New iMac user and new to this forum

I just wanted to say hi to everyone. I've had the original iPad for 2+ years, and I just bought my first iMac. I bought a 2011 21.5 inch refurb from Apple. So far loving it!! I find new things everyday.

I hated how small the fonts were in mail, safari, and google chrome, I found how to change those today. Very Happy!!

Any other must do useful tips would be great!

In reading thru some of the posts, I see some mention of reloading the iOS disk to fix certain problems. Mine did not come with a system disk. Should I worry about that? I have my system backing up to a Time Capsule.

Welcome to Mac-Forums

Your iMac either has 10.7 Lion or 10.8 Mountain Lion on it (you can check by click on the Apple logo on the top left menu and selected About this Mac)..both of these versions of OS X are sold digitally through the Mac App Store and as such create a recovery partition during installation that can be used in lieu of the discs to fix anything that's ailing your iMac.

You get into the recovery partition by holding CMD+r while powering up the iMac.

p.s., the Macs (iMac, Mac Mini, Macbook and MacBook Pro) run OS X while iPod/iPhone/iPad run iOS..just for your information..

Thanks, I'm running 10.8.2

So I guess I don't have to worry about recovery disks

Are there any App store must haves? Preferably free ones

It's hard to note what might be a "must have" since we all have different uses for our computer. For example, many people will note that iLife is a "must have" (which comes with your computer) but others, myself included, hardly ever use it.

iLife? Is that iPhoto?

How do you add special characters into these posts? Or on anything like e-mail etc?

iLife is a collection of applications that includes iPhoto. More info here. As for special characters, if you're using Apple Mail, simply go to Edit > Special Characters...

Hi,

Welcome to the forum, regarding must have apps as vansmith said it is a personal preference.

But I will just add that I personally will not use boot camp and have found since moving to Mac`s that the Apple software more than does the job I want and in the app store offered at really good prices. Regarding Music,Photography and office suites OS X and more.

I made the switch to Mac, and unless there is some compelling reason, I don't want to install any Windows software on here.

Hi and welcome to the forums.

Have a look at these for starters .....

Apple Downloads
Switching 101
Mac 101
Mac Tips and Tricks
Menubar Items
Keyboard Shortcuts

Adium ~ Chat Client
Growl Notifications
SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner ~ Both make bootable copies of your HD
HandBrake ~ Video Converting
Burn ~ As it says A Burning App
Transmission ~ p2p client
Skitch ~ Screen capture and more
VLC ~ Video player that plays most codecs and does a lot more
Perian and Flip4Mac Makes watching certain codecs easier ... This is Essential IMHO
Audacity ~ Play with Music App
CandyBar ~ Mods all your icons, and dock
MainMenu or Oynx ~ Does the same as Disk utility only more thorough
Quicksilver ~ Works like Spotlight but way way better and does so much more
StuffitExpander ~ Opens Zip and rar files and more
Lil Snitch ~ Firewall type App that looks at your incoming and outgoing traffic
and last but certainly not least .....
AppTrap ~ Once installed it sits in System Preferences and deletes all associated files of anything that you put in the trash ...

Should keep you busy for a while lol
HTH

Cheers

EDIT : There are a lot of good Apps already on your Mac so look there first. These i posted are some of the common ones used by Mac users.

kbent said:

I hated how small the fonts were in mail, safari, and google chrome, I found how to change those today. Very Happy!!

Click to expand...

Oh God...how did you fix this? Even the guy at the Apple store couldn't figure it out!

dotdotdot, LOL I'm glad that I can help someone!!!

For mail, I clicked on mail in the menu bar and then preferences. From there I went to the font tab and adjusted the size of the fonts.

For Google Chrome, I clicked on chrome and then preferences. Scroll to the bottom and select show advanced settings. And you can change your font sizes from there.