SWTK Macbook Air or Asus Zenbook?

[Phildo]

Well, I've just arrived home with my MacBook Pro. The set-up was as easy as I could imagine, but I guess that's to be expected for a brand new machine. It certainly doesn't ask anywhere near as many things as Windows does when I've set that up. Now to learn all the new stuff. The only odd thing so far is that the app store won't update iPhoto. It keeps telling me that there's a hash error - but I'm sure it will work soon enough.

Rebuild permissions, restart and try again.

Updates for applications (that are already in place) can be downloaded directly from Apple - Support - Downloads

[shmoo]

Updates for applications (that are already in place) can be downloaded directly from Apple - Support - Downloads

does clicking 'apple, software update' do the same thing or it that an extra one?

[Sventek]

Rebuild permissions, restart and try again.

Updates for applications (that are already in place) can be downloaded directly from Apple - Support - Downloads

Thanks - that's no doubt the better way. It was only iPhoto, so I uninstalled it by dragging to the rubbish bin, and then re-installed via the app store. All seems good now.

[Chewie]

Windows must have touched all you Apple fans inappropriately for all this hate.

[Captain Starfish]

Does Windows touch anyone any other way?

[Chewie]

Windows may be the obvious dirty perve in the room, but OSX is the one on ichat grooming you

[P.J]

MacBook Air

[Phildo]

does clicking 'apple, software update' do the same thing or it that an extra one?

Does the same thing. I normally select Software Update, see what updates it lists and then download them manually. Why? Because I might use them again in the future (ie setting up different Macs) and it sames on time and bandwidth. However, Software Update is good for set it and walk away for a while.

[=Stevo=]

if it is just to mainly run office then don't bother with either.

The Asus build quality is a bit lower than their usual work and the macbook air is too expensive and overkill for what you need.
Also for basic office and net stuff you'll probably get the spinning wheel of death more often than you get windows 7 to crash

Don't let all these suckers convince you to buy some pretty overpriced computer because it 'just works', or some flashy aluminium asus product that was rushed into production to cash in on the macbook air success for apple haters. A whole bunch of computers out there 'just work' when all you're doing is pecking at word and surfing youtube.

You may also find that 11 inches is just that teeeeeeny bit too small, I reckon 13 is good but yes it can be a bit hard to travel with sometimes, 12 inches is a good compromise (that's what SHE said hurr hurrrrr)
Just get a 12 inch eeePC or similar. Reasonable battery life, slim form, cheap and has enough power to run office/corporate crap.

[Wedge]

I do have a recent Apple experience story I would like to share, and this seems to be the place to do it I guess. Short version, Mac's are a hell of allot harder to upgrade, update then other PC's, from sales all the way through to installing hardware. Allot of Mac fans throw out/sell off their old mac stuff and generally have the latest/newest model, fantastic if you live the Apple way and love to throw money at our fruity companion, for those that can't afford these things or don't want to fork out another few thousand hard earned, upgrading sucks balls. There's a hell of allot of suckers out there buying 2nd hand macs that don't realise what they are getting themselves into.

Long version.
Girl-friend bought an imac mid to late 2007. Unfortunately just before they released OSX Leopard, so she has been stuck on OSX Tiger for the past 4 years. Tiger sucked, Apple stopped development for it soon after leopard and all new programs refused to work on Tiger. Backwards compatibility is not Apples strong suit as we will come to learn later. She mainly used it for Uni work and surfing the internet so no real harm there until I tried to put anything else on there in which case it just chucked the proverbial shits.

Her keyboard died, and her mouse was getting very tired so I went out and bought a new keyboard and touch-pad. Here's a part that really shat me off about 6 months ago when I bought it. No backwards compatibility AT ALL ! There is no patch you can download, no software to get that touch-pad to work, something you would think that is relatively easy to develop. No, the Apple way is to require you to spend more money to ensure you update to the latest version of their operating system. If Major mouse manufacturer's brought out a mouse that said only Windows 7 could run it, withholding the patches for older versions, everyone would cry afoul. Somehow our little Apple friend is exempt from this. So we decided we needed to upgrade her operating system.

