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New Toy and it's white

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iMacThis sweet little machine just made it’s way onto my desk here at school. It was sitting upstairs in the drop in lab where the last time someone used it was 2004. So I dusted it off and moved it down to my lab and set it up.

So now I need to know what software is a MUST have and is FREE as the school will not purchase anything for this lone mac machine.

I plan on using it to create digital movies and do some podcasting. But I also want to ‘play’ with it. It’s been a couple years since I’ve had a mac on my desk so there is a little deep thinking going on trying to remember where things are and that the last OS I really dealt with was 9.5 I think.

It’s running OSX 10.2.8 should I upgrade, is there an upgrade? Any and all information would be helpful at this point.

I started blogging in 2005 and found it such a powerful way to reflect and share my thinking about technology, this generation, and how we prepare students for their future not our past.

2 Comments

  1. Jeff,

    Some great apps for your new Mac…

    Hopefully you already have the iLife Suite (iTunes, iPhoto, Garageband, iMovie, and iDVD). There is so much you can do with these tools.

    Other free stuff…
    GIMP – open source digital imaging software similar to Photoshop (requires X11)
    NeoOffice – open source office suite
    Open Office – open source office suite (requires X11)
    Audacity – audiorecording
    AudioRecorder – really simple voice recorder
    Finale Notepad – great music creator (free and pay versions). There’s tons you can do with the free version.
    Stellarium – free astronomy software (really cool but only works 10.3 or higher)
    SubEthaEdit – free text editor (allows you to share documents with other subethaedit users)
    ArtRage – pretty slick free art program
    Google Earth
    Of course there’s tons of web based stuff you can do too. I find Firefox to be the most stable and useful web browser on the Mac.

    Good luck with your Mac. Let me know if I can help any further.

  2. That looks like a pretty nice machine, the same that I use at home.

    Things that would cost money:
    I would try to upgrade it to at least 10.3, and if you have more than 256MB of RAM, upgrade to 10.4. Both of these choices cost money, but you maybe able to find them on eBay pretty cheap. Same with iLife ’06. If it only has 256MB of memory, another 256 would be nice. 🙂

    Things that are free (besides the above):
    – jEdit text editor
    – Camino browser (or Firefox)
    – Thunderbird
    – Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection. It can connect to XP Professional machines that have remote access turned on or Windows Terminal Servers.
    – AdiumX for instant messenging
    – Latest updates. Connect the machine to a network, go to System Preferences -> Software updates.

    I use Macs 95% of my time, so if you have any questions, let me know!

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