Newbie here with New 20" iMac on the way

Well hello there Mac fans....

I grew up on Macs until the age of 19 where my university degree forced me into migrating to PC. The Mac I had at the time was a big old thing with a tv card (which was fab!)....cant remember the name of the model....but it was basically an all in one unit with the CRT monitor built in etc.....heavy thing it was!!

Anyway, check out what I am ordering this week....

20" 2 GHz iMac
400GB Hard disk
1GB RAM (do NewEgg sell RAM for iMac? If not will get 2GB RAM)
Complete wireless setup with a few Airport Express units (with stereo cables) and an Airport Extreme base station
iSight Camera (Can this be used with all Messenger App's?)
Belkin light for the iSight
iSight Accessory kit (but not sure what is included in this?)
AppleCare
Subscription to .MAC

Any suggestions/ recommendations of anything else to get or not to get?

I am quite new to Mac these days and it appears that they are very different to the original SE30 little boxes with the 6" screens and clunky keyboard I originally used as a kid!!!

Look forward to hearing any and all replies.

Cheers for my first post....

Jones!

Wow! Nice system!

By the way, Welcome to the community! enjoy your stay!

Hello Jones! That is almost the same system I was pricing the other day.The iSight to my recollection should work for all the IM apps.If you'd like give me a shout sometime & we'll try it out, okay? I've got a .mac account worth it in my book, the AppleCare is a must have it just goes without saying! BTW did I say welcome

Hey guys thanks for the Welcomes....

I am looking forward to the speed of the system....I hope ot lives up to my expectation as currently I am running a 1.1GHz P3 Sony Vaio with 384MB of RAM and am fed up of waiting for everything to load especially Internet Explorer.....really starting to bug me now! So I am expecting some lightning reaction according to everything I have read of reviews about the new iMac considering the processing speed coupled with the large amount of RAM.

I was tempted with a power Mac but to be honest I am only gonna be using it for everyday use, I am no film editor or music producer and think an iMac will suffice.

Gonna order it tomorrow I think so it should take about a week to arrive so will let you know when it is all up and running. Cant wait! Will let you know Markceltic and can test out the iSight.

Is the iSight as good as it appears to be on the website? It looks a seriously stylish bit of kit so am hoping it is as good as it looks.

Cheers all,

Jones!

You will love it. I have the exact same system (except for the hard drive - 250gb). You will love it. iSight is great and the new upgraded imac's are awesome.

Jones! said:

iSight Camera (Can this be used with all Messenger App's?)

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The iSight can be used with any messenger app which supports video chat on the mac platform... which (I may be mistaken) is only iChat (which works with AIM). The versions of Yahoo messenger and MS messenger that I have used on the mac didn't have a/v chat, but that was a year or more ago so maybe someone else in the forum can correct me or confirm this.

still... awsome system... the iSight is still awsome... it is the SW developers for MS and yahoo that are the problem making the mac versions less featureful for no real reason.

well, MS stopped creating msn for mac, so they will never have a/v video, and iChat is the only good a/v messegner. there is mercury messenger that uses msn a/v, but is really crappy.

shaun89 said:

well, MS stopped creating msn for mac, so they will never have a/v video, and iChat is the only good a/v messegner. there is mercury messenger that uses msn a/v, but is really crappy.

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That is a bit of a bummer as I quite like AV cababilites on MSN and have grown fond of it. Even to the point I bought a few of my friends webcams for christmas so we can keep in touch as they live over seas. Will just have to keep my logitc cam hooked up to my windows laptop.

Shame though! But still looking forward to using the iSight etc.

Is it really that good? Would it be suitable for example as video conferencing for a business? My families business is currently about to spend about £12,000 on video conferencing equipment which is basically a sony monitor with inbuilt camera, and a camera unit at the other end connected to a plasma screen and some form of PC which does the magic.

Am thinking maybe a couple of Mac Minis with iSights would do just as well as they could be connected on the same isdn2 connection could they not??

Hmmm....something to ponder over....

Cheers,

Jones!

