Cheap starter mac?

[JDann24]

If it's not too late, let me suggest a Power Mac G4 Cube. I got one about two weeks ago off ebay for $199. It has a 450 mhz, 20 gig hd, and 640 mb of Ram. I just got an airport card today and this thing is great!

 

[Rcadden]

well I am the proud new owner of a iBook G3. thanks again for the help.

 

[jhelm007]

well I am the proud new owner of a iBook G3. thanks again for the help.

Hope you enjoy it! Post here again with your impressions. It might help other switchers like yourself.

 

[Rcadden]

Well I got it yesterday, and up front I am pretty impressed. Does well with even the shoddiest of specs. Lol. It has Tiger on it, the widgets in particular crack me up cause they take nearly 45 seconds to update once they appear. Kinda defeats the purpose, but I know that's specific to this machine. Just makes me chuckle.

Specs won't run iLife, so I won't have a chance to run iPhoto (the only app of that group I'm interested in) but I'm skeptical. I've tried numerous photo-organiztion apps on my Windows laptop, and have always simply reverted back to File Explorer and my own organization skills.

I like how everything is more fun in Mac (thus far). iChat is give or take, I like the conversation bubbles format better than text.

I'm having a **** of a time getting my Mac to let me access the shared folders on my Windows Laptop, and have employed another couple of threads on the forum to try to fix that. It keeps asking for a password. I use the same username/password on both computers, and it perhaps doesn't like that.

Haven't really played too much, though I'm thoroughly impressed with battery life. Only app I've installed is Firefox, so i don't have much experience yet with the OS in depth, only in opening and using iTunes, iChat, and Firefox. Lol. My friend has dubbed me "iFag" I told him at least I wasn't using Linux.

For the price I paid, I couldn't be happier.

 

[D3v1L80Y]

Specs won't run iLife, so I won't have a chance to run iPhoto (the only app of that group I'm interested in) but I'm skeptical. I've tried numerous photo-organiztion apps on my Windows laptop, and have always simply reverted back to File Explorer and my own organization

have you even tried to install it? Just because the specs say it can't, doesn't make it so.
I ran GarageBand on a 400Mhz iMac G3. It was slower than it would be on a system that met the specs, but I could certainly use it.

 

[makwanad]

Emacs have great performance per dollar

**** yeah up the eMacs, running logic pro like a piece of cake, I don't need anything more powerful until the emac is considered out-of-date (which I'm hoping isn't for a long time cos I love my eMac).

 

[Rcadden]

Well I'm back, after some usage. Here's the questions I have:

1. Is there ANY way to make the thing stay on/online ALWAYS. When I leave for a little while, I close the lid on my laptop. When I come back, it's turned off and disconnected. I'm used to my PC Laptop, that I can leave sitting on the desk all day and it stays online and on and everything. The freakin iBook turns off airport and whatever. ANNOYING.

2. Still can't get my PC and iBook to network. Figured out it's the PC's fault (you guys love that, I know) I can see the iBook from the PC but can't go the other way. I think it has something to do with the PC being XP Home and I can't find the setting to switch from Simple Sharing to...Unsimple.

3. Airport is really fickle. I think it's due to it being regular Airport (802.11b) and my router (and other laptop) being 802.11g. It works, just fluctuates alot.

4. Thanks to the Search function, I found a way to get my Nokia N80 to sync with i-everything.

5. Not really impressed with having to deal with iMail, iCal and AddressBook as three separate apps. That's one reason I like Outlook, it's all in one.

I'd like to try to use Automator for something, just don't know what yet.