So looked at the specs of the machine to see if she could run Lion. Yep, CPU is ok, however she only has 1 Gb of ram when she needs a minimum of 2, and her hard-drive is only 320 Gb, so thought I would upgrade that to a 1 TB. All sorted. I set aside a day during the Christmas holiday break to organise everything and do the upgrade. Here's where it gets fun.. I walk into the Apple city store in the morning and talk to the sales bloke about buying Lion. Oh no can do he says, we don't keep it in-store. So I asked if any Apple reseller would, and he said no. Now I could walk into almost any computer store and walk out 5 minutes later with a copy of Windows 7 as simple as that. So I said what do I need to do? He said call the Apple-care line, handed me a card and said that's about it. I also inquired about the RAM and hard-drive. He said to go to an Apple repair shop as they will be able to get the parts in just as fast as they can and are probably less busy. So I walked out of the Apple store a full hour after walking in (Took about half an hour to try get someones attention in the first place) completely empty handed except for a card in my back-pocket with the Apple Care phone number on it.

I drive to the Apple repair store and speak to them about the RAM and hard-drive. Sure they said, we have the RAM here but the HDD we are going to have to order in and will probably be here next week if that's ok? I said sure, purchased both. For those that say Apple's just work? It is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard. My 10 year old Pentium 2 "just works" if all i'm doing is surfing the net and using office. The amount of times I have seen Apple's lock-up in the past 6 months is more then the PC i'm using right now has ever done in the 4 years I've had it. This day was no exception, as the salesman was typing in the product code into the imac in front of him to put the POS through funnily enough it completely locked up. Excuse me he said, moved a metre to the left and fired up another machine to put the sale through. During this time on the wall opposite Apple iTV or something was playing and subsequently locked up too, so he whips out a little remote control and tries turning it off and on again. While we wait for the new imac to load up the program and him to retype the product codes I scan the room. Stacked up in a row what do I see? Mac Norton Antivirus, Mac Defender, more anti-virus programs.. Wait a sec, I thought everyone claimed that Mac's don't get virus's and don't need Anti-virus software...?

Home I go with my new RAM, a receipt for a new hard-drive and a card with Apple-care's phone number on it. When I get home I call up and speak to the Apple representative about getting OSX Lion. Sure he says, 2 ways of going about it. Upgrade to Snow Leopard first (This will require a memory wipe from Tiger to Snow Leopard as they are not compatible), then buy the Lion upgrade through the App store, or the other option is to buy a USB stick direct from Apple and do a memory wipe and start from scratch with that. He did warn me that the USB stick would be $10 more expensive, I asked why with an answer of it being more "convenient." So the day I had set aside to upgrading the computer turned into a big waste of time with Tiger staring right back at me..

The next week I'm back at work and miss the delivery of the USB stick at home. So I get it resent out this time to the office. Mid-week I am finally in possession of an approximately 8cm x 8cm x 2mm thick piece of card with a USB stick sticky-taped to it. Honestly, how f(#@#*# hard would it have been to keep a whole stack of them in the shop??? They take up almost 0 space and I could pack about 40 in the tissue-box in front of me. Yay I think, well I still haven't got my HDD so I give them a call to see where it is. They said they would call me back, they didn't. I called again on the Friday of that week to which they said again they would call the supplier and let me know. Again nothing.

Now Monday, 2 weeks on from the day I set aside, call again still nothing, so pulling out the receipt I go on net-plus's website, find the exact same hard-drive they are waiting on go down and pick it up that afternoon and was $70 cheaper then the one I purchased through Apple Repair. I called up the Apple repair centre and told them to refund the hard-drive which they did. I also asked how much it would cost me if I was to get them to install the Harddrive? $85 was the reply even after spending a few hundred dollars on 4 Gb's of RAM.. No thanks, I'll do it myself.. So huzzah, I now have RAM, OS, and Hardrive, how hard can it be to swap it all out, install the new OS and go from there? After all I've done it to heaps of PC's, laptops before. Can't be that hard can it?

