[HM] Re: need imac advice ASAP!

[Duane Murphy]

--- At Sun, 4 May 2003 11:15:14 -0700, Jane Sprando wrote:

>I am sitting here proudly beaming at my new iMac! Love that 17" flat panel
>screen!!!! I did buy the one that boots into 0s 9 and Os 10. Thank you one
>and all for your helpful comments, suggestions and opinions. This has been a
>wonderful and enlightening discussion from people that I trust.
>
>I wish the hard drive had been partitioned for each OS, but I am reluctant
>to go through all the hassle of reformatting and reinstalling, especially
>the reinstalling! 
>
>A few questions:
>
>1. Should I partition the hard drive into separate for 9 and 10? If I do,
>should they be equal in size?

If you are going to regularly use OS 9 and OS X, I would definitely split
them up. But this can be complicated to setup well. OS X really likes the
system volume. It is the default place for lots of things. Moving user
directories to other volumes is possible but can be a pain.

My recommandation is to first decide where you will be spending most of
your time. That will help to determine how to partition.

My reason for partioning is because of some special files that OS X
_requires_ to exist at the root of the volume. A friend has one volume
and decided to clean house and threw away these silly files that he didnt
create or need. When you tried to boot back into OS X he was stuck! He
couldnt go back to 9 and X didnt work. I later found a tech note on
Apple's web site that described the arcane Unix commands to type in to
fix the problem.

If OS X had been on a seperate volume, the chances of those files being
deleted or damaged while in OS 9 is greatly reduced.

>2. I booted up into 9.2 last night and installed some games. To me, it took
>longer for the Mac to recognize the CD than it does on my G3. (800Mhz vs.
>266). Also, when I ejected the CDs, they were very warm to the touch. Is
>that normal for the iMac?

That's normal, the inside of the machine is pretty warm and these CD
drives are faster.

>3. Energy Saver ---- I remember that we have had some discussions about it.
>What should I set it to?

You're on an iMac plugged into the wall. Set it to automatic and forget
about it. :-)

>4. The clock in 10.2 ---- how do I get it to show up in color?  I don't see
>any options for that.

Isnt that ridiculous? This eye-candy laden OS and you cant change the
color of the clock in the menu bar. Generally you will find that Steve
(Jobs) doesnt want color in the menu bar.

There are other clock programs that may offer this capability, but the
built-in one does not.

Congrats on the new computer.

Enjoy,
 ...Duane