My New iMac - Suggestions?

[lorenwade]

I received my iMac 20" in the mail today. Woohoo!

It's the 2.4ghz version with the 320gig hard drive (which is actually 280 gigs). It's an apple refurb, but it looks and acts brand new.

I've had a Power Book and much earlier versions of the iMac, but I just wanted to share my excitement for finally having the most up to date computer, for the first time ever!

Help me revel in this moment for 5 minutes, before a new one comes out.

Also, any suggestiosn for leopard, cool programs, fancy widgets, etc. is much appreciated. I have an unending lsit being compiled.

 

[Muncher]

I received my iMac 20" in the mail today. Woohoo!

It's the 2.4ghz version with the 320gig hard drive (which is actually 280 gigs). It's an apple refurb, but it looks and acts brand new.

Actually, it's 298 GB, but with Leopard and iLife (specifically Garageband), it's 280. I have a Rev. A iMac with about the same specs (yours has faster memory, mine faster graphics, and thats about it).

Help me revel in this moment for 5 minutes, before a new one comes out.

No kidding. It's a great machine, and I hope you won't feel it's outdated when a new one comes out a week and a half from now, or maybe a little later . I won't. It's just a speed bump usually, and my machine still runs as fast as it always did.

Also, any suggestiosn for leopard, cool programs, fancy widgets, etc. is much appreciated. I have an unending lsit being compiled.

Widgets: iStat Pro. Plasmatube. Eyes 2: Homer. If you have Gmail, that Gmail widget.

Apps: XQuartz (for GIMP and Inkscape), GIMP (photoshop clone), Inkscape (Illustrator clone), SMCFanControl... wait a minute. I made this list elsewhere.

 

[dragonmantek]

thats great man, i remember when i got my first imac, i loves it.

i use these apps on a regular basis:
harmonic
transmission
webkit/firefox [ i use webkit for speed ]
adium
and finally visual hub

;P

have fun.

 

[lorenwade]

Actually, it's 298 GB, but with Leopard and iLife (specifically Garageband), it's 280. I have a Rev. A iMac with about the same specs (yours has faster memory, mine faster graphics, and thats about it).

Weird. It says 320, I dunno. Hehe.

Widgets: iStat Pro. Plasmatube. Eyes 2: Homer. If you have Gmail, that Gmail widget.

I have iStat on it already. Plasmatube is awesome for sure. I'll check out the gmail widget and Eyes 2: Homer (what is it?).

Apps: XQuartz (for GIMP and Inkscape), GIMP (photoshop clone), Inkscape (Illustrator clone), SMCFanControl... wait a minute. I made this list elsewhere.

Awesome. I love Photoshop, I'll be sure to get it. It was on my list too.

 

[gehrbox]

any suggestiosn for leopard, cool programs, fancy widgets, etc.

as previously mentioned iStat Pro and Transmission
Sandvox for webpage publishing
NeoOffice for word processing/spread sheets
FireFox 3 with StumbleUpon, PicLens and Morning Coffee addons
Photoshop Elements
Handbrake for DVD ripping
iShowU for screencasts
Flip4Mac WMV
ScreenShot Plus Widget for screen/window captures
ScreenSaver Plus for using screensavers as your desktop background
Pixen for icon and gif editing
Packet Peeper for sniffing your network

 

[Chundles]

It's actually 320GB, it's 320,000,000,000 bytes which is 320GB.

For some reason it was decided long ago that 1024 bytes was a "kilo"byte - which is absolute nonsense but computers apparently can't deal in powers of ten, only two so instead of giving it a new prefix they went with "kilo" and since then everytime someone gets a new computer that doesn't know about the difference between a real kilobyte and a computer "kilo"byte they get confused.

Basically because of this little 24 bytes discrepancy between the numbers you appear to lose about 7% of your drive space automatically. The guys building the drives are doing the right thing, they give you 320,000,000,000 bytes and advertise it as "320GB" which is correct however when you plug it into a computer the machine calculates it in it's little "only powers of two" head and comes up with around 298"GB" - you still have 320,000,000,000 bytes (minus a bit of formatting) to play with but the computer gives you another number for it.

The OS install and all the media stuff can take up around 15GB or so so the machine says you have about 280"GB" remaining.

