Post by ANDREW KUEBLERI am only doing surfing and emailing and no heavy graphics editing, so
it sounds like 192 MB should be OK.
I still disagree. Web surfing uses more memory than you may realize.
Especially with people embedding Shockwave programs and other stuff in
sites.
Furthermore, you will probably find many of the bundled programs (like
iTunes) fun and useful. And you will probably start wanting to run
several programs at once, when you realize that OS X can do this
without falling to pieces.
All this stuff requires RAM.
Post by ANDREW KUEBLER1) So if I have 9.0.3, how do I upgrade to 9.1 or 9.2 in order to then
upgrade to 10.3? (I might as well take the cost savings at around $30
b/c it is an old machine vs. upgrading to 10.4 at $80 to $90).
You don't need to upgrade OS 9 to run OS X. But you do need to if you
want to run your old OS 9 apps from within the OS X environment.
Post by ANDREW KUEBLER2) I don't want two OSs running on my machine as long as all the old
programs I have on there will still work. The old programs that worked
under 9.x will work on 10.x, right?
Once your OS 9 is upgraded, it will. You should be able to get a 9.22
install CD from Apple for a small charge after you buy OS X.
Post by ANDREW KUEBLER3) My iMac 400 DV has a DVD player. Why can it not read a DVD for
Tiger 10.4 (even though I don't plan on getting Tiger). Just curious?
It should have no problem booting the 10.4 install DVD. I think the
person who said otherwise didn't realize you have DV model.
Post by ANDREW KUEBLER4) Where can you buy a cheap USB connector that allows multiple USB
connections b/c the iMac only has 2 USB ports, which are used? Would I
be buying a USB hub to get additional connections?
A powered hub will work fine. Don't use a non-powered hub, because
many devices don't work properly when attached to them.
I use a Belkin 7-port powered hub on my Mac. I have my printer, camera,
memory card reader and UPS plugged into it. (They keyboard/mouse plug
directly into the Mac via its other USB port.)
Post by ANDREW KUEBLER5) As far as I can see, I only have 2 firewire, 2 USB, and 1 ethernet
interfaces on the outside. Are there any PCI slots inside?
No. An iMac's expansion is entirely external.
The only thing you can do inside is upgrade the RAM (easy to do),
replace the hard drive (doable, but a pain in the neck) and replace the
optical drive (don't bother.) Everything else attaches via USB,
FireWire and Ethernet.
Post by ANDREW KUEBLER6) Where can I get a cheap copy of MS Word for the Mac?
If you're a student or a teacher, the best thing to do is go to your
local Apple Store and buy the Student/Teacher edition of MS Office 2004.
This assumes you upgrade to OS X, since the current release of MS Office
requires it.
I've been very satisfied with Office on my Mac.
Prior versions Office have been discontinued, but may still be available
if you do some web searching.
Other word processors are also available, and I'm sure others here will
recommend some of them to you.
For light-duty word processing, AppleWorks is a reasonably powerful
software suite. It doesn't have all of the features of MS Office, but
it has most of the most important features. It includes import/export
filters for MS Office docs that work reasonably well, as long as you
don't have embedded objects in your documents.
Post by ANDREW KUEBLER7) I have been avoiding this, but maybe with all this upgrading things
will be as expensive as a low cost Dell. Maybe I should just buy a
$400 Dell and be done with it.
If you want to put up with all of the problems Windows users have to
deal with every day.
Once you load up that Dell with enough anti-virus software and
anti-spyware software, you may find that it's too slow to be useful. A
machine fast enough to be useful with all these mandatory utilities
running will cost a lot more than $400.
If you really want to replace the computer, consider a Mac mini. They
start at $500 and come preloaded with OS X, iLife and many other useful
programs. You'll use the keyboard and mouse from your iMac. You'll
need a monitor, but you can use just about any monitor sold these days.
If you don't already have one, a 15" monitor (about the same size as
your iMac display) won't cost very much at all.
-- David