Got a Mac. What can I do?

[kenbobo]

Specs listed below. But my question is, after a signifigant (3 fold) RAM upgrade, what can I use this thing for?

This new forum is confusing.

Thanks

Edited February 26, 2016 by kenbobo
Added specs. HURDURDUR

[Camacha]

2 minutes ago, kenbobo said:

Specs listed below. But my question is, after a signifigant (3 fold) RAM upgrade, what can I use this thing for?

Thanks

You could use it to hold down laundry while it dries.

I see no specifications.

[kenbobo]

Just now, Camacha said:

You could use it to hold down laundry while it dries.

I see no specifications.

Take another look.

[stibbons]

10.6 is pretty old, and you haven't mentioned what model it is so it's hard to say whether 10.10 or 10.11 are compatible. But they probably are.

Install the most recent OS X update it'll support, and then you should be able to do most anything you'd expect an older machine to do.

[Camacha]

3 minutes ago, kenbobo said:

Take another look.

You could use it as a bookend.

More seriously, it is not the fastest computer out there. The processor is not half bad, but the RAM is not plentiful. You will need to be frugal with that to keep things going smoothly. Macs from that era had pretty abysmal GPUs, so 3D applications are probably out of the question.

[kenbobo]

1 minute ago, stibbons said:

10.6 is pretty old, and you haven't mentioned what model it is so it's hard to say whether 10.10 or 10.11 are compatible. But they probably are.

Install the most recent OS X update it'll support, and then you should be able to do most anything you'd expect an older machine to do.

That's my plan. It's a mid-2007 20" with 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo. Have to upgrade the ram, it's 1GB only, and any newer version requires 2GB minimum.

Just now, Camacha said:

You could use it as a bookend.

More seriously, it is not the fastest computer out there. The processor is not half bad, but the RAM is not plentiful. You will need to be frugal with that to keep things going smoothly. Macs from that era had pretty abysmal GPUs, so 3D applications are probably out of the question.

Plan is to upgrade the RAM, and the GPU is an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT

[Camacha]

2 minutes ago, kenbobo said:

Plan is to upgrade the RAM, and the GPU is an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT

You could use it to hold open doors.

Initially, I thought you already upgraded the RAM. Adding more RAM will certainly help, though it will not do wonders. Reality is that this is an almost 10 years old computer. Browsing and lighter applications should be doable, assuming you have an OS that is up to date enough to be safe. The GPU is, as expected, fairly anaemic. Even games from that era will be a fairly big ask.

Are you sure you want to be investing in hardware this old? It might pay off to simply forego any upgrades and save up for something more modern. Those ~$100 a memory upgrade might cost is a great start for a modest but modern system. What would you want to do with a system?

[kenbobo]

Just now, Camacha said:

You could use it to hold open doors.

Initially, I thought you already upgraded the RAM. Adding more RAM will certainly help, though it will not do wonders. Reality is that this is an almost 10 years old computer. Browsing and lighter applications should be doable, assuming you have an OS that is up to date enough to be safe. The GPU is, as expected, fairly anaemic. Even games from that era will be a fairly big ask.

Are you sure you want to be investing in hardware this old? It might pay off to simply forego any upgrades and save up for something more modern. Those ~$100 a memory upgrade might cost is a great start for a modest but modern system. What would you want to do with a system?

Well, our family is quite the writing family, and Pages is the best bet for us. But, it's strictly OSX. Also, this computer was free from my church, so I can put 35-100$ in it easily.

[Camacha]

8 minutes ago, kenbobo said:

Well, our family is quite the writing family, and Pages is the best bet for us. But, it's strictly OSX. Also, this computer was free from my church, so I can put 35-100$ in it easily.

If writing is all that you want to do, that is fine. If you want to do other things too, you might be better off spending that money on a modern system. Also take into account that older systems tend to consume more energy, especially in idle. If you expect the system to be running a lot, you should be sure to look at the energy cost too.

Also be aware that they seem to have downgraded Pages in its capabilities in recent versions. I tend to use other programs, so that is about all I can tell you about that.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Camacha

[Cydonian Monk]

Pages for OS-X 10.6 might still be a good version... I seem to recall being happy with it back in the ye olden days. Won't work with the iCloud backend, but I'm not sure anything from 10.6.x will. I still prefer Numbers to the spreadsheet alternatives (excluding Excel '97 as an alternative since nothing I have left will run it), though on my Mac I tend to edit everything in TextEdit or vim. Because of course I do.

One thing I would suggest NOT using are the newer versions of Chrome. While I don't mind Chrome as a browser, recent revisions have made it both processor and memory intensive, and it can drag older systems to a crawl. Especially Macs. Even my circa-2012 2.9GHz i7 MBP has trouble with Chrome at times. Though there really isn't much in the way of a better alternative, especially if you're invested in the Google ecosystem, and having an up-to-date browser is more important than avoiding the lag. (I use Firefox for the important stuff, though I tend to use Safari for any generic browsing because it syncs bookmarks more reliably.)

Other than that, you can now join the secret society of Mac users. We have a special handshake. And you can feel content in the knowledge that you're using a real UNIX. Welcome to the club.

 

Edited February 26, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Dispatcher]

My Mac was made in mid 2007.  I recently doubled the RAM from 2 GB to a whopping 4 GB.  I also changed out my 300-something GB HD with a 1 TB HD.