First things first, copy everything that she needs off the computer while the HDD is still plugged in. Check
Install RAM and check to make sure the computer recognises it. Check, this was actually a breeze to do thankfully as there's just one small panel at the base of the computer to remove and insert the RAM.
Take old HDD out and put new one in... Here's where the fun begins. Take a look at where some smart-ass decided to put the HDD.. Couldn't have made another panel down the bottom... Oh no, too easy.. No they buried it well within the computer to ensure their service peeps get some good dough at $85 a pop.



Not only that, EVERY screw in there is a security screw, requiring a trip to bunning's to get a set of bits to suit.

Luckily installing lion is a breeze, installation time + essentials are roughly what you would expect installing windows 7 + essentials except with half the prompts. There was also an oh-shit moment thinking the hdd wasn't going to work as OSX lion doesn't recognise an un-formatted HDD, you have to boot a separate disk utility first to even get it to recognise anything.

Afterwards after copying all her files back on the next day we realised we didn't copy out her itunes library. No problems I thought, I've got a HDD caddy here, we will stick the old hdd in that and copy it across. One problem where the hell are all her music files! You have to remember that she was running tiger and itunes couldn't update due to incompatibility. So she was left with a very old version that I can't seem to find where it hid all the files. Help on this one appreciated as I got so sick of the whole process I've kept putting it off.

To the original poster. I would probably get the Asus, though the Air is a great machine. Just remember to throw the f@($*( thing in the bin after a couple of years and fork out for another one. There's a reason Apple has hoarded $100 Billion. They can and will rape you for every dollar they can.

[SOLID]

@ =stevo= My fiance has a 10inch netbook (1.6ghz with 2 gig ram, screen is a tad to small) and it is far to slow for serious data analysis like SPSS or any kind of grunt work. While you are right that 90% of the time I probably don't need specs much more than a smart phone, 10% of the time I do and would like it their just in case. I move fast on a computer and I expect it to keep up. I have a 13" macbook and I find it a PITA to lug around all day with books taking up far to much room in my tank bag. It also lags when typing if I really get going or when there are multiple processes at work because of its age, I found it similar with the netbook.

One thing that has been on my mind about the ultrabook's is how your wrists are supported with such little real estate. Can anyone comment on long term use?

[Phildo]

I do have a recent Apple experience story I would like to share...

Afterwards after copying all her files back on the next day we realised we didn't copy out her itunes library...

- touch-pad (ie trackpad) not working with Tiger: it’s worth reading the System Requirements when buying something.
- Lion is over rated. Personally, I’m sticking with Snow Leopard (ie 10.6.8) because it does the job (including running old software). Getting a 10.6 DVD is very easy. Of course, upgrading from that to Lion is also very easy.
- upgrading from Tiger (ie 10.4) to Snow Leopard (10.6) is simple. Just get/borrow a 10.6 DVD and run the installer. “This will require a memory wipe from Tiger to Snow Leopard as they are not compatible” doesn’t make sense.
- memory and hard drive - why buy them from an Apple shop? It’s just industry standard stuff, it’s not like any of it is made especially for use in Apple computers. Just work out what you want and buy from any PC shop.
- all this stuff about operating systems is assuming that you do it the 100% legal way, instead of resorting to Bittorrent. You don’t want to know about the Lion installer that you can download in a few hours (ie 3.5Gb).
- before putting the new disk in I would have cloned the old one on to it with Carbon Copy Cloner.
- getting her old iTunes stuff off the old hard drive is easy. Go to the User folder… Music… iTunes. That’s the folder that you need to move over to Lion.

[Kryzaach]

There is one elephant in the room with the new series of Macs from the Air all the way up, that no one has mentioned yet...

It would certainly go a long way to ameliorate your upgrade woes etc, Wedge.

