Greetings from the Mississippi Gulf Coast

[Opus]

My thanks to this community. I lurked for a few weeks researching Apple here to see if I wanted to take the plunge. After several years working with IBM mainframes and PC based computers, I decided to take the plunge and jump in the iMAC world.

I am new to Apple, forums and blogs. I have many things to learn, but I am ready for the adventure to start. No better place to start than to post my first entry on TAB. My Apple knowledge is zero, so I welcome any and all suggestions as I explore and learn how to use my iMAC.

I just set up my iMAC 24 2.8 Ghz 2GB system last night. I usually do not buy service plans, however after reading some of items on TAB I ordered Apple Care. Some members here recommend it and this is an All in One system that I do not have a clue about. That along with the fact that it seemed to be priced very well and not like most service plans I had been offered in the past.

Some of the Next steps I plan to take are listed below. I welcome all advice.

• Puchase Apple Care. Done
• Purchase external storage and set up Time Machine.
• Discover if it is possibel to partition the new storage unit.
• Research to see if I can Clone the system on the Storage.
• Explore and consider useing NeoOffice.

I plan to purchase G-Technology 500GB G-Drive Q Quad Interface External Hard Drive and use the Firewire 800 connection. However I will wait till later today to see if any TAB members suggest a different path or product.

Again, thank you for this community and the knowledge you all share. I will continue to research and learn on TAB. Do not have much to share on experience at this point.

The iMAC was easy to set up. It looks better on my desk at home than on the store display.

Have a wonderful day!

Regards,

Opus

[bendrucker]

Congrats on the new iMac. I know it's just semantics, but Mac is spelled with a capital "M" and a lowercase "a" and "c". MAC actually stands for Media Access Control, which is the identifier assigned to each network device in your computer. Your airport card and ethernet card each have a unique MAC address that also identifies the brand and type of network device it is. If you're using a router, you will find many places to assign settings to different machines based on MAC address.

In any case, I can answer some of the questions you asked.

As for purchasing an external drive to use with Time Machine, the G-Drive may be slightly overkill. G-Technology products are beautifully manufactured, but they tend to be very pricey in comparison with enclosures from companies like Lacie, Western Digital, or Seagate. I'd recommend looking for a drive from the companies I just mentioned with the same ports. I suspect it will be much cheaper than the G-Drive model.

You can partition drives in Disk Utility very easily. I have my two external drives partitioned into several partitions. In Leopard, Disk Utility is able to partition on the fly without erasing the drive. I do not recommend this, as this can potentially cause problems. It's better to partition the drive before you start using it.

You can absolutely clone the drive to an external disk. My favorite backup app for doing this is called SuperDuper. It will clone your drive, and then incrementally update the backup when you make changes on your iMac. SuperDuper costs $27.95. I also like a similar product, Carbon Copy Cloner. CCC is free, but it's feature-set isn't as robust as SuperDuper.

As for NeoOffice, there is a Mac version which does work nicely. I'd recommend purchasing iWork, Apple's productivity suite. iWork is a really great set of applications which are much more intuitive and clean than NeoOffice. A free trial is available on apple.com.

Hope I answered your questions. Enjoy your new Mac!

[Yuiichi]

Welcome to the TAB forums, Opus! Hope you enjoy your stay!

I'm going to echo BBB on the external hard drive situation. Personally, I'd recommend a Western Digital MyBook drive, as they're beautiful, quiet, and reliable. I'd love to own one myself! If you're really concerned about storage, I would also recommend looking at Drobo. It's basically an external hard drive enclosure that allows you to hot swap drives any time you need more storage. It's a bit pricey and you have to buy the drives separately, but you can't do much better with expandability and longevity!

As for partitioning, I again echo BBB. If I might ask, why do you plan on partitioning?

And finally, office suites. iWork is a really great option - the software is really easy to use, has great features that the Microsoft counterparts don't and generally look great on your Mac. However, if you depend on Microsoft applications, there's another way that you can use an existing Windows license. Use Crossover Mac, which allows you to use Windows applications as if they are native Mac applications. I personally have the Office 2003 suite on my Mac this way and it works really flawlessly. If you want to save money on licenses and find that the Office suite suits your needs, don't settle for something less!

Hope this helps some and feel free to ask any other questions!

[Opus]

Originally Posted by baseballboy828

Congrats on the new iMac. I know it's just semantics, but Mac is spelled with a capital "M" and a lowercase "a" and "c". MAC actually stands for Media Access Control, which is the identifier assigned to each network device in your computer. Your airport card and ethernet card each have a unique MAC address that also identifies the brand and type of network device it is. If you're using a router, you will find many places to assign settings to different machines based on MAC address.