I run the latest OS.  It works fine for most of my needs.  I play KSP with no problems, but obviously I don't have the graphics maxed to the limit.

[Camacha]

22 minutes ago, Dispatcher said:

My Mac was made in mid 2007.  I recently doubled the RAM from 2 GB to a whopping 4 GB.  I also changed out my 300-something GB HD with a 1 TB HD.

What are the actual specifications? That sounds better than expected.

[Dispatcher]

8 minutes ago, Camacha said:

What are the actual specifications? That sounds better than expected.

iMac 20" Mid 2007, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB, OS X El Capitan v. 10.11.3.

Edit:  I don't use any mods except for KER, so that is probably a factor when playing KSP.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Dispatcher

[Camacha]

15 minutes ago, Dispatcher said:

iMac 20" Mid 2007, 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB, OS X El Capitan v. 10.11.3.

 

It mainly seems to be the graphics card that is a little more powerful. The 2400 XT is about half as fast as the HD 2600 Pro is, unfortunately. As has been stated before, the processor is actually decent.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Camacha

[kenbobo]

17 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Pages for OS-X 10.6 might still be a good version... I seem to recall being happy with it back in the ye olden days. Won't work with the iCloud backend, but I'm not sure anything from 10.6.x will. I still prefer Numbers to the spreadsheet alternatives (excluding Excel '97 as an alternative since nothing I have left will run it), though on my Mac I tend to edit everything in TextEdit or vim. Because of course I do.

One thing I would suggest NOT using are the newer versions of Chrome. While I don't mind Chrome as a browser, recent revisions have made it both processor and memory intensive, and it can drag older systems to a crawl. Especially Macs. Even my circa-2012 2.9GHz i7 MBP has trouble with Chrome at times. Though there really isn't much in the way of a better alternative, especially if you're invested in the Google ecosystem, and having an up-to-date browser is more important than avoiding the lag. (I use Firefox for the important stuff, though I tend to use Safari for any generic browsing because it syncs bookmarks more reliably.)

Other than that, you can now join the secret society of Mac users. We have a special handshake. And you can feel content in the knowledge that you're using a real UNIX. Welcome to the club.

 

But it costs money! Pages costs money and the previous owners used the free trial and they don't sell ilife anymore

[Cydonian Monk]

6 minutes ago, kenbobo said:

But it costs money! Pages costs money and the previous owners used the free trial and they don't sell ilife anymore

Ah, right. I've been getting it free (with new hardware) for so long I forgot they sell it. Apple won't tell me how much the new version is (I'm on mobile), but you can buy it from the AppStore if/when you upgrade beyond 10.6.x independent of iLife (since it no longer exists). Might be farly inexpensive, or it might be $30. No idea.

OpenOffice and/or LibreOffice were still good (and still free) last time I used them. Not as slick on OS-X as Pages or Word, but still nice for editing. One of the two should work nicely on your machine. And there's always Google Docs.

Word routinely SBBoDs my Mac (Spinning Beach Ball o' Death), so I tend to avoid it. I only keep it around because of work. And of course it's a tad bit expensive.

TextEdit still rocks. 

It's really not a terrible machine, just as long as you don't plan to edit videos or play modern AAA games on it.

[Dispatcher]

On February 26, 2016 at 3:19 PM, kenbobo said:

But it costs money! Pages costs money and the previous owners used the free trial and they don't sell ilife anymore

kenbobo, I am a big fan of open source software.  Have you tried Open Office?  Its a very good suite of tools comparable to the "big" software company products like iLife and Works.  In fact, even though I had originally bought some of that stuff, I never use it anymore due to liking Open Office better.  It does save files to the popular formats as well as its own filetypes.

Do some research into the kinds of applications you want to use and you will often find a free and open source product to fit your needs.

Also, I recommend a few games that you might like, which were big in the Mac community back in the day:  Bungie's Marathon (now free) and Myth (the demo is free and fun)!

Edited February 27, 2016 by Dispatcher
Cool links! Plus the fact OO saves to other formats.

[Guest]

You could uninstall Mac OS X and install Windows/Linux.

That'd be a great start. More compatibility, in general.

[Dispatcher]

8 minutes ago, Aperture Science said:

You could uninstall Mac OS X and install Windows/Linux.

That'd be a great start. More compatibility, in general.

Windows/ Linux?  Those two OSes have less in common than Linux and the OS X Unix do.  If you just consider Windows, he could partition his HD and install some version of Windows if he has the HD space and compatible specs; keeping Mac OS X on the main partition.  If you just consider Linux, it happens that such a flavor of Unix is not as large as the Mac market, so the Mac seems better supported than any one distribution of Linux, from what I can tell.

Edited February 27, 2016 by Dispatcher

[Camacha]

17 hours ago, kenbobo said:

But it costs money! Pages costs money and the previous owners used the free trial and they don't sell ilife anymore

There are many great open source options out there. That being said, you mentioned saving a lot of money by getting this system for free. If you really expect to use a piece of software a lot, it pays to invest a little

[Nuke]

you can hawk it and buy a pc.

[FancyMouse]

Install Windows?

/me runs

[AlextheBodacious]

33 minutes ago, FancyMouse said:

/me runs

Come on man this isn't IRC. Keep commands that only work there there and use actual english on the forums.

[Vanamonde]

Keep it on-topic, please.