Apple Power Mac Desktop M9145LL/A (1.25-GHz PowerPC G4, 256 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)

I was going to buy a book to tell me how to use the Mac, but ended up just playing around until I got the hang of it, but I think I'll buy a book now to see if there are more neat things I can do with it. It took a little while to get used to using Apple C instead of Control C, and the new mouse it comes with - it is just a single click mouse. I wondered how I'd like that, but now I like it better than the two button mouse. You just hold the mouse down a fraction longer and get everything the second button used to do with some programs, with others you use control and click the mouse to get the second button things. File Management is arranged really simply, as is the System Preferences (for finer tuning of your default applications, I recommend downloading something free called Default Apps that gets added to your System Preferences and makes setting default applications for types of files easier.) There is no registry like with Windows. And the computer itself never crashes or freezes up. If an application freezes up (and this has only happened once) just go the Apple at the top of the screen and click on "Force Quit" for the application. Pretty much everything is intuitive on the Mac. Instead of fighting with the machine, the machine is there for ME. A refreshing change.

One of the first things I did was to remove two things I never want to use again, Internet Explorer and the Microsoft Office (a trial version came with the Mac.) On Mac getting rid of IE is as easy as dragging it to the trash can. I was using Netscape 7 on Windows and very happy with that, but upgraded to the latest Mozilla 1.6 (what Netscape 7 is based on) for the Mac. Safari is also good, but not as good as Mozilla. I like the mailer that comes with Mozilla, but found myself using the built in Mac Mail from the dock, instead, it is just so easy to use. The dock feature is really neat, you can drag the applications you use the most to the bar at the bottom of the screen. Installing additional software is also very easy, just double click on the application install icon. I also bought Apple Works (this can handle Microsoft Office documents) and this meets all my word processing/spreadsheet needs for a low price.

I looked around and found nice inexpensive apps for other needs. Photoshop Elements has lots of great image editing features, I really love this. Transmit for FTP and Page Spinner for web development are really good applications, too. The Mac comes with Itunes for playing music, and Quicktime. I installed Real Player by downloading it from their site.

My scanner, printer, camera, and card reader were easy to set up, too. My printer and camera are older, so I needed to go to the Canon site and download the latest OS X drivers. But that didn't take long at all and they worked fine the first time. I use a regular Lexar USB hub and the Lexar Jump Drive I got from Amazon and they work great. I have an older serial connection Palm IIIc, so I got a USB connector and then downloaded the latest Palm OS X desktop and it works fine. One tip I found out, plug the Palm into the keyboard USB port to sync.

Everything is easier with a Mac. I just don't know why I took so long to get one!


Loud Fans   December 31, 2003
Rabbit Krishna (Brooklyn)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Pretty new to the Apple thing. After being frustrated with PC's I made the jump to Apple G4. So far I like the straight forward approach, and I'm doing really cool things on Pro Tools recording software. I'm also starting to learn a little bit about Flash, Photoshop, and Quark which is really fun. If you want a good computer for creative endeavors Apple is the way to go. My main complaint about the computer is the loud fans. There is a constant hum and it makes it impossible to do any quiet computing.