Ordered a New 20" iMac

Enjoy - That looks like a awesome machine. I love my Rev A iMac G5 (switched 10 months ago), and this machine looks better in almost every way!

As far as must-have programs, that depends a little bit on what you use it for. One app I'd recommend for anyone is Toast though. Beyond that, what do you want to do with your Mac?

Are you trying to find any Mac equivalents of Windows programs you currently use?

Uma888 said:

Hello. I just ordered My first Mac

I got the 20" with 500gb HDD

ETA is 5-7weeks

Is there anything i should prepare for before i (finally) get my mac?

like applications ect?

Is there anything unexpected i should expect?

(Ram will be upgraded asap, since i wont be paying £900 for 2.5gb from apple)

Anyone else orderd any of the new imac?

A few Questions:

Does Quicktime support .avi files? are codecs avaiable? or do i have to resort to Mplayer?

What applications are a MUST?

Thanks for your help in advance

PS: After being a member of this site for a few months, id like to thanks the ocmmunity for all its support to mac n00bs like me

Click to expand...

Excellent choice. 5-7 weeks is a long wait but it will be worth it. I ordered an iMac a while back so I missed out on the updated ones but mine does it's job better then I thought it would so I'm still happy.

The first thing you'll want to do it upgrade it's RAM but you already know that so that's good.

Quicktime does play most .avi files although I have come across a few that haven't worked. It's good to have VLC media player which plays just about any type of file.

Another app you may want to check out is Adium. If you use AIM a lot of people prefer this over iChat although I like iChat for video conferencing.

Well to the Mac world, I know you'll enjoy it.

Uma888 said:

...Anyone else orderd any of the new imac?

Click to expand...

Ordered my 17inch std yesterday, should be shipped before 20th Oct. I think I'll be putting an extra 1Gb RAM chip, as the 2Gb option is waaaay too expensive at the moment and I doubt I'll need it (some photo & fair bit of home movie stuff). I was keen on the Superdrive, though the other stuff will be nice to haves.

Waiting for Apple to pick up the unopened Rev.B iMac that arrived an hour after the new ones were annouced on Wednesday

Josh396 said:

Quicktime does play most .avi files although I have come across a few that haven't worked. It's good to have VLC media player which plays just about any type of file.

Another app you may want to check out is Adium. If you use AIM a lot of people prefer this over iChat although I like iChat for video conferencing.

Click to expand...

I'd like to put in good words for both of those apps (VLC and Adium) as well. Especially Adium.

Two critical resources are Version Tracker and MacUpdate. These websites are pretty similar and list nearly all the software you'll ever need, along with user comments (of varying value). They're kind of equivalent to CNet's Download.com, but much much better in my opinion. Any time someone mentions an app here, just head to one of those sites to learn more and/or download it.

Its weird you have to wait 5-7 weeks for it to ship, this may be due to apple struggling to get hold of 500gb hard disks, heck i didnt even know 500gb HD's existed yet i thought the max was 400gb, but anyway you have yourself a sweet computer there.....If youre new to macs spend some time looking into OSX before you get the iMac, otherwise just wait and enjoy,

Shadow

Ty for the replys

I will be using this machine for general use, games wont be played on it since i have a pc for that.

i might consider movie editing (never done it before )

the windows apps i use:

Jgrasp (a mac version is in existence)
photoshop
dreamweaver
Nero (is toast the same thing...it must support image burning)
Toast will work and I think MacOSX support this out of the box anyway
x-chat
Flash fxp, is there a decent ftp client for the mac (unless its built into safari)
crimson editor
alcohol 120%
Azeureus (mac version availabe)

Just a few questions:

Q: would it be ok to leave something downloading and putting the mac to sleep?

I think once it goes to sleep you lose network connection. I just put my screen to sleep and leave the computer going

Q: I have a DTS system hooked up to my pc via an Optical lead, does the imac have an optical port or a dedicated soundcard?

Q: Networking, i have 75gbs of movies/photos/music on my pc hdd. this cannot be burnt to dvd (its too laborous) how quick can a simple network be set up? is there a wizard like app to help things or do things need to be set up manualy?

This can be done. Check out this forum for details https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/54704/

Q: To those who already have a 20", when u watch dvds are they fullscreen or is there a boarder on the top (sry i oknow its a stupid question)

Q: i have heard of the "screen spanning hack£, would this be achieveable with a CRT monitor and with what consequences? (i know, the 20" is really big, but i want more )

Q: i have a windows formatted 3g Ipod (no click wheel), i cannot loose anything on this ipod (contains VERY rare tunes), would there be problems when i connect my ipod to the new mac?

I think it will have to be reformatted but you should have all of those songs on the PC right? If so just copy them to the iMac, reformat the iPod and put them back on. If they are stored on the iPod in disk mode you can just copy them over to the iMac
When i think of more, ill post em :

Ty again

PS: yes 5-7 weeks is a LOOONG wait

As for all your songs on your iPod. i had a 4th gen iPod windows formatted and it worked fine i didn't lose anythign when i hooked it up to the mac. Just make sure it is not set to automatically update. Also a good program i found for importing songs from your iPod to iTunes on the mac is Podworks. Check it out it isn't free but it only costs $8 and is well worht it in my oppinion. Other than that all i can say is enjoy the new iMac. I will be bringing mine back next week when they call me and getting one of the new ones. I will let you know how i like it. I am just getting the 20" standard as it comes and might get an extra GB of ram.

You can leave your ipod formatted for windows and it will work just fine on both Macs & Windows. I left mine formatted that way so I could easily connect to either type of machine if I need to.

My iMac doesn't go completely to sleep when I am using Azureus, only the screen.

There are slight boarders when watching DVD's, but they aren't noticable in dim lighting (only if you have bright lights on in the room while you watch your movie).