For my money it turns at < 1000 dollar laptop into an absolute behemoth when you need it, but keeps it ultra portable when you don't need "ludicrous speed".

What is this magical tech? Thunderbolt..

Think it's just another niche connector that will die the death of firewire?

Think again.

Hello there 20GB(<- yes that's Bytes) per second offloadable PCI-E bus:



Combine that with the feature set on the Airs, namely the HD series on die GPUs and do the following;

Acquire Sonnet Echo Express Chassis(or vidock, or magma or msi gus2 or whichever one you like)

Install decent Nvidia card, such as 560 TI

Bootcamp Windows 7

Load optimus variant drivers into windows.

Redirect screen output from external GPU back into the laptop via optimus, compressing the data along the way and doubling the throughput while you're at it.

Enjoy the sensation of something the size of an A4 sheet of paper blowing an Alienware M18x(or decent Clevo) out of the water.

And the best thing about it?

When you're not fucking about gaming, you just boot OS X and do whatever productivity (or lack thereof) that you require, with the stability you've come to expect.

NB, I am definitely no mac fan boy(I have to integrate shit into a corporate environment, don't even start down this path).
Much like Cam I believe it only comes down to the right tool for the job. And to be honest, there is no tool as adaptable as this tiny little unassuming machine.

[Wedge]

- touch-pad (ie trackpad) not working with Tiger: it’s worth reading the System Requirements when buying something.

Why should a mouse (because essentially that is what it is) require system requirements? Drivers are two tenths of sweet FA to make to ensure compatibility, hell there's talk of in windows 8 it will generate drivers itself if the suppliers haven't made any. If I went and bought a Logitech 5.1 surround sound system system to plug into a computer would you check it for system requirements? How about a keyboard? I didn't need the swipy stuff, just something to replace her mouse.

- Lion is over rated. Personally, I’m sticking with Snow Leopard (ie 10.6.8) because it does the job (including running old software). Getting a 10.6 DVD is very easy. Of course, upgrading from that to Lion is also very easy.

Fantastic, wait till the next OS comes out and Apple stops supporting Snow Leopard and you will find yourself in the same boat. Different architecture means you go to install anything and it won't work.

- upgrading from Tiger (ie 10.4) to Snow Leopard (10.6) is simple. Just get/borrow a 10.6 DVD and run the installer. “This will require a memory wipe from Tiger to Snow Leopard as they are not compatible” doesn’t make sense.

Should read "Doing this requires a re-format of the drive." You can't put in a Snow Leopard DVD and do an upgrade/install from Tiger like you can Snow Leopard to Lion, or Leopard to Snow Leopard. They are different architectures and requires you to start from scratch.

- memory and hard drive - why buy them from an Apple shop? It’s just industry standard stuff, it’s not like any of it is made especially for use in Apple computers. Just work out what you want and buy from any PC shop.

Do you own an imac? Memory is not the same as normal PC's. The hard-drive I sourced from Net-plus.

- all this stuff about operating systems is assuming that you do it the 100% legal way, instead of resorting to Bittorrent. You don’t want to know about the Lion installer that you can download in a few hours (ie 3.5Gb).

Of course it is, after the girlfriend spend something like 3-4 grand on an imac a few years ago, I would like to have all the official support.

- before putting the new disk in I would have cloned the old one on to it with Carbon Copy Cloner.

This is new to me and would of been helpful, Apple care said as there is no time-machine on Tiger that you would have to physically copy the files across that you wanted to save. Maybe they don't promote 3rd party software?

- getting her old iTunes stuff off the old hard drive is easy. Go to the User folder… Music… iTunes. That’s the folder that you need to move over to Lion.

Folder is empty, where else?

[padfoot]

Unfortunately just before they released OSX Leopard, so she has been stuck on OSX Tiger for the past 4 years. Tiger sucked, Apple stopped development for it soon after leopard and all new programs refused to work on Tiger.

