New iMAC..please help

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I am new to the Apple scene. I recently Ordered the new iMAC from the Apple store for my wife. (DOH! 3-5 weeks wait time). We are PC users (dont everyone yell at me at once..hehe)and have some questions and i know they are dumb ones. I know the MAC only has one mouse button, so what do you use to right click on things? Like to see the properties of things. How does the G4 800mhz processor compare to let's say a pentium 4 1.6 GHZ? what is Aqua and Cocoa? what common utilities for the PC also have MAC versions, ie Winzip, CDR burning software, kazaa, grokster, email programs, etc? How do you setup TCP/IP so that i can hook it up to my DSL router and get internet access? I know some of these questions will be answered in the user guide, but like i said its going to take a little while for me to get it and i'm trying to get a jump start on things. Sorry if i sound like a dumb a$$, but this is my first experience with a MAC. I have been an advid PC user for about 10 years but i am thinking about going over to MAC's. If i like my wifes iMAC i will get one of my own. thanx for any and all help.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    Lots of questions



    For right clicking, you hold down the "control" key. You'll know you're doing it right because the cursor will change to show a little menu underneath the arrow.



    I don't really know how a G4 compares to a P4. I use a 667MHz P3 next to my 450MHz G4, and they each are better and faster at certain tasks. I'm not going to spout off benchmarks, because I don't think it's really fair as it's just propaganda from either Intel or Apple. It all depends on what you're doing, really.



    Aqua is the user interface of Mac OS X. It is essentially the style of how everything looks. Quartz is the underlying rendering engine that allows Aqua to be Aqua. Cocoa is a way of creating Mac OS X apps that take full advantage of the OS, and run only in OS X.



    Use Stuffit from Aladdin Systems to replace WinZIP, Roxio Toast for burning CDs, Don't think there is a Kazaa client, dunno what grokster is, OS X ships with a Mail client called Mail, but there is also Eudora, MS Entourage, etceteras



    Setting up TCP/IP is pretty simple, and there is a setup assistant that will help you do it when you first turn the machine on. You won't have a problem with it...
  • Reply 2 of 16
    torifiletorifile Posts: 4,024member
    What he said Just one more thing to add: to see what windows calls properties, you can either right click (ctrl+click) and select show info or click once and then press cmd (the apple key)+i and you'll get the info window. It'll show you everything you need to know about the file. Enjoy the iMac (not iMAC ). Most things will be self-explanatory when you get it.
  • Reply 3 of 16
    sebseb Posts: 676member
    I think Sputnik (at <a href="http://www.versiontracker.com)" target="_blank">www.versiontracker.com)</a> is like Kazaa. It is an Audio Galaxy satellite anyhow.



    For downloading mp3s there are also Limewire and Acquistion - which I personally prefer to satellites.



    Also, if you don't want to "CTRL-click" you could always just get a two (or more) button mouse.



    Kensington makes a nice optical one w/scroll wheel for about $30.

    <a href="http://www.kensington.com/products/pro_c1376.html"; target="_blank">http://www.kensington.com/products/pro_c1376.html</a>;



    Or you can get one from a bunch of other companies - including MS.



    But most importantly, as torifile said, it's Mac not MAC. Mac is short for Macintosh. It's not an acronym.



    BTW, you don't really 'need' any disk burning utilities. Your iMac will burn audio and data CDs out of the box. Although using Roxio toast will give you a superior experience in the way of more options and faster/easier burning (especiallyl with data).
  • Reply 4 of 16
    g4dudeg4dude Posts: 1,016member
    I have a Micro$oft Intellimouse Explorer on my new iMac and absolutely love it. I suggest you get the same. As for speed against a 1.6P4, I'd say that in OS X, is is visibly slower in normal tasks but probably more similar in advanced tasks like Photoshop. To get a quick speed boost with your iMac, use OS 9.2 instead of 10.1.3. The old OS 9 is much faster than X.
  • Reply 5 of 16
    Yeah, about the MAC and mac thing... when I see "MAC", I think "Ethernet MAC Address"
  • Reply 6 of 16
    sebseb Posts: 676member
    Stick w/OS X. Especially for your first Mac.



    OS 9 is cool, but OS X blows it away in every way.



    Ok, it may not open and close 1000 windows repeatedly, as fast... but who does that anyways.



    Stick with OS X. It's much better. You may find one or two grumblers who disagree but the majority of Mac users will say use X.
  • Reply 7 of 16
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    I agree.



    OS X is - like it or not - the future and where things are going. If someone is coming to the Mac today (my mom, sister, neighbor, etc.), all they're going to know or use is OS X.