 

[lorenwade]

as previously mentioned iStat Pro and Transmission
Sandvox for webpage publishing
NeoOffice for word processing/spread sheets
FireFox 3 with StumbleUpon, PicLens and Morning Coffee addons
Photoshop Elements
Handbrake for DVD ripping
iShowU for screencasts
Flip4Mac WMV
ScreenShot Plus Widget for screen/window captures
ScreenSaver Plus for using screensavers as your desktop background
Pixen for icon and gif editing
Packet Peeper for sniffing your network

Awesome!! Thanks for that! I'll check them all out. I'm aware of half of those, the others... I will look at.

It's actually 320GB, it's 320,000,000,000 bytes which is 320GB.

For some reason it was decided long ago that 1024 bytes was a "kilo"byte - which is absolute nonsense but computers apparently can't deal in powers of ten, only two so instead of giving it a new prefix they went with "kilo" and since then everytime someone gets a new computer that doesn't know about the difference between a real kilobyte and a computer "kilo"byte they get confused.

Basically because of this little 24 bytes discrepancy between the numbers you appear to lose about 7% of your drive space automatically. The guys building the drives are doing the right thing, they give you 320,000,000,000 bytes and advertise it as "320GB" which is correct however when you plug it into a computer the machine calculates it in it's little "only powers of two" head and comes up with around 298"GB" - you still have 320,000,000,000 bytes (minus a bit of formatting) to play with but the computer gives you another number for it.

The OS install and all the media stuff can take up around 15GB or so so the machine says you have about 280"GB" remaining.

That is a ridiculous flaw/loophole, if you ask me. These computers are already so smart... I can't believe no one has found a fix for that. I guess it's not of the utmost priority either, haha.

It makes sense though.

 

[lorenwade]

Is there a good "upkeep" program? Similar to the defrag on windows? Something to keep it cleaned up and make sure there's no errors?

 

[Chundles]

Well it's not like you can fix it, computers are binary machines, 1 or 0 - that's why they can only deal in powers of two.

The problem is that the people who named the amount of storage kept SI nomenclature in a case where it wasn't appropriate. It's not the computer's fault, the drive manufacturers are doing the right thing, it's an issue that will never be solved.

 

[Chundles]

Is there a good "upkeep" program? Similar to the defrag on windows? Something to keep it cleaned up and make sure there's no errors?

OS X.

It's really not something you need to worry about anymore, like viruses, and spyware, and bad taste.

 

[lorenwade]

Haha. I wasn't sure. I just want to keep it going.

 

[gehrbox]

Is there a good "upkeep" program? Similar to the defrag on windows? Something to keep it cleaned up and make sure there's no errors?

OS X has some maintenance tasks that it runs on its own on a fixed schedule. You can find more info here. They are set up to run between 3:15 and 5:30am and will not run if the computer is sleeping or turned off (duh). You can force them to run.

It's a good idea to run "repair disk" and "repair disk permissions" from the Disk Utility app before OS updates to ensure file permissions and file structure are good.

 

[singhy44]

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned google earth! I think it's a great app, and if you want maintenance/anti-virus, then IceClean and ClamXav are your best free options. RAR Expander is a must if you frequently deal with .RAR files. There are a few more apps that are indispensable for me (Firefox, Adium etc.), but they've already been mentioned here.

 

[Etherz10]

Caffeine - Stops Your mac From Auto Sleeping and Screensavers
A Better Finder Launcher - Easier Way to Search For Apps
Lockdown - Great For When Your Away From Your System, Stop people from changing stuff, cctv support
Aurora - Great Alarm Clock
Brightness Control - Better Brightness Control
Dock Spaces - Handy Dock Tool To Have More Than One Dock
Ejector - Menu Bar Eject Icon

Ill Update Soon

 

[Muncher]

That is a ridiculous flaw/loophole, if you ask me. These computers are already so smart... I can't believe no one has found a fix for that. I guess it's not of the utmost priority either, haha.

It makes sense though.

It's not a flaw at all. Computers address hard drive space in chunks, which are powers of two. Therefore it makes sense for them to read hard drive space in units that are powers of two. A while ago hard drive manufacturers realized they could capitalize on the obscure meanings of "GB," and make their hard drives seem bigger than they really are.

 

[lorenwade]

Like I said, it's a loophole (or a flaw), and companies are taking advantage of that.

 

[kabunaru]

Congratulations.

As for apps, I would suggest getting this (if you do not have this game):
http://www.apple.com/games/articles/2002/07/maxpayne/