Jones! said:

That is a bit of a bummer as I quite like AV cababilites on MSN and have grown fond of it. Even to the point I bought a few of my friends webcams for christmas so we can keep in touch as they live over seas. Will just have to keep my logitc cam hooked up to my windows laptop.

Shame though! But still looking forward to using the iSight etc.

Is it really that good? Would it be suitable for example as video conferencing for a business? My families business is currently about to spend about £12,000 on video conferencing equipment which is basically a sony monitor with inbuilt camera, and a camera unit at the other end connected to a plasma screen and some form of PC which does the magic.

Am thinking maybe a couple of Mac Minis with iSights would do just as well as they could be connected on the same isdn2 connection could they not??

Hmmm....something to ponder over....

Cheers,

Jones!

Click to expand...

Keep in mind the iSight is a firewire-based camera. Not sure if it's f/w 400 or 800, but if it's 800 it will look pretty good. The processing and bandwidth necessary to process moving video is a lot. And Apple iMacs only recognize firewire-based cams natively.

I managed to get a Logitech 4000 webcam working on an iMac with an extra piece of software (shareware) and it works ok. Just ok.

If you want the 3+1 videoconferencing capabilities or 9+1 audio conferencing, the iSight is the way to go. Since firewire was developed by Apple, they've really harnessed the technology capabilities, and made the software biased towards it. As for your family, you might suggest they invest in a $500 iMac and an iSight to at least test the capabilities. If it doesn't work sell the iMac or donate it to charity for a tax write-off. I'd spend a few hundred US$ to try and save thousands of pounds.

Jones! said:

1GB RAM (do NewEgg sell RAM for iMac? If not will get 2GB RAM)

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Newegg rem does work with macs. I ordered 2 GB about a wekk or two ago when i got my iMac. This is the one i got http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141182. But be warned that the heatspreaders on them make it really tight to get them in. I had to remove one of the clips that say PQI on it to get the second sticj in and past hte first. THe "PQI" logo came of the clip a little and caused the two sticks to rub together.

If i had to buy ram again i would probably get it without heatspreaders. (Althought the heatspreaders look really cool )

Probably go with 2 sticks of this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141198

prostuff1 said:

Newegg rem does work with macs. I ordered 2 GB about a wekk or two ago when i got my iMac. This is the one i got http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141182. But be warned that the heatspreaders on them make it really tight to get them in. I had to remove one of the clips that say PQI on it to get the second sticj in and past hte first. THe "PQI" logo came of the clip a little and caused the two sticks to rub together.

If i had to buy ram again i would probably get it without heatspreaders. (Althought the heatspreaders look really cool )

Probably go with 2 sticks of this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141198

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I think I will get 1 stick of 1GB ram with the iMac and then buy a 1GB stick from NewEgg.

Funny though as whenever I try to find that ram stick on NewEgg....I can....I follow the same route as shown by you but nothing about "PQI", it only shows "Crucial", "Kingston" and "Corsair" manufacturers....no "PQI"!?! Hmmm...

Cheers!

Well....its ordered....its paid for.....just 10 days and I will have a new toy to play with!!!

Didnt go for the accessory kit....it sounded a bit rubbish!!

Jones!

Hey Jones! Congratulations on the 20" iMac. I'm sure it will be nothing short of amazing to you. Upgrading the RAM is definitely a good idea, especially because of its up to 2.5GB capacity. Have fun with it, welcome to forums nad if you need anything, ask us.

Jones! said:

1GB RAM (do NewEgg sell RAM for iMac? If not will get 2GB RAM)

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I always use Crucial for RAM, they deliver fast and so far I haven't had a bad stick from them.

Oh and welcome to the funny farm.

Amen-Moses

wow thats an awsome xmas gift....400gig, i dont know what id do with something that big and that much space....congrats!

maz94protege said:

wow thats an awsome xmas gift....400gig, i dont know what id do with something that big and that much space....congrats!

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400 gig / 10 = my hard disk drive.


Woot.

Constant battle for space.