New use for old imac

I'm considering an upgrade for my iMac G5 (1.6 GHz PPC) to a newer Core 2 Duo, and am wondering if there's some use for the old iMac besides door stop? Specifically, is there a way that I can use the old machine for backup? It has a newer hard drive. Thoughts appreciated.

You can use it as a monitor for your new mac using an app called ScreenRecycler, or take it apart, throw in a big HD and like the other poster said, use it as a type of home server, or you can sell it, or you can donate it to a company that will refurbish it and send it off to less-fortunate families, or you can make a big shrapnel bomb, or you can.... well you get the idea. I would suggest using it for the monitor though

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New life for old iMac

My Dad still uses his circa 1998 iMac Rev. D tray loader, since I've kept it alive and up to date by replacing its dead CD-ROM drive from one I bought on eBay, installing more memory (256 MB I think), and OS updates through Panther. He's a cheapskate like me and doesn't want to shell out $1000 for a new iMac. However, lately he's complained this dinosaur was starting to run slow, no surprise since even with a minimal installation of X a few music files and emailed videos left him with less than 400 MB free space on the HD, causing multiple instances of "your startup disk is almost full" messages. Remember this computer shipped with a gargantuan 32 MB memory and a whopping 6 GB hard disk. It ran the latest incarnation of Apple's OS which was OS 8.5. No Firewire on this baby either, so expansion options are limited.
I reasoned I could remove its diminutive 6 GB HD and install the 30 GB HD I pulled from my iMac DV SE some time ago, giving the old iMac some room to breathe. But how to preserve the contents of the hard disk without having to reinstall his programs, files, etc?
Here's how I did it:
Remember there's no Firewire on the Rev. D so there's no way to connect a bootable external hard disk to it. I do have an iPod which has both Firewire and USB cables though. So I connected my 6 GB iPod Mini to the Rev D iMac's USB port, checked "manually manage music" and "enable disk use". Deleted all music files.
Ran Carbon Copy Cloner and cloned the iMac's disk to the iPod (this took a couple of hours over USB). Set the Rev. D aside.
Opened the DV SE and removed its 120 GB HD. Information from this web site was most useful. Installed its original 30 GB. Booted it from my Panther disk and partitioned the HD to contain one 7.9 GB partition and the balance in another. Installed Panther on both partitions. Booted the DV SE to ensure the Panther installation went OK. No problems.
Just for kicks, I set the startup disk to the iPod over Firewire and booted the DV SE from it. Lo and behold it works! there was the old iMac Rev D's old self displayed on my DV SE. Who would think you could use an iPod as a boot disk? Everything worked like it did on Dad's old machine. Weird!
Selected the startup disk to the larger partition of the 30 GB internal HD and booted it. Ran Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the iPod to the smaller partition. This went a little faster since it's now over Firewire. Selected the startup disk back to the smaller partition of the 30 GB HD.
Removed the 30 GB HD and reinstalled the 120 GB in the DV SE. Made sure the the DV SE still works then set it aside.
Opened the iMac Rev. D and removed its pathetically diminutive 6 GB HD. Installed the 30 GB. Closed it up and it attempted to boot. It wouldn't work and got hung on a blue screen. Hmm.
I booted from a Panther disk. I went to reset the user password, but quickly determined there were no users installed on the boot partition. None. Obviously this would present a problem. Apparently it wasn't a good idea to install Panther on the larger partition using an identical user name and password - I think this confused Panther which deleted the account from the boot partition. If I had to do it over again, I would have set up a temporary account so I could boot from the larger partition and use CCC to restore the smaller partition. Anyway, no immediate solution came to mind, so I did an archive and install, preserving user settings and all that.
Oddly enough the only "user" was the system administrator. Fortunately, the system administrator had all the same user settings and files that my Dad had so I simply renamed the home folder, set the login name and password accordingly, and that was that.
For some reason Safari didn't work. Safari would launch, but no window displayed and clicking on the menus did nothing. I could only select "quit" from the Dock. I checked my permissions, trashed the prefs file, everything I could think of, but nothing helped. In desperation I downloaded and installed Safari from Apple's web site (using Firefox which was already installed and fortunately still worked). Amazingly, the same thing happened again. No menus would work. Finally, about to give up, I extracted an older version of Safari from the Panther install disks using Pacifist. That worked! I have no idea what caused this bizarre problem.
Now, back to the reason I started this to begin with. The boot partition is limited to 8 GB which is better than the 6 GB it used to be, but there is only a little more than 2 GB free now. There is another 20 GB on the remaining partition, but how to use it? As I understand it, you can use Netinfo Manager to map the user's "home" directory to another volume. I haven't tried that yet, but when the boot partition nears capacity, I'll give that a shot. I'm not looking forward to the permissions nightmare that may result.
So, success for now. The machine runs like new, sure it's a little slow but he's not running Photoshop or anything. That fan makes a racket – how spoiled we've become.
There was probably an easier way to do all this, but hey, it worked.
By the way my DV SE runs OS X 10.4.9 flawlessly with a new 120 GB HD and 384 MB memory. I have no plans to retire it any time soon.
PB Ti 1 GHz  PB 17 1.33 GHz  iMac DV SE  iMac D  iPod mini  Mac OS X (10.4.9)  Legacy (Appletalk) networked printers  22 years Apple!

