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colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
so i'm finally thinking of buying a mac smile

i'm looking at an imac g4 (1.25ghz) with a 17" screen:


Non-Https Image Link


i'll be using it for layout and graphics mainly (running quark and adobe cs2) but would like it to completely replace my pc if at all possible.

i currently use my pc for video editing, watching videos, watching dvd's, playing music and browsing the net, so i don't think a g4 should have any problems doing all that stuff!

the problem is, the last time i used a mac was in 1997 so its safe to say i don't know that much about them...

will i need to look out for one with a hardcore video card if i want to edit video?
how much memory is sufficient to run say illustrator and quark at the same time with a few files loaded?
how easy would it be to replace the hard drive with a larger one?
can i convert my current hard drive to a usb external drive and use it?
will pc peripherals work with a mac (hp scanner, sandisk card reader, svga monitor/projector)?
how much cooler will my ipod look next to an imac? wink
should i keep my pc anyway cos all my friends have them and its easier to have one around than mess about converting files?
can i get good thirdparty software for free like firefox and thunderbird, a download manager, anti-spy/adware, virus checkers and a multi-region dvd player hack so i can play any dvd form any region (this one is *really* important for me)?


i'd also like some general advice please, especially anything important that i should look out for when buying a mac.

if anyone has any experiences that they'd like to share of going from using a pc to using a mac as their main home computer, i'd love to hear about them too.


cheers,


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

Pen DravenUnofficial Lord Of Confusion And Pirate Extrodinaire
1,363 posts
Location: Nuneaton

Posted:
Nx? Going to go utterly off topic,, but just noticed Kallisti in your sig biggrin

Hail Eris

Some men see things and say why....

I Dream of things that never were and say Why Not....?

Oh No I'm going to get Shot Alive if he finds out - DA wink

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
biggrin

i'm reading this right now:


Non-Https Image Link


biggrin ubblove biggrin


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

Pen DravenUnofficial Lord Of Confusion And Pirate Extrodinaire
1,363 posts
Location: Nuneaton

Posted:
Oh Hell !!!! When did that come out,, and its volume 2 so there must be a volume 1... I missed it... bad pen... BAD BAD!!! Awww and paydays not til the 15th...

I take it you've read the Illuminartus trilogy biggrin

I'm so sad,, when i Finally get my next tatt it'll be a stylized version of the Sacred Chow

And sorry for utterly helping to derail the topic.. although... still got Apples in it right ubblol

Some men see things and say why....

I Dream of things that never were and say Why Not....?

Oh No I'm going to get Shot Alive if he finds out - DA wink

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
mate, any excuse to talk about mr wilson is fine by me biggrin

there's a queue of three people reading my copy of the first volume in that trilogy - it was written back in the seventies but was only recently reprinted - when the others are done, i'll check back and if ya still haven't read it, i'll post it on to you smile


back on topic, i've been looking for an old airport card (the old 802.11b one) for a g3 ibook.

they're turning out to be ridiculously expensive and so thought i'd ask here to see if anyone knew where i could get one for a more reasonable price...?

they're currently going on ebay for around £70 - which is £20 more than i paid for the ibook itself!

i think a sensible price is somewhere around the £20 mark so if any of you's lot know a better direction in which to look, please feel free to point me in it smile


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

Pen DravenUnofficial Lord Of Confusion And Pirate Extrodinaire
1,363 posts
Location: Nuneaton

Posted:
yeah,, i know people looking all over for the old cards,, I've pretty much been telling people to skip it as they are stupidly expensive now and to just get one of the usb adaptors,, yeah they aren't built in,, but hell you get a g card and its only 20 quid or so....

Some men see things and say why....

I Dream of things that never were and say Why Not....?

Oh No I'm going to get Shot Alive if he finds out - DA wink

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
ditto a pain because they might get knocked, but faster and cheeper.

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
you mean i can just use something like this instead?
if that's the case, i'll be pleased as punch biggrin
will the old ibook's be able to use it (they can't use the newer airport express cards which are g) and if they can, will they just work at b speed or will they be able to go up to g speed...?

thank-yous for your help guys hug hug
its serioiusly good to have you friendly neighbourhood apple goo-roos around biggrin

i set up the wireless network last night which was the easiest thing ever thanks to apple's airport setup assistant.

however, now bittorrent doesn't like me and i have to find out how to forward an incoming tcp port (cos i'm using a router now)...

i ubblove computers


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

ado-pGOLD Member
Pirate Ninja
3,882 posts
Location: Galway/Ireland

Posted:
Try this place

https://www.portforward.com/

Love is the law.