She could have upgraded to Leopard straight away, there was no reason to be 'stuck on Tiger' for 4 years. Hell, when snow leopard came out for $39, she could have upgraded to Snow Leopard.
And Tiger was a great OS IMO, but I suppose thats all personal opinion.

I also inquired about the RAM and hard-drive. He said to go to an Apple repair shop as they will be able to get the parts in just as fast as they can and are probably less busy. So I walked out of the Apple store a full hour after walking in (Took about half an hour to try get someones attention in the first place) completely empty handed except for a card in my back-pocket with the Apple Care phone number on it.

I drive to the Apple repair store and speak to them about the RAM and hard-drive. Sure they said, we have the RAM here but the HDD we are going to have to order in and will probably be here next week if that's ok? I said sure, purchased both.

Why not just buy the RAM and HDD from MSY or PLE or any other computer shop?
You wouldn't have to wait...

While we wait for the new imac to load up the program and him to retype the product codes I scan the room. Stacked up in a row what do I see? Mac Norton Antivirus, Mac Defender, more anti-virus programs.. Wait a sec, I thought everyone claimed that Mac's don't get virus's and don't need Anti-virus software...?

They don't need it, doesn't stop companies making money from selling to Windows users who think they need it

Sure he says, 2 ways of going about it. Upgrade to Snow Leopard first (This will require a memory wipe from Tiger to Snow Leopard as they are not compatible), then buy the Lion upgrade through the App store, or the other option is to buy a USB stick direct from Apple and do a memory wipe and start from scratch with that.

And a quick Google will have told you how to upgrade to Lion with no issues at all... They tell you the 'official' procedure so that they can not be held liable if something goes wrong. The fact of the matter is that you don't need to reformat anything to upgrade from Tiger.

Afterwards after copying all her files back on the next day we realised we didn't copy out her itunes library. No problems I thought, I've got a HDD caddy here, we will stick the old hdd in that and copy it across. One problem where the hell are all her music files! You have to remember that she was running tiger and itunes couldn't update due to incompatibility. So she was left with a very old version that I can't seem to find where it hid all the files. Help on this one appreciated as I got so sick of the whole process I've kept putting it off.

OS X has been putting all of my music in Macintosh HD > Users > YourUserName > Music for as long as I've been using OS X... Assuming you're asking iTunes to manage her content and not manually keep the music in another location.

To the original poster. I would probably get the Asus, though the Air is a great machine. Just remember to throw the f@($*( thing in the bin after a couple of years and fork out for another one. There's a reason Apple has hoarded $100 Billion. They can and will rape you for every dollar they can.

Cliffnotes for your post basically were:
- Bought a peripheral that doesn't work on an OS that is 3 versions old (and when an OS costs $40, it isn't a stretch to upgrade)
- Bought hardware from a supplier that didn't have them in stock
- Tricky to change out hardware owing to design of machine
- Official company support line advice was given based on the 'least likely to have issues' path.

Your issues aren't really related to Apple, they can and will happen to every other vendor if you don't do a bit of research.

The best piece of advice I can offer is never take the official company line as gospel... That goes for calling Apple or Microsoft or whoever for support. 99.99% of the time you will come up with a better solution by way of a quick Google search.

Edit:

Do you own an imac? Memory is not the same as normal PC's.

It isn't some magical RAM, its just the same as anything else.
Its laptop spec, owing to the design of the iMac, but thats about the only thing to be wary of.

And for your Music, you must have had it set to manage music manually... So maybe a Spotlight search of the drive to find where you put it?

[Wedge]

She could have upgraded to Leopard straight away, there was no reason to be 'stuck on Tiger' for 4 years. Hell, when snow leopard came out for $39, she could have upgraded to Snow Leopard.
And Tiger was a great OS IMO, but I suppose thats all personal opinion.

For a young girl who wasn't computer literate as are most mac buyers? There's nothing wrong with Tiger, she could browse the internet, open Word and that's it. The compatibility is what killed it, we didn't upgrade purely for the touch-pad. Every program we tried to install recently we either had to search though archives to get very old versions or just wouldn't run at all. There just isn't support for it both at Apple and in the wider community, and this is an OS that is only a few years old..

