talk of more stability and less viruses sealed the deal. I expect crashes and hangups but hopefully fewer. Any things that need to be opened cross platform like MS Office documents work seamlessly so there is no issue there. The compact nature of the iMac was perfect for me. The Mac Pro was definitely overkill and a laptop was not necessary because all of my computing is done from one place and I wanted a bigger screen. Like I said before, I have been reading a manual for some time in preparation so there was not too much lag time. After one night on the computer the screen on my old 15" Dell looks really small. That laptop served me well though with only one catastrophic meltdown of some sort in five years that made me have to lose everything and reinstall the OS. That taught me the lesson about backing up. Understanding this OS is not rocket science and so far I can recommended it as a nice alternative to a Windows based machine for casual home use. If it turns out to suck in the long run I'll let everyone know.

 

[yardgnome02]

Welcome to the wonderful world of Mac. I've been using them as them as my basic home use system for a few years now and recommend them to anyone who is looking for a great home use computer.


I still find windows to be a better platform for somethings, mainly Software development, Forensics, and gaming.


All that said I think there is going to be a rough patch for mac users in the next 24-36 months, with there increased usage virus writers and hackers will begin targeting them and with this will come some of the "Windows" problems like keeping patchs up to date and anti-virus software.

 

[Infinity]

Mac is a wonderful thing. I have a MacBook pro 17". Very portable, the screen is large enough for me.

I switched exactly one year ago and have have never looked back. I bought my son one for his birthday. At first he wanted to take it back then after 2 days he was blown away. Told me he couldn't understand why he stuck with windows for so long. (my sentiments exactly) Within one week he was teaching me about all sorts of things, widgets, short cuts etc. There is so much you can add on, I love my widgets.

One thing that bugged me was no delete key (windows type). You have to click fn/delete to have that function. My son found this...

http://doublecommand.sourceforge.net/

Install it and it will be in your system preferences. Re-boot and then go into it. There's an option to make the backslash key ( \ ) into the del button, something I don't use for generally any way.

Brian

 

[emodx]

Cheekie is a big apple fan. So is my mom. Funny enough, both are big into graphical arts. When mom comes down, she is going to install the entire Adobe suite on her system. I bought her Poser for Christmas. We have a second black ibook that we haven't even connected yet. I want to put Boot Camp and Parallels on it. I have to use XP to VPN into my work. If it wasn't for that, I would be running Linux or Apple exclusively.

You sure about that? MacOS X has VPN support built in.

I had to install a Nortell App to set up the VPN here at home. I could give it a shot on a Mac. I'd also have to see if Mac would install the smart card reader I have to use to access the .mil domain I am on. I wish it was as simple as a regular VPN. Does Mac have the ability to control a Windows box using RDP?

-Emo

 

[JHolmes763]

You could try using Wine on your Mac to run Windows applications. No experience with it, personally, though.