New to mac - setting it all up!

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James Betts
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Hey guys and girls,

Ok ok, so Ive previously posted that I dont like macs and that I dont get along with them - alot of that is because I didnt they justified the price. I then found a load of powerMacs on eBay for about £50 so I decided to give it a punt on the basis that if I really end up hating it, I've only lost £50.

Well I plugged it in and its running fine, it came installed with Mac OS 10.2 and the basic programs such as iPhoto, iTunes and a couple other bits and bobs.

Now for the questions!

I plan on using my PC mainly for games and the like so the Mac will mainly be used for photoshop and word processing.

What Microsoft Office version do I need for it to work on 10.2? I had a look at the specs and it said 10.2.8 minimum?

What photoshop can I use on it? Id like to be able to use CS3 on the Mac as thats what I've got used to using at work so it'd be easier for me really.

How do I set up the internet? Ok so I downloaded Firefox and installed that - after I plug the ethernet cable into the mac (it connects to a router) then what?

When I download the software updates from Apple, will this convert my 10.2 to like 10.2.8 so I can use office 2004?

It would appear Macs 'just work' in the way they turn on :p but getting any programs for it seems to be a nightmare!!

Any help would be appreciated and heck, ya never know, you may even have a mac convertee here ;)

Regards, James
 
Hi james, I've also got a £50 power Mac, so can understand where you are coming from. 10.2 is a fairly old version of OS X, so a lot of newer programs may not have support that goes so far back.

TBH I don't see the point in spending 60x the price of the computer for CS3 or nearly 2x the price for Office.

In the case of Office, Neo Office is just as goo, but free, I have that running on my old G3 iBook without any problems.

For internet/network access I just plugged in the ethernet and I was away, straight to the Apple Update utility ( menu at the top), which in your case will upgrade OS X to 10.2.whatever the latest version is.

Hope that helps.
 
Hey,

Well I plugged in the ethernet cable and it worked straight off, which was a bit suprising haha.

Ive installed a shed load of updates for it, probably about 1gb of updates ended up downloading and installing so now its version 10.2.8 so hopefully Microsoft office will work, and apparently photoshop CS will work?

Thanks for the help Craikeybaby :thumbs:

Regards, James
 
Office for mac says it needs 10.4.9 or later, so it looks like it won't work on your machine.
I think open office will work though, possibly neo office as mentioned and they are both free.
Just check the Adobe website for system requirements on CS.
 
Sorry, I was referring to Office Mac 2004 :p I just forgot to mention that.

I hope this question doesnt sound too stupid...

How do I open the disk drive?

I can open it if I hold the mouse button down on reboot so the disk drive works, it reads disks too and when theres a disk in there I can drag it over the eject symbol and the drive will open. There are no buttons on the drive itself and I've tried pressing the command button and E but no luck.

Regards, James
 
Erm...
I have an eject button on my keyboard, but my disc drive has no tray so that only works if there's a disc in there... (Alu iMac).
So I don't need to open it to put in a disc. There may be a dedicated keyboard button somewhere?
 
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