Mac Convert- Help please- im one of you now!

condra

Hey people.

Just bought a second hand powermac g5, 1.8 ghz and so far Im enjoying it.

Im very much loving this blue screen- when I was using Windows [for about 10 years until today] a blue screen was a BAD thing!

I have run into one or 2 ickle issues tho, which I would be chuffed if anyone would care to help me resolve.

Its running OSX tiger and has 512 ram right now.

The one problem is the finder help menu, which isnt working properly. Perhaps there is something messed up there, I dont know. Im like a fish out of water with OSX.

Another thing is user accounts, I cant change the "short name" when Im in the user accounts settings, its no big deal really. probably something simple.

I was havin a bit of trouble at first when a folder called "audio" , which was the user short name, was coming back after trashing it, so i settled with just being "audio" myself if that makes sense.

anyways- ill probably be back with a question or 2 over the next day or two. Id really appreciate any help coz its quite a bigger step switching to OSX than I thought it would be.

So far tho, Im impressed.

condra

arrrr. there was mutiny on the windows xp ship.. arr

condra

im also havin sum trouble importing my favourites to firefox.

i would use safari only i cant figure out a way to have a button for a new tab, rather than use the keyboard shortcut..

god this is wierd.:D

condra

Ballix.

Just had some major trubble.

The guy I bought it off gave me the Panther disks, but not Tiger which was installed.

The box was goin a bit mad so i did a restart and it came up with a feckin flashing earth picture.:eek:
"Im fecked" I thought.
So I put in the Panther disk and booted from that [good work for a windows user]

Im on Panther now and everything seems more stable and the box aint makin any noise or nothin. Could it be that the version of Tiger installed was some ****ty cracked version? Or perhaps the 512 ram was strugglin with the OS?
The finder help file which wasnt workin before is working fine now.

Cant believe I can reinstall the operating system but save my files and apps- thats damn kool.:)

Forget about the browser question by the way- i got opera and its grand.

But what ya think about the OS? Its no big deal I can live without widgets! It seems way more on top of things now to be honest. wierd tho.

edunon

Tiger is a better OS than Panther, will be much more stable after the 10.4.3 upgrade is out.
It's more than recommended to do a fresh install when you get the machine. Any Unix based OS as Mac Os can corrupt if we don't do some maintenance task, most important of all repair permissions.

condra

cheers for the reply man.

yeah panther is flying along now after a clean install. - no more harddrive going mad for no reason. Ill get Tiger eventually. but for the meanwhile this is grand.

luckat

Incidentally, always install new apps (apart from ones from Apple itself that are part of the operating system) into your own user area.

In other words, let's say your user name is Feetlebomp, click on your Feetlebomp folder (on the left in the hard disk folder when you double-click on the hard disk to open it on your desktop (in Finder).

Now create a new folder inside the Feetlebomp folder (by clicking Command-shift-n) and call it Applications.

You now have two Applications folders - the one in your Hard Disk, where all the operating system stuff goes, and the one in your Feetlebomp folder.

When you want to install an app here, you usually just drag the app's icon into this folder.

When Apple people are talking about installing here, they refer to it as ~/Applications (with the tilde before it) as opposed to Applications with no tilde.

Sometimes an app will insist on installing itself into the hard drive; just drag it out and into your ~/Applications folder.

This apparently makes your machine run cleaner and faster.

You might like to try a cleanup application called Onyx, which is free and I'm told is very good - I use another cleaner-upper, but have heard from five separate sources that Onyx is great. Haven't used it myself, though.

condra

Will do. Cheers for the tip.

I was gonna partition the hard drive but it seems it is supposed to be done when u install the OS, Ive just spent hours porting over lots of files etc so Ill leave it. No big deal tho.

Im finding myself wanting widgets. hehe. They just look so kool.

Asiaprod

womoma wrote:

Will do. Cheers for the tip.
Im finding myself wanting widgets. hehe. They just look so kool.

Welcome to Mac World.
Seriously, widgets are fun and before long you will have so many interesting things to play with that 512 RAM will not be enough. I would strongly recommend that the next time you get some money to spare you invest in more RAM. I am a mac user now for more than 20 years and RAM is essential to having a happy mac

condra

Cheers man.

The learning curve isnt actually as steep as I expected. Everythings very intuative.

As much as I wanna get a flat monitor [im using a huge old dell CRT] , next time I get some cash Im headin to Crucual for sum memory.
That reminds me, AFIK theres 4 slots on this machine. Would that mean theres 2x256 or 1x 512 already?
Someone mentioned having to use matched pairs- is this true? Would it mean that I would have to get say, 3 more 512s for example?

God Im such a mac noob. heheh.

Anyways, yeah so far Im very impressed.

Are there any essential sites or downloads for mac users?

