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christmas emac

homerjward

homerjward

macrumors 68030
Original poster
yay! it's xmas and my parents got me an emac. massive problems with the pos toshiba i got last year so they're getting me a mac. i said id rather have a desktop than a laptop (thought about an ibook for awhile) so i'm getting the sd emac with my dad's edu discount (university professor). i got it stock with a preinstalled airport card and i convinced them to add bluetooth, which wasn't hard because my dad thinks it's the shiznit for some reason. 80gb is plenty for me and i'm gonna add memory later. im also getting a blue logitech mx510 from my grandma which is an awesome mouse. i'm also getting office s&t edition --had to hunt around awhile for that key lol-- but i'm wondering what freeware apps y'all would recommend. i use itunes, web browsing (probably will use firefox) pop3 mail i suppose through Mail.app, umm...i might get photoshop from a friend used, but prolly not, and very light gaming, along the lines of sim city 3k. any recommendations on cheap accessories y'all think i might need would be appreciated too. oh yeah, and what are some good sites with help/tutorials on trashing preferences, repairing permissions, and other useful system things? im thinking the manual/help might be a little inadequate in these areas, based on windows manuals 😱
 
Good to hear you are finally getting a Mac, and that you can ditch the Toshiba for good. The eMac will be enough for you need. The only problem is the learning curve associated with Mac OsX, which can be ironed out quickly. Have a good Christmas, and enjoy the eMac.
 
Congratulations and welcome! I've had my eMac a while and it's a great machine. Not as great as they are today, of course...

Add RAM for sure--I recommend transintl.com or eshop.macsales.com. You'll get better speed and fewer annoying little waits if OS X doesn't have to rely on the HD as much. You probably have 256 standard and one free slot--so I recommend adding a 512 module for a total of 768.

Accessories? Some kind of backup solution maybe, depending on how much vital data you will generate. Blank CDs are OK for occasional small backups. But an external hard disk (eshop.macsales.com has those too) is ideal for easy large-scale backups.

Other than that, the eMac probably has just about everything built-in anyway. I do like my eMac swivel stand, if you didn't get that.

And since you ask about troubleshooting, I can sum the common stuff up really quick: first log out and back in. Problems still? Restart. Still? Look in your Library folder under Preferences. Search for the name of the problem app, and throw out the file you find.

Hopefully you'll never have a problem, but that should solve most things if you do. As for repairing permissions... I get the impression that's a thing of the past, and no longer widely useful, but OS X's Disk Utility can do it. See MacOSXHints.com for more tips.

And be on the look out for Mac OS 10.4, Tiger, due in a few months most likely. $79 edu price, I think? It will be a BIG upgrade to your Mac's capabilities and ease of use.
 
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