    Why confuse them with the whole OS 9/Classic thing, when, chances are, for what they'll be doing (surfing, e-mail, Quicken, writing, iTunes, Office, etc.) those apps are OS X native and ready to use.



    Why learn two OS's, when one is clearly on the way out?
  • Reply 8 of 16
    How does the G4 800mhz processor compare to let's say a pentium 4 1.6 GHZ?



    It should hold its own in most tasks, blow away the P4 in others (i.e. Photoshop, and other applications specially optimised for the G4 chip) and get beaten in others. It's a totally different architecture, but the G4-800 is no slouch.



    what is Aqua and Cocoa?



    Aqua is the user interface for Mac OS X. The candy buttons, the drop shadows, that's Aqua.



    Cocoa is a programming environment for OS X that uses object libraries to aid in rapid application development. Nothing really that needs to be discussed, but generally, in this point in the transition to OS X, cocoa applications have a more 'os x' look and feel to them than carbon ones do - carbon being the updated APIs from classic Mac OS.



    what common utilities for the PC also have MAC versions, ie Winzip, CDR burning software, kazaa, grokster, email programs, etc?



    Winzip = the Stuffit suite of products. It handles .sit, .zip, .tar, .gz, just about any format. I know Stuffit Expander comes pre-installed, but you may want to download Stuffit Lite (the whole bunch) to be able to compress files too. <a href="http://www.aladdinsys.com"; target="_blank">www.aladdinsys.com</a>



    CDR burning software = Depends on what you want to burn. If you're looking to burn a Data CD, you just drag the files to the disk on the desktop, and click the 'burn' button. For DVD burning data, it's the same process. To burn an Audio CD or an MP3 CD, use iTunes- apple's MP3 player/organization/burning software. Best of breed. To burn a DVD-Movie, use iDVD, which is, like all of this, included. If these tools don't work, it's probably your best bet to buy Roxio Toast: it's 99 bucks.



    KaZaa and Grokster = While no KaZaa or Grokster software per se exists, there are many alternatives. For music, I use Audiogalaxy with the Sputnix satellite program (www.biggerplanet.com)



    For everything else, Gnutella is your best bet. The 2 best Gnutella clients are Aquisition (www.xlife.org) and LimeWire. LimeWire is just a shittier program, though. Aquisition takes a biit of time to first connect to a bunch of servers, but once it gets something, it goes really nicely.



    Email client: The included Mail application is sufficient for most needs; it does multiple accounts, filtering, HTML, pictures, etc. Beyond that, there is Eudora, Microsoft's Entourage (which is really a good client, but you have to buy Microsoft Office to get it... but Office is a good suite of applications anyway.)



    How do you setup TCP/IP so that i can hook it up to my DSL router and get internet access?



    I am *almost* positive that you can just plug in the Ethernet cable and OS X will auto-configure itself for the router- may be wrong, though. Not my area of expertise.



    Welcome to Macintosh.



    (and it's not MAC!)
  • Reply 9 of 16
    alucardalucard Posts: 11member
    First, sorry for the Mac thing (oops). Second, thanx for all the help. now my only problem is waiting the 3-5 weeks for delivery. One more questions if you don't mind. I have alot of VHS tapes that I would like to take bits and pieces out and put music behind it. what would be the best way of doing that on the iMac? Do i need special hardware? again, thanx for the help



    [ 04-01-2002: Message edited by: alucard ]</p>
  • Reply 10 of 16
    [quote]Originally posted by alucard:

    <strong>First, sorry for the Mac thing (oops). Second, thanx for all the help. now my only problem is waiting the 3-5 weeks for delivery. One more questions if you don't mind. I have alot of VHS tapes that I would like to take bits and pieces out and put music behind it. what would be the best way of doing that on the iMac? Do i need special hardware? again, thanx for the help



    [ 04-01-2002: Message edited by: alucard ]</strong><hr></blockquote>



    On the software side, use iMovie (included). It's the best thing out there; it even beats PC movie editing software. Some reading material: <a href="http://www.apple.com/imovie/"; target="_blank">http://www.apple.com/imovie/</a>;



    On the hardware side, you will need a video to DV Bridge. These sell for around $300-$400, and there are a couple of options. Also, some new cameras offer a pass through feature, so if you are in the market for a new camera, that may be an option.



    Just make sure that the converter you buy uses FireWire (aka IEEE-1394 or i.Link). iMovie can't see USB converters. Plus, ForeWire is much faster.