Im using Opera for my browser and I love it. I got vlc player, Limewire, yahoo messenger.. so its starting to feel more familiar. Installing stuff is such a breeze. as is downloading the updates.. and not having a firewall running feels great!

babypink

welcome welcome welcome! always love a convert :-) yeah i'd buy more ram asap. It'll make all the difference to you, especially once you get tiger going.

Macupdate.com is a must to keep track of software updates etc etc.

Ruaidhri

Welcome to a much nicer OS!
OK that aside, you can figure out how many memory slots are being used by "system profiler" ( Open Finder, Click Applications, Click Utilities, Then Open System Profiler ).
I dont think matched memory pairs are needed tbh, it IS DIMM memory after all.

There is a very good text editor called SubEthaEdit if you need that kind of thing.

If you intend to burn BIN / CUE's get a program called "missingmediaburner".

If you feel lonely for the old days, you can fire up Internet Explorer, or use Virtual PC to boot windows. check out microsoft's mac page at http://www.microsoft.com/mac . there is a demo for MS office 2004 on it.

K.O.Kiki

babypink wrote:

welcome welcome welcome! always love a convert :-) yeah i'd buy more ram asap. It'll make all the difference to you, especially once you get tiger going.

Macupdate.com is a must to keep track of software updates etc etc.

But didn't we agree that the HDD can be a bottleneck as well? At least, if they're 4200rpms...

luckat

versiontracker.com is the traditional Mac download place, but it's been acting up on me lately.

condra

cheers guys.

Hugh_C

womoma wrote:

.. and not having a firewall running feels great!

uhh, you do. It's buit into the OS.

http://www.macosxhints.com is a good place for non-newbies.

(She'll definitely visit so...)

Hugh_C

luckat wrote:

Incidentally, always install new apps (apart from ones from Apple itself that are part of the operating system) into your own user area.

snip

This apparently makes your machine run cleaner and faster.

Huh?

I can't agree with this piece of advice, nor can I find any advice to do this on any of the mac sites I frequent (lots). Can you provide any URLs for this tip?

Many Applications insist on being installed out at /Applications (rather than ~/Applications). Installing them elsewhere can be asking for trouble.

whippet

womoma wrote:

That reminds me, AFIK theres 4 slots on this machine. Would that mean theres 2x256 or 1x 512 already?
Someone mentioned having to use matched pairs- is this true? Would it mean that I would have to get say, 3 more 512s for example?

It has 4 slots, 2 banks of 2. Installed RAM would be 2x256MB. Max RAM is 4GB (4 x 1GB) of PC3200 Ram. It does have to be installed in pairs aswell. A 1GB Kit (2x512MB) of Kingston RAM would set you back about €200.

condra

Thanks guys.

Yeah the learning curve is pretty much horizontal. Its so easy to get used to using, OS X, already I cant imagine using Windows again, not that there's anything wrong with Windows, but Ive just gotten used to OS X so quickly.

Browsing folders is a dream, previewing wavs files is possible within the browser [which is handy for a muzo like myself], changing icons is childsplay and toggling with multiple apps is dead easy.

So eh yeah Im happy as Larry with my lovely big silver box.

condra

Oh yeah one more thing. I removed the side panel and had a gander inside, It seems there are 2 banks of 4.

Lets say I get 2x256 ram, will the 2x256 thats in it still work in the machine, or do I just replace them. I mean I know ram is to be paired, but if you have 4 sticks in, do they all have to be the same value?

Gigiwagga

Hey Womoma you have a G5 Dual 1.8Ghz right ?. Do you find it makes strange squealing noises when you do graphically intensively tasks I sure do. since the Tiger upgrade, and as yet with 10.4.3 still no improvement which is pretty lame on Apples behalf. I love using my G5 (OK I like my G5) but I find Apples treatment of their users is pathetic. At the moment they're more interested in shifting more and more ipod units so f**k everyone else. Beeping and Squealing, how does your machine rate ??

zAbbo

whippet wrote:

It has 4 slots, 2 banks of 2. Installed RAM would be 2x256MB. Max RAM is 4GB (4 x 1GB) of PC3200 Ram. It does have to be installed in pairs aswell. A 1GB Kit (2x512MB) of Kingston RAM would set you back about €200.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/memselect.asp?cmd=getModelPartList&strMfr=Apple&strProdLine=Power+Mac&strModel=Power+Mac+G5+%28Single+1.8GHz+DDR%29

Could go as cheap as 109 quid for some crucial stuff, Ive a gig of the ballistix myself in a imac g5

Afaik even if you got 2 new fast sticks of ram, they would still run at the lowest speed of the 4 sticks? corret me if im wrong

whippet

bazH wrote:

Afaik even if you got 2 new fast sticks of ram, they would still run at the lowest speed of the 4 sticks? corret me if im wrong

you are correct alright

maccor

hughchal wrote:

uhh, you do. It's buit into the OS.

http://www.macosxhints.com is a good place for non-newbies.

(She'll definitely visit so...)

isnt womoma a man?

condra

womoma is a boy

zAbbo

you keep telling yourself that