Pen DravenUnofficial Lord Of Confusion And Pirate Extrodinaire
1,363 posts
Location: Nuneaton

Posted:
you 'should' be able to use a belkin one yes,, although I'd have a quick scout about the net to make sure it either doesn't need drivers or that if it does the drivers are lurking about,, but I'm pretty sure we've just plugged one into some of the 10.4 macs here and it went 'hello,, lets rock'

And as its usb it shouldn't matter hugely,, but then again I'm trying to remember the usb/1 bus speed... errr I'll defer to others on that one as my brains creaking with lack of tea...

Some men see things and say why....

I Dream of things that never were and say Why Not....?

Oh No I'm going to get Shot Alive if he finds out - DA wink

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
thanks ado, that site rocks! hug

and cheers nik hug

this page not only told me that the belkin stick works (and works at the higher speed g to boot), but also gives a nice little diy tutorial on how to make a cheap airport card replacement biggrin


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

ado-pGOLD Member
Pirate Ninja
3,882 posts
Location: Galway/Ireland

Posted:
No worries

I moved house this week and finally found my installation cd. Did a quick and very conveniant reinstall and bobs your uncle. All settings and files in good working order.

I also got a windows xp cd.

What do you guys think of the dual boot options? parralels or bootcamp?

Love is the law.

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
*waits for cole to say parralels*

*agrees*

smile

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

Pen DravenUnofficial Lord Of Confusion And Pirate Extrodinaire
1,363 posts
Location: Nuneaton

Posted:
biggrin Finally convinced the boss that we needed a stacked out Mac Pro as a test machine {Bounces} should be here soon !!!

Some men see things and say why....

I Dream of things that never were and say Why Not....?

Oh No I'm going to get Shot Alive if he finds out - DA wink

ado-pGOLD Member
Pirate Ninja
3,882 posts
Location: Galway/Ireland

Posted:
it looks good, but the info on the site is a little sparse...

and it costs money.. which i dont object too really, but.... it does say it runs windows at 'almost native speed...

so...

I want to run graphics heavy games basicly...

Love is the law.

Pen DravenUnofficial Lord Of Confusion And Pirate Extrodinaire
1,363 posts
Location: Nuneaton

Posted:
ado-p,, from what I've heard.... the best thing to do at the minute if you want to run heavy graphics games is probably the dual boot option,, i know its what I'd do for now if i had the option

Some men see things and say why....

I Dream of things that never were and say Why Not....?

Oh No I'm going to get Shot Alive if he finds out - DA wink

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
yepyep smile ^ what sym said ^



parallels rocks - did you watch the parallels example video aiden?

compare with this one of boot camp smile



so i finally got hold of an ac adapter and installed os x (10.3) on the old ibooks last night biggrin

then i realised that i couldn't get the one with an airport card to connect to the airport network in my house and got very frustrated frown



in trying to fix this (by removing all passwords and encyption options) i broke the network completely - airport said it worked but nothing would connect and when i got the imac to reconnect, the internet wouldn't work ubbcrying



so i managed to fix that (with lots of trial, error and computer/router/modem restarts) and so am back where i was again - an airport network with one computer (the imac) connected and an ibook that can see the network but refuses to accept that its allowed to connect to it confused



the specific problem is:

airport set up and corresponding network created on the imac.

this network is password protected.

when i attempt to connect the ibook to the network, i type in the correct password but it is not accpeted.

i try removing all passwords but it doesn't make any difference (the ibook still thinks it requires a password for the network) and annoyingly, removing the passwords seems to cause the network to break.



i can feel another one of those hour and a half calls to applecare coming on already... frown



i don't want to go back and install 10.4 really as i'm sure i should be able to get this network running without all the computers on the same version of os x.



i also need to find a new battery (only about £40 on ebay) and maybe a dvd drive too if i can find one - macs are slowly but surely taking over my life, but i think i like it... ubbloco biggrin ubblove tongue





cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

[Nx?]BRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,750 posts
Location: Europe,Scotland,Both

Posted:
when you put in the WEP key (password) you need to preface it with a '$' sighn....

other than that.... dunno???

lol,

T wave

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
Cole, do you have MAC address filtering on? You should keep it on, and just add the MAC address of the network card you are connecting with.