Thank you Robert; that's helpful.
The way to map a user's entire Home folder to another volume is simple: In Netinfo Manager, select the desired user, then change his "home" property to the path where you want the new home folder to be. Theoretically this could be any volume anywhere. You can then completely delete the original home folder.
I tried this with a test account and it seems to work ok, I just had one problem with a haxie (cleardock). It won't load its system preference. Don't know if it's related to moving the home folder or not. In any event, I'd do lots of testing before making this change permanent.

Uses for old iMac (Rev. B)

I still have my very first Mac - a Rev. B Bondi Blue iMac. It was, until recently, running Mac OS X 10.1.5. Although, it had a disk problem which I managed to recover from by doing a clean install of Mac OS 9.1.1. My dad was using it until he purchased an eMac for himself.
At home I'm using my iBook on the Airport Extreme network - shared with my housemate and her G4 Powerbook. I know that I can connect the iMac directly to my AirPort base station and it can use use the Net and be part of the home network.
I think the iMac still has loads of life in it. I was wondering what other Mac users are maybe doing with their old machines. I'd like to hear of any recommendations.

I've installed OS 10.2 on an iMac I found in a dump. I am planning to take it to work so I can use it for personal e-mail.
Some enterprising members of the iMac community has found a wooden box is the best place for an iMac to retire. See http://www.glenbo.com/imac_box/details.php .
Generally, having more than one computer per person is kind of a pointless thing. It simply chews up electricity and does not accomplish very much. You have to store your files somewhere and ideally that location is centralized, not scattered over 2 or more computers. Invariably the extra computer becomes kind of useless because it doesn't have any of your stuff on it. It no longer feels like 'yours'.
I have many many G3's sitting here and I'm using my Mac Mini (and a G4 PCI as server) and couldn't think of a use for any of my other Macs. I spend about $30 a month on electrical power for all those computers. I personally can't think of a reason to justify it besides making NStar rich.
If you're wondering why I am hanging onto those G3's that I found -- because I can. Since I can't sell them for a decent price, they might as well sit here and take up space.
I wish I could make more use of those old computers, but it is very hard. Even if I linked all of them up to make a Beowulf cluster, it still wouldn't be as powerful as my Mac Mini alone.

New OS for old iMac ?

I have mid 2007 I Mac with 2 GHz intel core duo and 4 Gb RAM running 10.4.11. I want to upgrade the OS as far as possible without slowing performance too much. What's still available to install?

Any OS upgrade is going to slow you down mostly.
But anyway, your Mac can go as far as 10.5.6.
Snow Leopard/10.6.x Requirements...
General requirements
   * Mac computer with an Intel processor
    * 1GB of memory (I say 2GB at least)
    * 5GB of available disk space (I say 30GB at least)
    * DVD drive for installation
    * Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; fees may apply.
    * Some features require Apple’s MobileMe service; fees and terms apply.
Which apps work with Mac OS X 10.6?...
http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/
It looks like they might still have it...
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDAzOA
If it's a Core Duo & not a Core2Duo, then it'll only run in 32 bit mode.

How can i use my old iMac as a extended desktop display for my new iMac?

I recently purchased a 21.5 in iMac and wanted to use my old iMac as a extended desktop. My new iMac has thunderbolt and USB 3.0 connections while my old iMac has firewire (400 and 800), USB 2.0 and mini-DVI. Is this posible?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
If your iMac has got Mini-DVI, you have a 17, 20 or 24-inch iMac that doesn't support Target Display. Late 2009 and Mid 2010 27-inch iMacs, and iMacs with Thunderbolt can be used as external displays. Read > http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11302?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
If your old iMac doesn't support Target Display mode, you can use ScreenRecycler to use your old iMac as an extended display for the new iMac. The only thing you need is that both Macs are connected to the same network

How do I use my old iMac as a third display on my new MacBook pro?

