Just bought a Intel imac 20"

S

snoopsta

Guest
Hello Everyone.

Just "switched over to the mac" after over 25+ years using a PC.

I initally purschased an ibook 12inch but found it too small and the fonts unreadable.

Bought a 20" imac instead ;)

Got to say its blown me away. I was up and running in no time. Only problem I had was Safari did not show me login page for my linksys router but firefox solved that.

I copied all my Pictures from the PC and they look 100% times better. Just to clear and crisp

Showed off front row to my mates and they where blown away especially when I was playing music and front row was displaying my pictures.

I am seriously thinking of making it a part of the Lounge instead of keeping it locked in a small room upstairs.

Overall i am totally totally in love with it. the quality and feel of the monitor is really good.

BTW apple.com/uk much cheaper than apple stores. The brent cross one I went too would not even price match. But they say i could return it and buy it online.

Quick Questions:

1) When I download apps how do I tell the system to place the *.dmg file in folder specified by me?

2) When It finished downloading it creates 2 icons. One is an icon of a disk drive and the other the *.dmg file. i guess the hard disk drive is the executable.
How do i place it in my applications folder. I copied it across and them dragged the icon on the desktop to the trash can but this deleted it from Applications folder

3) Can I set my Region code to all regions on my superdrive?

4) can I set the administrator username to Root? At moment it seems my username and password are the same as the adminstrators.

5) Anyone know of a Visio equivalent or similar product (free) application that allows me to create diagrams and plan rooms etc.

6) A guy at work is selling his old Powerbook.It does nto have latest OS. Am I able to install the OS i got with my Imac on this Laptop? The laptop is powerpc and mine the Intel.

7) Is .Mac worth the money?

Thanks for all your help.

Snoopsta
 
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1) When I download apps how do I tell the system to place the *.dmg file in folder specified by me?

Well you don't really need the dmg after you've dropped the application it contained in your apps folder. But if you want to change your default downloads folder, just open Safari and select Safari->Preferences from the menu. Under 'General' you can change the d/l location.

2) When It finished downloading it creates 2 icons. One is an icon of a disk drive and the other the *.dmg file. i guess the hard disk drive is the executable.
How do i place it in my applications folder. I copied it across and them dragged the icon on the desktop to the trash can but this deleted it from Applications folder

Open the .dmg, then grab the little app icon that's inside there (Not the white harddrive, the applications icon it contains). Drag that into your applications folder. When it's copied that over, drag the mounted image (white harddrive) onto the trash to eject it. Delete the .dmg file.


3) Can I set my Region code to all regions on my superdrive?
No, but VLC (video lan client) should be able to play dvd's from all regions. Alternatively rip them using mactheripper (which removes the region encoding) and play them directly from your harddrive. (Open DVD player and select 'open video_ts file to open the film from your harddrive).

4) can I set the administrator username to Root? At moment it seems my username and password are the same as the adminstrators.
No. The root user is hidden by default on OS X, you can't set your username to it. But a standard user account is an admin account and there's nothing you should be doing that you can't do with a regular account. It's all a bit different than windows, but basically you should be fine with the default user account that you create during the first boot.

5) Anyone know of a Visio equivalent or similar product (free) application that allows me to create diagrams and plan rooms etc.

Yep: Visio is a knockoff of OmniGraffle. You can downloadl a demo at www.omnigroup.com

6) A guy at work is selling his old Powerbook.It does nto have latest OS. Am I able to install the OS i got with my Imac on this Laptop? The laptop is powerpc and mine the Intel.
Unfortunately not: Your version is written specifically with the intel iMac in mind. Whilst most included applications should be universal, the partition scheme they use is different:
The Intel-based Macs use a new partition scheme — GUID Partition Table — that’s incompatible with the previous scheme.

7) Is .Mac worth the money?
Depends: If you already have a webserver/host you're happy with, and know what you're doing - then probably not.
But if you're looking for a quick and easy way to share your pictures with the relatives or put up a personal/family/team website easily with iWeb, then it is quite useful.

It's also nice for syncing information across multiple machines and performing automatic backups.
There's a 60day limited test account you can demo, give it a whirl and see if you like it.


Note: To find any of the apps I've mentioned here, go to versiontracker.com, enter the name and you should be able to download them from there.
 
OP
S

snoopsta

Guest
THANK YOU very much Aptmunich. Really useful information.

Really loving the Mac ;)

Hope I can be of help in the future
 
OP
S

snoopsta

Guest
>No. The root user is hidden by default on OS X, you can't set your username to it. >But a standard user account is an admin account and there's nothing you should be >doing that you can't do with a regular account. It's all a bit different than windows, >but basically you should be fine with the default user account that you create during >the first boot.

I think I understand.

If I create a new account for my wife. Will she see she my music in itunes, our photos etc.