Why not just buy the RAM and HDD from MSY or PLE or any other computer shop?
You wouldn't have to wait...

They don't need it, doesn't stop companies making money from selling to Windows users who think they need it

The same could be said of Windows if you don't visit dodgy sites and have an iota of common sense.

And a quick Google will have told you how to upgrade to Lion with no issues at all... They tell you the 'official' procedure so that they can not be held liable if something goes wrong. The fact of the matter is that you don't need to reformat anything to upgrade from Tiger.

A quick google before I started this said that there sometimes were issues with it wiping everything going from Tiger to Leopard or Snow leopard so I thought I wouldn't take a chance losing all her files. Plus she needed a new hard-drive so I was going to need everything on there eventually.

OS X has been putting all of my music in Macintosh HD > Users > YourUserName > Music for as long as I've been using OS X... Assuming you're asking iTunes to manage her content and not manually keep the music in another location.

Not a clue.

Cliffnotes for your post basically were:
- Bought a peripheral that doesn't work on an OS that is 3 versions old (and when an OS costs $40, it isn't a stretch to upgrade)
- Bought hardware from a supplier that didn't have them in stock
- Tricky to change out hardware owing to design of machine
- Official company support line advice was given based on the 'least likely to have issues' path.

-Bought a peripheral that should work on any OS for the past 8-10 years at least, hell I can buy a plug in a mouse for a windows computer and it will run on windows 98, an OS 12 years old. Why should a basic peripheral require the latest OS?
- Bought from the recommended supplier who kept me on hold for 2 weeks
- Yep
- As should any help-line.

Your issues aren't really related to Apple, they can and will happen to every other vendor if you don't do a bit of research.

Sure they are.
-They don't provide support for older OS, an operating system that is less then 5 years old.
-They don't keep copies of a new operating system in-store, even though they take up 0 space.
-They design their products to be difficult to upgrade.

The best piece of advice I can offer is never take the official company line as gospel... That goes for calling Apple or Microsoft or whoever for support. 99.99% of the time you will come up with a better solution by way of a quick Google search.

Very true and while I googled for easy ways to upgrade that CCC program never was seen.

Edit:


It isn't some magical RAM, its just the same as anything else.
Its laptop spec, owing to the design of the iMac, but thats about the only thing to be wary of.

Yep, I didn't know that it was laptop spec till later.

And for your Music, you must have had it set to manage music manually... So maybe a Spotlight search of the drive to find where you put it?

Will it be stored as music files I can copy over? Or like an Iphotos thingy where I have to export them into usable files and I'm looking for a batch file?

[Goldmember]

I was in the dilemma as you afew weeks back as i wanted something light but also practical i was looking at a macbook air but i didn't like the size as it just felt way to small but the big thing for me was the storage room as i take alot of photos and like you said the back lite keyboard. So i went for the 13" Macbook Pro the battery last me all day and im happy with the way they are bulit it just feels so much more solid.

but as for windows i have nothing agains't them apart from i found them to be to slow for me and the freezing really got to me.

I guess this makes me a iWanker

[padfoot]

-Bought a peripheral that should work on any OS for the past 8-10 years at least, hell I can buy a plug in a mouse for a windows computer and it will run on windows 98, an OS 12 years old. Why should a basic peripheral require the latest OS?

That sort of backwards compatibility is what causes headaches in Windows-Land... Having to keep legacy code from 15 years ago causes frustration when you try and change the way things are done with advances in technology.
Although I concede that I see your point about a basic peripheral working... Nothing has changed that much.

Will it be stored as music files I can copy over? Or like an Iphotos thingy where I have to export them into usable files and I'm looking for a batch file?