I have both an iMac 2006 and a new 2011 MacBook Pro. I would like to use the old iMac as a second, prhaps third, monitor. How do I tturn my perfectly good iMac into a regular monitor?
Also, within my setup, I have an extra 19" vga display and a new Yiynova 19" interactive pen display. I would like to use my macbook pro as the main coputer and the rest as displays.
ppleas help.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
If your iMac has got Mini-DVI, you have a 17, 20 or 24-inch iMac that doesn't support Target Display. Late 2009 and Mid 2010 27-inch iMacs, and iMacs with Thunderbolt can be used as external displays. Read > http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11302?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
If your old iMac doesn't support Target Display mode, you can use ScreenRecycler to use your old iMac as an extended display for the new iMac. The only thing you need is that both Macs are connected to the same network

Is it possible to use the old iMac 2010 21inch as an external monitor for my 15inch Macbook retina?

Is it possible to use the old iMac 2010 21inch as an external monitor for my 15inch Macbook retina? E.g. Using a mini-display cable to connect from the imac mini display port to thunderbolt port on my macbook.

Apple shows only the 27" version supporting Target Display Mode.
<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3924>

What brands and type can I use for my iMac 20" internal Hard Drive?

what brands and type can I use for my iMac 20" aluminium internal Hard Drive?
can I use WD caviar black?
is it too hot?

If you are replacing the drive because the existing one is faulty, that's one thing. If you just want more space, you should take advantage of having a decently fast and relatively small capacity drive in there now (instead of a huge drive). Get an external FireWire drive and off-load most of your user data there. Make your internal drive dedicated to mostly your OS and app files, with plenty of free space. That setup will make your iMac run more efficiently. I won't go into more detail, because I'm not answered your specific question... You can post back with any questions, if interested...
To answer your questions...
You should be able to use any SATA 3.5-inch drive internally, but you should probably keep it at or under 1TB. The main concerns are power usage and heat dissipation. A drive like the WD Caviar Green would be ideal in terms of power and heat, but they do have slower (or variable) spin rate. I have one as an external drive (750GB) and it is amazingly quiet and cool. If I had to replace the internal drive because the current drive failed, I'd put it inside. I'll trade a bit of pure performance for the efficiency (including low noise), and these drives are more advanced with higher data density and larger cache, so the trade-off from slower spin rate may not be so bad.
You can check your current drive's model number (which is shown in System Profiler) to get the specs online. The stock drive in my old +Late 2006+ iMac is a 7200 RPM drive. The Caviar Black is a 7200 RPM drive, with a newer design. So if you want to use a Caviar Black in there, I think it would be OK.

I just bought a new printer for my iMac version 10.7 but I am able to install the software but for some reason I am not able to view the printer under system preferences to add the printer. It is connected with the USB cord!!

I just bought a new printer for my iMac version 10.7 Lion but I am able to install the software but for some reason I am not able to view the printer under system preferences to add the printer. It is connected with the USB cord!! It as if the printer does not show up in the add printer section under system prefernces!!

I checked the manufacturer and apple site to see if my printer is supprted and it said it was!! I am using the HP officedeskjet 4500 G510a-f (HP Officejet 4500 Desktop)!! Still does not show up under add printers please help!!

I want to use my old iMac G3 as second monitor to my MacBook Pro, how?

I want to use my old iMac G3 as second monitor to my MacBook Pro, how?
Thanks!

You can't really do it in any normal way; that is, using the MacBook's video output port.
You can use this program
http://www.screenrecycler.com/home.html
to make your iMac screen act as a second display, over a network connection. ScreenRecycler runs on your MacBook and creates a virtual second display. It uses the open-source VNC (screen sharing) protocol to serve that second display over the local network. You then run a VNC client program (usually free) on the iMac G3 and display the MacBooks virtual second screen in a window, which you can display full screen. Your iMac then appears to be the MacBook's second screen. You use System Preferences Displays pane to set it up, as you would a real second display.
How well this works depends on your iMac's speed, what Mac OS version it runs, and the speed of the network connection. If you connect the two directly with an Ethernet cable (Cat-5 or better), the network speed should be decently fast (at 100Base-T). If your iMac G3 has Tiger (10.4), you can use this program as the VNC client
http://www.jinx.de/JollysFastVNC.html
(there are free VNC clients for 10.3 and earlier)
However, this solution will never be as fast (in terms of screen refresh rate) as a real display using a real video connection. But you can try it at no cost, to see if it meets your needs.