If the above means that each user has their own music and photos etc then can I create 1 account (like the one I already have) and have a different password for the adminsitrator password the one that yo have to tyep when you click on the padlock. BTW that password is the same as the one I log in with)

Hope this makes sense

TIA
 
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Each user account will have their own photo, music and system libraries. (Meaning bookmarks, preferences, passwords etc are user specific). You can however 'share' your libraries with one another, meaning you can allow her to view your pictures and vice versa.

But applications are installed for all users, so every user can access iTunes for example, without you having to install everything twice.

If you set the second user up to be an administrator, they can also just use their password for admin-specific tasks.
There's no general admin password, your user password IS the admin password, if you are an admin. (I'm sure there's an easier way to explain it all, but I hope you know what I mean :))

So assuming you set up the 2nd account, (and clicked on the little checkbox marked 'Allow user to administrate this computer') your wife can just pop in her own password to install things and change settings.
 
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S

steve zissou

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lucky... ive been begging my parents to get me a new 20" intel imac since it came out. i have a pc but use macs at my school in our news room. imovie is so much better than windows movie maker, saves me half the time and productions turn out much much better. hoping to install ilife 06 on all the old swivel neck imacs in our news room and play with that. hows rosetta on the new imac anyway, what doesnt run on the intel? hows it workin, any problems? thanks
 
OP
S

steve zissou

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o, btw, if you have a remote dock for ipod, will that interfere with the front row on the imac? will i have to get another remote for the dock or just use the imac one?
thanks
 
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D

DigitalN.

Guest
steve zissou said:
o, btw, if you have a remote dock for ipod, will that interfere with the front row on the imac? will i have to get another remote for the dock or just use the imac one?
thanks
nope, it won't mess it up one bit :)
 
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xbrian87

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I was a PC user, too. I bought the 17" iMac, upgraded to 2gb of ram.

Everyone has answered your questions, but NO, .mac is NO worth the money. For about $10 more, you can get your own hosting with a custom domain, more storage space and more email accounts.

.mac is good for people who have NO idea how to work FTP or anything and dont want the fuss. It's like AOL; it's WAY cheaper to get other services, but if you want everything laid out for you, you'll sacrifice a lot and pay more while doing so.

www.godaddy.com is way better than .mac, IMO.
 
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I just bought a intel 20" mac with 2GB ram upgrade along with the upgrade for video and memory. I am/was a PC user and wasn't to big of a fan with Apple until the iPod's rolled out. I bought the old 4G and the new video iPod. Then at school they had the G5's and I worked with iMovie and iDVD and fell in love with Macs.

I am excited, I will report back to let you know what i think when it comes!
 
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Beemer said:
I just bought a intel 20" mac with 2GB ram upgrade along with the upgrade for video and memory. I am/was a PC user and wasn't to big of a fan with Apple until the iPod's rolled out. I bought the old 4G and the new video iPod. Then at school they had the G5's and I worked with iMovie and iDVD and fell in love with Macs.

I am excited, I will report back to let you know what i think when it comes!

Well to you and the OP - welcome to the club! We have jackets :) I've had a 20" iMac stored away for a week or two now and it finally got opened last night for my wife's birthday. It's absolutely wonderful! The screen is very crisp, clear, and bright. We watched a DVD on it and it looked fantastic. The speakers were suprisingly good for being integrated (no bass to speak of, but eh). It's loaded with everything but the 500gb hard drive (have an external 250 gig drive for backup/storage purposes instead). It really flies. My wife is estatic with iMovie. It's really an awesome machine. I'm sure you will be very happy with it!
 
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B

BoingoBongo

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I love mine too! It's exactly what I expect in a computer, and it makes me really enjoy using the computer again. I don't spend all my time fighting me computer to make it do what it should do.

I need to get one of those jackets. ;)
 
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I might be getting a 17 inch tomorrow. I played on a 20 inch today and the screen is MASSIVE. If the 20 incher wasnt so far ahead in price I would go for that.
 
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For around $70 US a year I'm about to get web hosting with 2.5GB and 500GB bandwidth a month! .Mac isn't worth it if you know what you are doing.
 
OP
S

snoopsta

Guest
Thanks for all your input. At the moment I am in the States for 4 weeks with work. Really missing the imac. However before I left the UK i noticed thatit would take ages to shutdown and sometimes freeze. I have 512mb Ram.

Went to the crucial website and ordered asn extra 1gb (i'm hoping this will make my system even more faster!) Cost me about £100 for the RAM. Wasit worth it?

Also can anyone tell me if mysql is pre-installed? I dont have my mac here to check or do I need to download it and get it installed.

Also saw the macbook pro. Though it looked exactly like the powerbooks.

I also mailed firsdirect as there internet banking plus site is not apple mac compatible. They told me not enough peopel use macs ! Please if possibel send an email to [email protected] asking when it will be available for the mac. This should give them some numbers to present to management ;)

Anyone also got an ipod? Thinking of getting an itrip over here but there are sooo many types. basically I want to listen to my ipod in the car. Any recomendations? Someone told me to get one with preset frequency ??????? (whatever that means)

Thanks for all your help

Snoops
 

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