In any case, I can answer some of the questions you asked.

As for purchasing an external drive to use with Time Machine, the G-Drive may be slightly overkill. G-Technology products are beautifully manufactured, but they tend to be very pricey in comparison with enclosures from companies like Lacie, Western Digital, or Seagate. I'd recommend looking for a drive from the companies I just mentioned with the same ports. I suspect it will be much cheaper than the G-Drive model.

You can partition drives in Disk Utility very easily. I have my two external drives partitioned into several partitions. In Leopard, Disk Utility is able to partition on the fly without erasing the drive. I do not recommend this, as this can potentially cause problems. It's better to partition the drive before you start using it.

You can absolutely clone the drive to an external disk. My favorite backup app for doing this is called SuperDuper. It will clone your drive, and then incrementally update the backup when you make changes on your iMac. SuperDuper costs $27.95. I also like a similar product, Carbon Copy Cloner. CCC is free, but it's feature-set isn't as robust as SuperDuper.

As for NeoOffice, there is a Mac version which does work nicely. I'd recommend purchasing iWork, Apple's productivity suite. iWork is a really great set of applications which are much more intuitive and clean than NeoOffice. A free trial is available on apple.com.

Hope I answered your questions. Enjoy your new Mac!

WOW, Thank you for the quick response. I thought I saw the iMac listed the way I typed it. Thank you for the correction. For the recored I care about details. I do know what a MAC address is, but do not work in the distributed system environment.

I saw iWork where I bought my system. It was very nice I agree. I like clean so I will consider it. It is just overkill for what I need at home.

I have researched a few of the storage solutions you listed. I will give them some more consideration. Some reviews on the Lacia scared me off of them. Reports indicated the hard drive failed after one year. Have you had a better experience with them?

I have seen some of the post on SuperDuper here. Thanks for the recommendation.

Please forgive any rookie comments or typos. I will learn as I go along and mistakes and spelling errors will abound

Thank you for the welcome and the reply. You did answere some of my questions and set me on a research path.

[Opus]

Originally Posted by Yuiichi

Welcome to the TAB forums, Opus! Hope you enjoy your stay!

I'm going to echo BBB on the external hard drive situation. Personally, I'd recommend and, as they're beautiful, quiet, and reliable. I'd love to own one myself! If you're really concerned about storage, I would also recommend looking at Drobo. It's basically an external hard drive enclosure that allows you to hot swap drives any time you need more storage. It's a bit pricey and you have to buy the drives separately, but you can't do much better with expandability and longevity!

As for partitioning, I again echo BBB. If I might ask, why do you plan on partitioning?

And finally, office suites. iWork is a really great option - the software is really easy to use, has great features that the Microsoft counterparts don't and generally look great on your Mac. However, if you depend on Microsoft applications, there's another way that you can use an existing Windows license. Use Crossover Mac, which allows you to use Windows applications as if they are native Mac applications. I personally have the Office 2003 suite on my Mac this way and it works really flawlessly. If you want to save money on licenses and find that the Office suite suits your needs, don't settle for something less!

Hope this helps some and feel free to ask any other questions!

Thank you Yuiichi. I have looked at the WD MyBook. Based on BBB and your replies I may hold off getting the G drive. I found a fair buy for the modle I listed for 184 US. I like the Firewire 800 connection and it is pre formated for Apple. I do agree with the WD MyBook looking good. Thanks for the tip that it is quite also.

Why partition?
To be honest I do not have a clue. Do not know what is possible yet with backup and storage. I have thought about putting Windows on the system. But I really do not need to I hope. My basic thought was to keep the clone separated by a partition from just extra storage. The step may not be needed at all. My primary concern after having had two HD crashes on my Dell is BACKUP.
I have already run into a few issues. I will not list them here, but will try go go into the correct forum and ask if I can not find a fix.
You guys are great! Thanks for the quick replies. I will be checking some of the areas on the board that for posting tips. I was not kidding about being new to Mac, Formus and Blogs. What you guys can do with a few clicks is a bit more of a challenge for me at this time. Simple things like pulling out a few quotes and not useing the whole quote in a reply.
So please correct me whan I make an error such as iMAC. I now know to use iMac thanks to BBB. However Grammer and spelling is a weakness, especially if I am excited and typing fast. I noticed when I was posting on the Mac it let me know if I made a spelling error, I just could not right click to get the correct spelling I will figure it out.

[philbowell]

Hi Opus, congratulations on purchasing a new iMac and joining the world of Mac, I hope you enjoy it.