    Here's two; there are more:

    <a href="http://www.dazzle.com/"; target="_blank">http://www.dazzle.com/</a>; The Hollywood DV Bridge

    <a href="http://www.miglia.com/products/index.html"; target="_blank">http://www.miglia.com/products/index.html</a>; Director's Cut
  • Reply 11 of 16
    lolololo Posts: 87member
    &gt;&gt; I have alot of VHS tapes that I would like to take bits and pieces out and put music behind it. what would be the best way of doing that on the iMac?



    I would recommend getting a DV camcorder if you don't have one already. Simply connect your VHS player to the camcorder and transfer the scenes you're interested in to DV tape. Then launch iMovie, click Import, and make a movie! You can get free background music from Apple's website.
  • Reply 12 of 16
    junkyard dawgjunkyard dawg Posts: 2,801member
    Alucard, Welcome to the Mac community! I hope you enjoy your new iMac...I recently set up one for my parents and the thing totally floored me, it's got a beautiful display and it is FAST.



    Here are my recommendations for you to get started with your new iMac and OS X:



    1. Download this OS X guide (PDF format): <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/rgriff/osxguide2hq.html"; target="_blank">http://homepage.mac.com/rgriff/osxguide2hq.html</a>;



    2. Buy David Pogue's OS X missing manual.



    3. Buy a two button mouse w/scroll wheel.



    The first two items will help you with OS X. The mouse is really needed for OS X, particularly for someone used to using Windows. Apple is quirky and stubborn about some things, one of them being that single button mouse. OS X supports a two button mouse w/ scroll wheel, so there really is no reason not to use one. It will make your life easier, just buy any USB mouse that you like.



    That PDF OS X guide is a great start, and make sure you read up on modifier keys for mouse clicks, they can make OS X MUCH more powerful, especially the dock.



    About the dock: it can be as simple as you like, or you can use it to your advantage. Something that many beginners overlook is a trick to give you access to every document and application on your hard drive. To do this, just drop your Home directory into the dock; right click and you get menu access to all of your documents. Now, make a new folder somewhere in your applications directory, and fill it with aliases to all of your applications and utilities. What's an alias? Read about them in the OS X guide (hint: click and drag whilst holding down opotion-Apple). You can organize the apps into subfolders if you like. Now, drag this folder stuffed with aliases into the dock. Right click and you have instant access to ALL of your apps! How do you tell these folders apart? You might try using some custom icons, check out <a href="http://www.resexcellence.com/"; target="_blank">http://www.resexcellence.com/</a>; for some custom icons.



    That's my standard starter suggestions for a new OS X user. I think you will find that OS X is very intuitive to use and quite powerful, but these tips make it even more usable.



    Please feel free to ask as many questions as you like about your new iMac. There is no such thing as a "dumb question", only dumb answers, and I think you'll find that the internet Mac community is usually pretty helpful. Most of the time...
  • Reply 13 of 16
    alucardalucard Posts: 11member
    Thanx again for the help everyone . I have seen the Dazzle hardware at my local best buy. It looked to be the best out there, but at $319 i'm gonna have to wait. I do have a digital Sony camcorder (about 3 years old now). But i dont see any way to hook it up to the iMac. I will check again to see if it has a firewire port or something, but i dont think that was popular yet when i bought it.
  • Reply 14 of 16
    [quote]Originally posted by alucard:

    <strong>Thanx again for the help everyone . I have seen the Dazzle hardware at my local best buy. It looked to be the best out there, but at $319 i'm gonna have to wait. I do have a digital Sony camcorder (about 3 years old now). But i dont see any way to hook it up to the iMac. I will check again to see if it has a firewire port or something, but i dont think that was popular yet when i bought it. </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Nust a note: Sony calls it i.Link instead of FireWire, so look for that instead.
  • Reply 15 of 16
    alucardalucard Posts: 11member
    Great! thanx for the extra info. I found it on my camcorder, and it has a small "i". The plug in looks very tiny but it does say iLink on it. This will allow me to directly connect to iMovie and copy my DV/D8 tapes to the iMac? If so, then i don't know why i didn't get an iMac earlier. hehehe. thanx again for the info.
  • Reply 16 of 16
    [quote]Originally posted by alucard:

    <strong>Great! thanx for the extra info. I found it on my camcorder, and it has a small "i". The plug in looks very tiny but it does say iLink on it. This will allow me to directly connect to iMovie and copy my DV/D8 tapes to the iMac? If so, then i don't know why i didn't get an iMac earlier. hehehe. thanx again for the info.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yes, it will. I'm pretty sdure the iMac will come with a cable with a small end for the camera and a big end for the iMac (mine did, although I got it a couple of years ago). Just connect them, fire up iMovie, and hit import!
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