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After 2 days with my New Imac!

T

tapyouout

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 13, 2008
8
0
Hi all..... been a lurker here on the boards for the better part of a month now and I must say the info here is fantastic! I finally took the plunge in purchasing my first ever Apple! Turned in the PC for a lot of the same reasons people here have.... tired of Vista among many other things! I went with the 20" 2.4 Imac with a 500 GB HD and installed 4 GB of RAM from OWC myself. I picked up a Time Capsule as well for my main router and back up. I know there's plenty of these type of threads cluttered around, however after 2 days of use I wanted to post up my general feeling on the Imac so far. These type of threads were very helpful for me when I was deciding on whether to buy a mac or not.... so I thought I would add a little more insight from a "newbie".

The Imac is amazing, the machine worked right out of the box and I had strong reservations about making the switch as I have used Windows exclusively the last 10 years. I wonder what took so long to make the switch! My wife loves the machine so far as well..... Still picking up on the Leopard OS, but it is so MUCH better to navigate! I just love the feel, look and ease of using Leopard. I know I'll go through some growing pains trying to figure all the nuances out of this OS, BUT already I love it.... if thats possible, lol!! Hopefully its not just something "new" and the effects wear off. My Imac is SUPER fast and the fastest CPU I've owned yet! Very easy set up, just plug it in and go.... the one grip I have is trying to get use to the Mighty Mouse. May have to get a different mouse eventually.

Anyhow..... I know this thread doesn't have a lot of details, but this is off 2 days of limited use and I am just plain amazed and happy about my Imac!! It does just work. So for anybody contemplating buying a Mac, especially ones who are new to the world of Apple.... its actually a much smoother transition than you know!

One question I have for regulars is if the Safari Browser is the best option for the Mac? I like it, but I've read lots of different things on Fire Fox or Safari. Also.... I cant for the life of me figure out how to arrange my bookmarks in alphabetical order in the Safari web browser. Can someone help? Or is it not possible to arrange by name? So many other questions I will have..... again awesome board here!!! Thanks in advance guys :)
 
Good, welcome to the club :)

Try FireFox and Safari, use 1 one day and the other the next. I loved Safari and then FireFox beta3 came out, It's what I use. Weird, but up to you.
 
Congrats on the new Mac :)

About your Safari bookmarks:
Click on the little icon that looks like an open book in Safari. It's underneath the back button and to the left of your bookmark bar. For both the bar and menu, you'll have to alphabetize it manually by dragging it to where you want it. I place mine in order of use; makes things a little easier.

And try both browsers. I like Safari personally. I used FireFox on my PC but when I got my Mac, I just fell into sync with Safari and haven't switched from it.

Enjoy your :apple: :D
 
i personally use safari
thats what i got used to when i first got my mac
other browsers just dont seem right now
as for alphabetizing you have to manually do that by dragging them around
 
congrats and welcome to Macintosh! :)

i use Safari as i like its interface and seems to fit into OS X better than Firefox does. i use Safari in OS X and Firefox on Windows and IE7 in Windows using Fusion for sites that only work properly in IE.

do you want to sort the bookmarks menu or the bookmark toolbar alphabetically? to sort the bookmarks menu click on "Bookmarks" in the menu bar and click "Sort Bookmarks". to sort the toolbar just drag them around.

do you have anymore questions? if so dont hesitate to ask
 
congrats for your new computer, I also say try out both browsers, but obviously I prefer firefox, especially firefox 3 beta5.

You can find some introductions of firefox 3 follow the links in my signature. :)
 
Congratulations on the purchase and welcome to club :apple:

My iMac- the entry-level model now with 4GB of Crucial RAM- will be two weeks old tomorrow and I absolutely love this machine.

I'm 1000 times more settled with OS X now and feel more confident with it overall. My biggest problem is keyboard shortcuts- at work I keep going to use them on the horrid Windows boxes we use :p

Can't really comment on Safari or Firefox- I used Opera always on PC's and continue to do so on my Mac.
 
You'll know Leopard like the back of your hand in about two weeks. I personally like safari, because I don't need any special features that Firefox might have and the Safari interface isn't as bulky (it's minimalistic and clean).
 
Firexfox is better if you use add-ons, there are a few add-ons that I can't live without. I noticed that gmail, which I use often, runs a bit faster in safari, so usually I use safari for that. Not sure how firefox 3 would perform.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys! Yeah I think I'll check out Fire Fox, however there may not be a need to as Safari has been fine. I'm just concerned about surfing the web. One question about Mac Mail.... Will it configure with any mail client. Specifically AOL? If so is it worth it to even set up and can you set up multiple e-mail screen names? Another quick question I have is, we communicate with family out of town alot especially using the webcam from the old PC, mostly through MSN Messenger. However I noticed MSN for Mac doesnt support video. I realize we can go through IChat with a AIM name and do it that way, but was wondering if there was any better video chat options for the mac? I searched around cant find to much..... also using IChat the sound doesnt work real well.... maybe I dont have it set up right though. Anybody experience sound issues with IChat? I would like to keep MSN as most of my IM people are through that client.... anyhow enough questions thanks in advance for replies!
 