I'll put another vote in for the Western Digital MyBook, I have a 500GB one which I use with Time Machine on my own iMac. How big is your hard drive in your iMac? The reason I ask is because it's recommended to use a bigger drive for back up, especially if you are looking at partitioning it to use SuperDuper as well. Time Machine makes continual backups over time which can take up more space than your hard drive, this is how it enables you to "look back in time" and find files. I'd recommend a separate drive that mirrors your internal one for the SuperDuper clone, you could also keep this one off site for added security.

To right click you need to set up your Mighty Mouse to use the right side of the scroll ball as a secondary button. This can be done in System Preferences under the mouse and keyboard settings. Or you can left click whilst holding the CTRL key to bring up the contextual menu.

[Opus]

Originally Posted by philbowell

Hi Opus, congratulations on purchasing a new iMac and joining the world of Mac, I hope you enjoy it.

I'll put another vote in for the Western Digital MyBook, I have a 500GB one which I use with Time Machine on my own iMac. How big is your hard drive in your iMac? The reason I ask is because it's recommended to use a bigger drive for back up, especially if you are looking at partitioning it to use SuperDuper as well. Time Machine makes continual backups over time which can take up more space than your hard drive, this is how it enables you to "look back in time" and find files. I'd recommend a separate drive that mirrors your internal one for the SuperDuper clone, you could also keep this one off site for added security.

To right click you need to set up your Mighty Mouse to use the right side of the scroll ball as a secondary button. This can be done in System Preferences under the mouse and keyboard settings. Or you can left click whilst holding the CTRL key to bring up the contextual menu.

Thank you for your reply. I have the 320GB drive in my iMac. Was looking at the 500 GB external. I like your idea of a separate drive for the clone. I have already used the CTRL Click three times since I started this reply Thanks for the tip. I did see where I could change the Mouse, but I want to learn to use the Mac the way it was set up. However i did boost the speed of the Mouse.

I do have a question about how all of you are connecting to the External Drive. I was looking for FireWire 800 support. Is that needed? Or do you all just use the USB 2.0 or FireWire 400?

I just checked for one of the WD drives. Is this the one you have? Western Digital 500 GB My Book Studio Edition Quad Interface External Hard Drive.

Well off to explore some more. I need to go find Flip4me and give it a try. I am having an issue with streaming audio on site. I get the following error.

Windows Media Player is not installed.
Safari can’t open “mms://xxx.xx.xxx.169/mississippi” because Windows Media Player is not installed.<br /><br />To get the latest version of Windows Media Player, go to the <a href='http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/'>Windows Media Player website</a>.

[bendrucker]

I use Firewire 400, but that's only because that's all my iMac has. If I had FW 800, I'd use it. It's definitely worth it.

[Yuiichi]

I'm not sure if I would invest in a FW800 drive, personally. The MacBook has dropped FW support altogether and I can see Apple dropping FW on other consumer products in the future. However, FW does have benefits, such as a more consistent transfer speed which will make backups go faster, theoretically.

Personally, I have a cheap external HDD which uses USB2.0. If you're going to be using Time Machine with the drive plugged in all the time, you'll probably not notice the speed advantages.

Going back to partitioning, I'd follow Phil's advice. If you want to have a clone backup, buy another external HDD, clone your drive maybe once a week and leave it at work or another safe location.

Hope this helps some!

[Opus]

All the advice has been great. Who new Mac users were so helpful

Everyone I work with at a Data Center had only this advice. Do not get a Mac. The usual arguments; overpriced, proprietary, and the famous "why would you buy something that nobody writes software for".

I am pleased with my purchase, I researched this product and weighed it against many other choices. All the configurations I looked at where about the same coast or more than what I bought this iMac 24 for. I at first thought the lack of memory and storage offered was a big deal on the Mac but was convinced by bench marks and reviews that this was not a concern. I only wish the iMac had a Blu-Ray option. A big plus in my book was the LCD. I new it looked good, but research on TAB told me why. You get an IPS (In Plane Switching) panel as opposed to a PVA/MVA panel. Hey BBB, I told you details were important to me. That adds value that is worth the extra expense to me. I hope to pick up an old hobby of photography, so shadows and color detail were important in my decision. Most of the other units came with either a PVA VA or worse a PVA TN panel.

Short version: I like the software pre-installed on the iMac. I love the display, and I wanted to try something different than what I have been working on since DOS days. Yeah I am an older guy and did not grow up with a keyboard. I am not a writer/blogger, but maybe I will list all the details another day.

Products compared: Sony JSB-190, Dell Studio MT costume configuration, Dell XPS One 24 Product Red, HP touch and HP desktops.

Locked in my choice for the iMac when a local retailer offered the 150 off of the 1799 sell and still allowed me to apply and extra 100 off for a student discount. I was going to wait for the rumored upgrade, but heck it is a rumor and the discount on this current product put me over the top.