New Use for iPod

At the office today, I thought of a great new use for image capable iPods. Use the cover flow concept to view all my business cards. Hear that Apple?

There would have to be a way for everyone who buys an iPod to scan business cards, for that to be a practical and separate "feature." If you happen to have a way to scan business cards, just add the images to iPhoto or put them all into a folder, and set the iPod to sync with iPhoto or to that folder. I can even do that with my old 4th gen iPod (although the printing may to too small to read on that model).

I bought a new keyboard for my iMac (10.5) but the f1,f2,f3, etc. buttons don't work. Rather, f14 is the adjustment for brightness. How do I change it back to normal?

I bought a new keyboard for my iMac (10.5) but the f1,f2,f3, etc. buttons don't work. Rather, f14 is the adjustment for brightness. How do I change it back to normal?

Certain older Macs can't use later version Apple keyboards.
Various aluminum models were compatible with later model
G5 PowerMac and iMac, while the older could only use older
model keyboards. Third party USB keyboards from a variety
of makers other than Apple may work OK.
Be sure the Mac OS X is updated to the last Combo and
then see if there is any other software update is available.
Not sure now (years have gone by) if there was a firmware
update applicable to the older Macs so they could use later
metal keyboards. I'd found several white USB polycarbonate
Apple keyboards to work with most of the last PPC Macs;
and bought spares as available, metal / newer didn't work
with mine. Several white plastic ones can work w/ intelmac.
There were keyboard model numbers (Apple) noted to work
with aluminum PowerMac G5, while others that look other-
wise identical (except number on keyboard) did not work...
Too new, and they weren't supported. Worked w/Intel-Mac.
Good luck & happy computing!

My new 3 month old imac 27 with 10.6.8 snow is giving a **** of noise from the fan. suddently starting after today starting up. and the volume buttoms and screen lights up and down not working any more.. any one who can help here???

my new 3 month old imac 27 with 10.6.8 snow is giving a **** of noise from the fan. suddently starting after today starting up. and the volume buttoms and screen lights up and down not working any more.. any one who can help here???

Try an SMC Reset. (System Management Controller)
Shutdown>unplug from power for ten minutes>press and hold in the power button for ten seconds>startup again.
Also try a PRAM Reset. (Parameter RAM)
Shutdown. At the bootup chime, hold down CMD-Option-P-R together, wait for two more chimes, total three, then let go of all keys to finish booting,
If this doesn't do it, run the Hardware Test in Extended
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1509

Uses for old PowerPC G4 Xserves

I've discovered one good use for old PowerPC Xserves is to turn them into a large external FW hard drive.
Are there any other good uses that you have discovered? I'd like to get as much use out of them as possible.

turn them into a large external FW hard drive
Large, indeed. I can't think of any other FW hard drive enclosure that's anywhere close to 19" and 30" deep.
one good use...
I contend this isn't a particularly good use... or at least not a very efficient one.
Your typical FW hard drive enclosure draws about 1A at 12VDC, or approximately 1/10th the power of an idle XServe G4. You're spending a lot of power spinning the fans, powering the DIMMs and driving all the other components that are irrelevant when just using it as a hard drive. You'd save space and money taking the drives out and putting them in a regular enclosure. That way you can even turn them off when not needed, without having to go through contortions when you power them back up.
Granted, it doesn't have the 'cool' factor any more, but it depends on what's important to you.
Are there any other good uses that you have discovered
Given their weight I could see them having use in a personal gym. Just got to work out how to affix them to the barbell.

Is it easy to use for old people?

Is it hard to use for old people?

Thanks, Benny. We will try that.
It's going to take a while, but I think my friend will get the hang of it. It took us an hour, but I was finally able to get her to update her Facebook status! She doesn't quite get that when she touches the screen things happen, so she can't just grab the device like it's a cuttin board.
So far I have the following Accessibliity settings enabled:
VoiceOver: On
Zoom: On
Speak Selection: OnHighlight Words: On
Large Text: 56pt
Triple-click Home: Zoom
And a Bluetooth keyboard attached. We'll see how today's session goes!

New use for old imac

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