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First things to do with new iMac

B

benjiP

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 7, 2003
9
0
Hi All.

Just got my new 20" AL iMac - my first mac and am looking forward to a hassle-free experience (though it froze already on first boot!).

Anyway, I'm sure that was a one-off, so, being totally new to mac, I'd love to know what you suggest I should do / install / set up on this new system.

For example, would you recommend Firefox over Safari?

Really grateful for your suggestions. Thanks in advance!
 
benjiP said:
For example, would you recommend Firefox over Safari?
Click to expand...

Can of worms right there. Personal preference really.

I would install Perian and flip4Mac (not you will need the Leopard beta version)

I always set up Expose, Hot corners, and Spaces when I get a new machine. Dig around system preference to get the machine set up how you want.
 
If you're heavy into storage and plan to use a lot of your drive space, a custom install of OS X to remove unwanted language files and printer drivers can be helpful.

Oh, and it's been recommended before that if it's a shared computer, set up one master admin account, and then as many regular user accounts as there are users. Then, the users should only need to use their user account, and you can keep the password protected admin account for tinkering and troubleshooting.
 
The first thing I'd do would be to install a decent operating system (ie, Tiger). Besides that, I'd pick Firefox over Safari, hands-down. Firefox is, IMO, the best browser available on either platform (Windows/OS X).
 
I'm 2 weeks into having my iMac -

First things I did included:

0) Read the sticky "New Switcher" threads in this forum (assume you have done this)
1) Upgrade the RAM (4Gb from OWC for $150)
2) Used iPhoto to import my pics from previous PC machine
3) Used iTunes to import my music
4) Installed Neo Office (open source version of OpenOffice that runs natively on OS X)
5) Installed Firefox
6) Got an external hard drive for backups (I got one from OWC) and purchased SuperDuper to compliment Time Machine (I posted my backup strategy in another forum http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87983).
7) Started removing/adding applications from the Dock
8) Play with the dashboard - ability to clip a part of a web page and create your own widget in Safari is pretty neat.

Amazing how much nicer the iMac and OS X is to work on compared to my PC - just the interface improvements alone (not to mention that it has "just worked" for me) were worth the extra $$.

Enjoy!
 
I have had my Imac for a few days now :). One of the first things I did was transfer all of my music, photos and documents from my old windows PC to my Imac. Get Flash fxp installed on your old PC, put in your imac's IP and just drag and drop the files you want. It really is a breeze.
 
Hug it
Lick it
Love it.

Wait are we talking about a computer? I lost my train of thought. :)
 
install Inquisitor, i mean download it get limewire, safari over firefox, download TubeTV so u can download vids from youtube in a single click, download Nighty Night widget so you can have just the screen shutdown, ideal for big downloads, enjoy!
 
benjiP said:
Hi All.

Just got my new 20" AL iMac - my first mac and am looking forward to a hassle-free experience (though it froze already on first boot!).

Anyway, I'm sure that was a one-off, so, being totally new to mac, I'd love to know what you suggest I should do / install / set up on this new system.

For example, would you recommend Firefox over Safari?

Really grateful for your suggestions. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

1. If Leopard is not installed install it. (Lots of posts concerning issues with tiger.)

2. Reboot and setup your admin account.

3. Register your iMac with Apple

4. Download all new upgrades to OS and assorted software.

5. Repair and Verify Permissions with Disk Utility, (Utilities Folder in Applications).

6. Add any and all programs, songs, vids you want.

Then enjoy your new iMac!
 
Thank you all very, very much for great responses. This forum is a fantastic resource.

I've decided I'm going to play around with system from here till the New Year, then wipe re-install and start for real. I say that because I'm already changing stuff I maybe should be on a primary system - for example, I deleted the downloads stack from the dock yesterday - mistakenly. I'm sure this is easy to rectify, but at least there's no problem this time...

Thanks again and keep those suggestions coming...

Ooh, another Q. Listening to BBC radio via the internet - it asks me to install Windows Media Player (I don't think so!) or RealPlayer. Can QuickTime not handle this??!
 
I'd go for safari over firefox, at least on leopard. It's quicker, and looks better. The only downside really is the lack of plugins - although the only big one for me was adblock, and safariblock works well enough.

The bbc only use windows media and real player, they don't support quicktime or anything else so I'm afraid it's one of those or nothing. At least realplayer on the mac doesn't try to take over the whole computer like it does on windows (or at least, last time I tried it it didn't!
 
benjiP said:
Thank you all very, very much for great responses. This forum is a fantastic resource.

I've decided I'm going to play around with system from here till the New Year, then wipe re-install and start for real. I say that because I'm already changing stuff I maybe should be on a primary system - for example, I deleted the downloads stack from the dock yesterday - mistakenly. I'm sure this is easy to rectify, but at least there's no problem this time...

Thanks again and keep those suggestions coming...

Ooh, another Q. Listening to BBC radio via the internet - it asks me to install Windows Media Player (I don't think so!) or RealPlayer. Can QuickTime not handle this??!
Click to expand...

FYI to get the downloads stack back or any stack navigate to the folder ~/Downloads (in case you don't know what ~ means, you will come across it a lot these forums it is shorthand for for user home i.e it means "/Users/yourusername/Downloads") and drag it to the dock.

I recommend using this widget for listening to BBC radio. Unfortunately also needs real player installed. You will have "Windows media player" installed if you installed Flip4Mac - this enables QT to handle windows media files and is actually promoted by MS as they stopped releasing window media player for mac.
 
First thing I did, I reinstalled OS X and left out many language packages and printer drivers. After the initial reinstall, I went through the system settings and customized almost everything to what I wanted :)

jessica. said:
Hug it
Lick it
Love it.

Wait are we talking about a computer? I lost my train of thought. :)
Click to expand...

I'M A NEW COMPUTER! :eek:
 
phillipjfry said:
First thing I did, I reinstalled OS X and left out many language packages and printer drivers. After the initial reinstall, I went through the system settings and customized almost everything to what I wanted :)

I'M A NEW COMPUTER! :eek:
Click to expand...

How much space do you save by not installing excess language packages, and printer drivers? That is something I might consider doing.

Enjoy your new Mac, you are going to love it. I so loved my new 24" 2.4 iMac, that I had to get me a 13.3" 2.2 Blackbook to go with it. :)
 
I like to stick my head in the box and huff the 'new computer' smell for a few minutes. ..... mmmm ... oh


Personally I like to do a clean install of the OS without all of the printer drivers and languages that I won't use. I also install the Developer Tools and the X11 subsystem.

After setting up my account and connecting to the wireless I download:
Firefox, Quicksilver, VLC, mplayer, Handbrake, Temperature monitor, textmate, perian, flip4mac, chicken of the VNC, growl, geektool, adium, the MS remote desktop client, and .... i guess thats about it.
 
Bobioden said:
How much space do you save by not installing excess language packages, and printer drivers? That is something I might consider doing.

Enjoy your new Mac, you are going to love it. I so loved my new 24" 2.4 iMac, that I had to get me a 13.3" 2.2 Blackbook to go with it. :)
Click to expand...

A lot (~3-5GB)

You don't have to do a complete reinstall to gain this space back (although with a brand new computer it is what I always do)

To remove unwanted language packages use monolingual (do not remove any input menus or architectures which are checked by default)

To remove printer drivers have a look here /Library/Printers
With Leopard if you ever need a printer driver you can just run software update and it will download the driver for you (haven't done this myself but it is a feature and others have said that it works). If that doesn't work you can spend about 2 minutes finding the driver on the manufactures website no biggie.

You can also remove things like garageband if you aren't planning on using it that will save you another 2GB.
 
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