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
tom - cheers, that may be exactly what i needed to know hug
although if that does the job, i'll be pissed cos i couldn't find that information anywhere in the help files.
incidentally, where did you find that out...?

sym - thank-you hug
i know what MAC filtering does but i have no idea where i'd turn it on or how i would find out the MAC addresses of the cards in my imac and ibooks.
off to google those words now... smile


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
Yeah, I could talk you though it, but I assumed you could google as well as I can wink

hug

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
so i had a look around the net (including the apple forums).
i didn't find a problem identical to mine but many bits people have experienced very similar things.
there are myriad problems with setting up airport it seems.

i reckon these problems are mainly due to people trying to set it up with absolutely no knowledge of how wireless networks operate and what all the different options apply to and affect.

not to mention the fact that ip address allocation is confusing as f*ck and when you've got a cable modem, you;re never sure when you might need to restart it and when you're not

which is pretty much describes my situation to a t ubblol

it seems that this stuff cannot be made idiot proof so it seems to me that the best way around it is to spend some time bothering to understand it.

i printed out [url=https://images.apple.com/airport/pdf/DesigningAirPortNets-022-1036.pdf#search="designing%20airport%20networks"]this guide[/url] and will have a bit of a read (after trying yours and tom's tips).

its very annoying though that the problems occur randomly when changing basic network options:
remove passwords, network breaks - use passwords, network refuses access to certain machines - try different password format, get angry cos it won't work whatever i do and i don't understand what i need to change to make it better...

meditate


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

[Nx?]BRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,750 posts
Location: Europe,Scotland,Both

Posted:
<---- used to be a adsl router helpdesk, remeber?

T wave

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti

LoewanBRONZE Member
and behold!
464 posts
Location: Liverpool, United Kingdom

Posted:
 Written by: coleman


tom - cheers, that may be exactly what i needed to know hug
although if that does the job, i'll be pissed cos i couldn't find that information anywhere in the help files.
incidentally, where did you find that out...?

sym - thank-you hug
i know what MAC filtering does but i have no idea where i'd turn it on or how i would find out the MAC addresses of the cards in my imac and ibooks.
off to google those words now... smile


cole. x



The MAC address should be written on the label of your wireless card. I am not sure how your router works but with mine, I could switch the MAC filter off, connect all my computers. All the computers info will be on display so I can just add them to the MAC filter list before switching the MAC filter back on.

Why let your body be a temple? When it can be a theme park?

Wii Console Number: 3294 0297 7824 7498

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
cheers lowan - google revealed all... biggrin

network was up and running within about an hour of getting home on friday.

i have no idea what i did different but i think it was tom's '$' that did the job:
i changed all the security to wep, typed in passwords (with and without dollar signs) and at some point it all just started working biggrin
i think i typed a dollar in front of the password for the router as i definitely don't need one in front of the password when connecting to the network.

whatever, thank-you everyone for your advice on friday - i had gotten a little bit stressed with it and the posts here not only helped fix the problem but chilled me out beforehand too grouphug


next topic: where/how would i find someone with an old copy of photoshop 7 for the mac that i can 'buy'...?


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

[Nx?]BRONZE Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,750 posts
Location: Europe,Scotland,Both

Posted:
hotline..... ?

T wave

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti

ado-pGOLD Member
Pirate Ninja
3,882 posts
Location: Galway/Ireland

Posted:
Wow, I called up apple today to complain that the wireless mighty mouse i recieved had no scroll ball on it... I expected them to say, 'Sorry sir, but thats the package you ordered' and have to fight a bit for it...

but no,

They said, 'Sorry sir, Can you give us an address to post you a new one..?'

Deadly.

Love is the law.

LoewanBRONZE Member
and behold!
464 posts
Location: Liverpool, United Kingdom

Posted:
 Written by: coleman

next topic: where/how would i find someone with an old copy of photoshop 7 for the mac that i can 'buy'...?


cole. x



You can get PS:CS off bittorrent.

Anyone got a good BT client they would recommend? I am using Azureus right now and its quite a system drain.

I have just been to the Apple Store in Trafford Centre. I can't believe how good the new MacBooks are! Nippy buggers they are! ubblove

Why let your body be a temple? When it can be a theme park?

Wii Console Number: 3294 0297 7824 7498

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
i can indeed mr lowan but a 600mhz ibook will only really run v.7 at anything approaching an acceptable speed and no-one seems to have it...

can't find a copy on hotline either frown

there's legit copies still going on ebay for about £70 eek


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

ado-pGOLD Member
Pirate Ninja
3,882 posts
Location: Galway/Ireland

Posted:
Bootcamp tonight. Crosses Fingers.

Cole, i think you've gone to far.. come back... COLE!!!!! Come back...

Damn, its too late... Coles gone mac...

Love is the law.

colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom

Posted:
AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaarrrrghhhhhhh... .. .. . .


cole. x

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood

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