MacIntosh question

[Catty1]

My new employers have an iMac G4 Power PC. It runs at 1.25 GHz, and has only 768MB of RAM (DDR S[D]RAM).

Since it is used for full business work in national and international community development, it gets heavy memory loads.

Would you recommend a faster processor and more RAM? Would love some feedback.

ALSO - on a regular PC, regular maintenance is done by disk cleanup, disk defrag, etc. Are there any maintenance procedures for a Mac?

Thanks very much.

(PS I am checking with the dealer and a Mac guru in town also)

PPS - the owners of the iMac believe it is best to turn the computer off at night as it helps keep it 'cleaner'. They say they have to do this at least every couple of weeks or it will clog up.

Ummm....doesn't sound right to me!

[BitsyNaceyDog]

Would you recommend a faster processor and more RAM? Would love some feedback.

I'd get more RAM. We always add more RAM when we get a new computer, Macs just never come with enough.

ALSO - on a regular PC, regular maintenance is done by disk cleanup, disk defrag, etc. Are there any maintenance procedures for a Mac?

Not really. Whenever she's online if there are any updates they will automatically notify her, she just has to give the go ahead for the updates to download.

the owners of the iMac believe it is best to turn the computer off at night as it helps keep it 'cleaner'. They say they have to do this at least every couple of weeks or it will clog up.

I've never heard that or done it. It's certainly not hurting anything though. Quitting your applications (especially with their search engine) at the end of the day or logging out of their account (which will quite the applications) will help keep things from "clogging up". Or they can just periodically empty their cache. There's something called "Activity Monitor" that... well... monitors your activity- it will tell you what is hogging all the memory.

[Catty1]

Thanks!

I looked up the spec on this iMac and it will support up to 1GB of RAM.

Replace the 256 with another 512 I suppose. PC 2700 - not too easy to find!

I'll check the Activity Monitor - thanks!

[Karen]

Sometimes with a Mac that is close to having all its RAM being used, you have to quit out of ALL your applications before it actually releases the memory. I'd check and see how much memory your commonly used applications are set to take up, and certainly upgrade the memory in the machine.

What operating system version are you using?

[Catty1]

OSX

And, as KBlaix said, I'll check the Activity Monitor before opening any programs, and see if I can find out what is using most of the memory.

The photos, I bet. Time to get these folks into Flash drives, as this particular iMac will not support more than 1GB of RAM.

[jennielynn1970]

Here are the specs on the laptop I have... it's a MacBook

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook1,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz

I bought my laptop from a guy who tweaked it himself. It is maxed out more than any typical Mac that you'd buy from a certified dealer. It's got a ton of apps and utilities on it.

We had been using Norton for problems, but they've been using Disk Warrior lately. Another application for issues that I've found is Onyx.

The G4 will last them for a while, but have been out for a few years. eMacs aren't a bad deal either, and getting a Mac that has a Core Intel Duo processor is a better deal as well.

[Edwina's Secretary]

PPS - the owners of the iMac believe it is best to turn the computer off at night as it helps keep it 'cleaner'. They say they have to do this at least every couple of weeks or it will clog up.

You should turn your computer off every night....I don't know about the health of your computer -- but for the health of your pocketbook. Computers draw current. In fact, if your computer is plugged into a power strip, you should turn the whole strip off when you are not using the computer. Those strips use electircity even when nothing is turned on.

This goes for electical chargers as well.

Good for your electric bill, your pocket book and the planet!