They'll just be MP3 (or M4A or whatever format they were saved in)... Not the iPhoto like database.
(For reference, you can right click on the iPhoto Library and click "Show Package Contents" and you'll be able to access all of the photos directly )

[vivere]

I was in the dilemma as you afew weeks back as i wanted something light but also practical i was looking at a macbook air but i didn't like the size as it just felt way to small but the big thing for me was the storage room as i take alot of photos and like you said the back lite keyboard. So i went for the 13" Macbook Pro the battery last me all day and im happy with the way they are bulit it just feels so much more solid.

but as for windows i have nothing agains't them apart from i found them to be to slow for me and the freezing really got to me.

I guess this makes me a iWanker

That's the first step.....

[Phildo]

Why should a mouse (because essentially that is what it is) require system requirements?

If it's a trackpad/touchpad then it's different technology to a mouse.

Fantastic, wait till the next OS comes out and Apple stops supporting Snow Leopard and you will find yourself in the same boat. Different architecture means you go to install anything and it won't work.

I'm already there. The main reason that I'm going to be stuck with 10.6.8 for a while is that Lion (10.7) doesn't have Rosetta, which is what allows OS X to run older software. And I still use AppleWorks 6 (came out in 2000) all the time… because it's fast and it works. I don't need the cumbersome crap that is Word/Excel, and I don't need the features of Pages/Numbers. I'm familiar with AppleWorks 6 and would like to stick with it. But, Apple has dropped support for an application that is now almost 12 years old. Outrageous. I buy a new MacBook Pro whenever there's an updated model (currently on the third one in two years) and I'm going to be tortured when the Ivy Bridge stuff comes out in a few months. Ditch my beloved AppleWorks 6 vs not having the current model. NOT looking forward to that.

Should read "Doing this requires a re-format of the drive." You can't put in a Snow Leopard DVD and do an upgrade/install from Tiger like you can Snow Leopard to Lion, or Leopard to Snow Leopard. They are different architectures and requires you to start from scratch.

You sure? With all OS Xs you just run the installer and it does everything. You don't need to reformat a drive to go from one OS X to another, the installer figures it all out and the User folder pretty much just stays the same - that's the bit that really counts.

Do you own an imac? Memory is not the same as normal PC's. The hard-drive I sourced from Net-plus.

The last Mac that I can remember that used specific memory was the Power Mac 7200 back in about 1995/1996. iMacs use SODIMMs (ie laptop RAM), and a 2007/2008 iMac uses DDR2 SODIMMs, which can be bought from pretty much anywhere. The recent i7-based stuff gets fussy though, so for an i7 Mac Samsung RAM is the way to go for reliability.

Of course it is, after the girlfriend spend something like 3-4 grand on an imac a few years ago, I would like to have all the official support.

That's part of the problem - a computer is generally regarded as having a life span of three years. After that, it is regarded as obsolete by the manufacturer. Computers are a big of a bugger that way - over the years I've thrown out heaps of old Macs that were still working perfectly fine, but have no commercial value. But, computers are so damn good now than getting more than three years out of one is very viable.

Folder is empty, where else?

I'd love to have a look at the hard drive and see what's on there. Gimme a call on 0418 922 500.

The physical swapping of the hard drive in that model iMac is a bitch of a job - the previous model iMacs (of that shape) were much, much easier to do. Just under a few screws, remove the back of the iMac and there's the hard drive. Anyone could do it. The recent ones are a nightmare.

With your troubles with software, hard drive and memory for the iMac, that's all due to not being familiar with it all. MacTalk.com.au is the main Australian Mac forum, plus a heap of American ones (eg forums.macrumors.com). Some time (and asking around) would have tipped you off about the easier way to do things. Heck, even on PSB there are enough Macoholics (eg me, Starfish, etc) that could have outlined the process easily enough. There's also the local WA Mac Users Group (ie WAMUG) email list, as well as monthly club meetings.

This all sounds very condescending, but it's not meant to be. If you knew how to do it the easy way then you'd be banging your head against a brick wall by now. I'm more than happy to have a look at the old hard drive and see what's there.