Welcome to the world of Macs. Your observations on the screen quality and viewing angle would be helpful to the many lurkers here who see so many posts about issues with this on the 20". I suspect your are happy with yours, and it would be good for the community to see that this experience is more commonplace than would be suggested by the posts on the forum.
 
tapyouout said:
Thanks for all the replies guys! Yeah I think I'll check out Fire Fox, however there may not be a need to as Safari has been fine. I'm just concerned about surfing the web. One question about Mac Mail.... Will it configure with any mail client. Specifically AOL? If so is it worth it to even set up and can you set up multiple e-mail screen names? Another quick question I have is, we communicate with family out of town alot especially using the webcam from the old PC, mostly through MSN Messenger. However I noticed MSN for Mac doesnt support video. I realize we can go through IChat with a AIM name and do it that way, but was wondering if there was any better video chat options for the mac? I searched around cant find to much..... also using IChat the sound doesnt work real well.... maybe I dont have it set up right though. Anybody experience sound issues with IChat? I would like to keep MSN as most of my IM people are through that client.... anyhow enough questions thanks in advance for replies!
Click to expand...

I use Mercury Messenger as my MSN client. It has many features that Windows Live Messenger has and it's pretty customizable but it's a little bit complicated to set up. It has webcam support but I don't think it has such good (if any) audio support.

You might also want to check out Adium and aMSN.

I'd also have to recommend the Firefox 3 beta. Right now, it's at beta 5 and it's pretty stable.
 
czachorski said:
Welcome to the world of Macs. Your observations on the screen quality and viewing angle would be helpful to the many lurkers here who see so many posts about issues with this on the 20". I suspect your are happy with yours, and it would be good for the community to see that this experience is more commonplace than would be suggested by the posts on the forum.
Click to expand...

I read plenty on these boards about the screen of the 20" Macs, and was abrehensive about getting one. However after a few trips to the apple store and other searches I decided to get the 20" monitor (24" was to big). I dont have any complaints about the screen, yet. So far its fantastic and everything is very crisp and clear. I was looking at some pictures from my camera yesterday and they seemed to look very good. Put it this way... I havent noticed anything wrong or with the screen, it hasnt caused me to question its quality. This is also coming from a casual user of the Imac......
 
tapyouout said:
I read plenty on these boards about the screen of the 20" Macs, and was abrehensive about getting one. However after a few trips to the apple store and other searches I decided to get the 20" monitor (24" was to big). I dont have any complaints about the screen, yet. So far its fantastic and everything is very crisp and clear. I was looking at some pictures from my camera yesterday and they seemed to look very good. Put it this way... I havent noticed anything wrong or with the screen, it hasnt caused me to question its quality. This is also coming from a casual user of the Imac......
Click to expand...

Same here. I bought the entry level 20" w/ 4GB added on my own. I think the quality of the display is excellent [vs. any comparable Windows PC]. It's crisp and clean looking. As is the iMac in terms of performance. Everything opens quickly, and easily...
 
tapyouout said:
Thanks for all the replies guys! Yeah I think I'll check out Fire Fox, however there may not be a need to as Safari has been fine. I'm just concerned about surfing the web. One question about Mac Mail.... Will it configure with any mail client. Specifically AOL? If so is it worth it to even set up and can you set up multiple e-mail screen names? Another quick question I have is, we communicate with family out of town alot especially using the web cam from the old PC, mostly through MSN Messenger. However I noticed MSN for Mac doesn't support video. I realize we can go through IChat with a AIM name and do it that way, but was wondering if there was any better video chat options for the mac? I searched around cant find to much..... also using IChat the sound doesnt work real well.... maybe I dont have it set up right though. Anybody experience sound issues with IChat? I would like to keep MSN as most of my IM people are through that client.... anyhow enough questions thanks in advance for replies!
Click to expand...

If you want a video and audio client for the mac that works wonders on both PC and Mac's I personally would suggest Skype. It works great I use it everyday while playing WoW, and talking in a conference with 5 friends at a time never have any issues. The video conference on it also works great too, I think allot of people sleep on Skype on the Mac and how powerful and easy it is to use, and best of all it's free.
 
I give a second vote for Skype. Simply the best Free IM Voice conferencing tool i have ever used. Have not tried the Video yet but will be shortly.
 
I *want* to use skype, but hardly anyone over here uses it (in the UK). We have special software for video conferences so no need but 1-2-1 would be brill. I have yet to find a microphone that would work though, I bought a logitech jobby, didn't work.
 
tapyouout said:
The Imac is amazing, the machine worked right out of the box and I had strong reservations about making the switch as I have used Windows exclusively the last 10 years. I wonder what took so long to make the switch! :)
Click to expand...

I felt the same way when I got my first iMac last August. Glad you like it.:D
 
EvanLugh said:
I *want* to use skype, but hardly anyone over here uses it (in the UK). We have special software for video conferences so no need but 1-2-1 would be brill. I have yet to find a microphone that would work though, I bought a logitech jobby, didn't work.
Click to expand...

The Logitech USB headset I have works great and also the built in Mic works without a problem in skype. You just have to select your input and output source.
 
tapyouout said:
I read plenty on these boards about the screen of the 20" Macs, and was abrehensive about getting one. However after a few trips to the apple store and other searches I decided to get the 20" monitor (24" was to big). I dont have any complaints about the screen, yet. So far its fantastic and everything is very crisp and clear. I was looking at some pictures from my camera yesterday and they seemed to look very good. Put it this way... I havent noticed anything wrong or with the screen, it hasnt caused me to question its quality. This is also coming from a casual user of the Imac......
Click to expand...

Cool - good to hear. Enjoy!
 
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