OK Mac geeks, make me love this thing.
 

So I've got the eMac here in my office and I fired her up and she seems to be fine. I have it online and all that jazz.

When I went to watch a video online it told me I need a newer version of shockwave and gave a link to update. I downloaded the file and now I have no idea what it wants me to do.

I imagine this machine needs lots of updates so I should learn.

Thanks

Click on the blue apple at the top left of the screen. Select "software update". Do this before you go to bed. If it's an old computer, you'll be downloading lots!

What version of OSX are you running?

OSX 10.2.4

The option "software update" is not under the apple.

There is "Get Mac OSX software" is that it? There are like a bazillion downloads on the site that took me to, is there a list of critical system updates? Thanks

OK, 10.2 doesn't have that option Moses, but I found the way around it.

Now I'm trying to update Java and it wants a password??? wtf might that be?

So the password was nothing but then I found the update is for 10.2.6 or higher:(

How old is this OS?

You definately need to run the Apple Software Update. That'll get teh OS as currnt as possible.

On the upper right is a little blue circle, click it and a search box will drop down. Type in soft and it'll populate a list of itmes with soft in it. software update should be one of them.

You may need to run it several times. OS X is a .nix system so some updates have dependencies. You may not be able to go from 1.0 of something to 1.5, you may need to do 1.1 and 1.3 to get it up to 1.5

oh yeah, 10.2 is from around 2002. 4-5 years old.

I think I'm getting there, I'm updating to 10.2.8 right now.

Current version 10.4.8 You won't get it that high. 10.2 was Jaguar.

Here's the upgrade path.

10.0 (Cheetah)
10.1 (Puma)
10.2 (Jaguar)
10.3 (Panther)
10.4 (Tiger)
10.5 (Leopard, not released yet)

Every name change is a paid upgrade like Win 95 to Win 98 to XP

No, I just want my 10.2 to "be all it can be" which is apparently 10.2.8

10.2, talk about a blast from the past. Its probably not a great idea to upgrade it above 10.3 either (if you go that route) because 10.4 will make it chug and beg for mercy.

stomachmonkey, Spotlight is a 10.4+ feature unfortunately.

Len- your best option at this point is to maybe try running FireFox instead of Safari (if its even on that OS) and definitely not MS Exploder. Probably a good idea to see if you can get "Flip4Mac" to run on it too, that way WMVs (porn, car movies, etc) will play on it.

I left it at work without the last few security updates which I'll do later. But, MS explorer is the browser and some of the text is screwy on a couple sites and images were not all coming up on some sites. I'll play with it more this weekend, but it seemed odd to me.

Definitely switch to FireFox.

OK, I have no problem with that except that the guy this is for is a complete newbie. Do I really want to set him up with a boutique browser?

Fewer problems w/ Firefox or Safari than Explorer, except compatibility on some commercial sites like online banking, for a newbie he shouldn't care. Until he learns what precautions to take, like what phishing is and the real deal with Nigerian Princes , he should doing nothing but just surfing.

YES! Explorer runs SLOW on Macs. FireFox is a smaller, more streamlined application that should work lots better with the older, slower processor.

Re: OK Mac geeks, make me love this thing.
 

Shockwave usually updates the browser you're using, in your case probably Safari.

Oh, Christ, I didn't know you're attempting to use Explorer. Ditch that immediately, it's garbage. I use Firefox, which is written by the guys who used to do Netscape Navigator. It's first class, even Safari is much better than IE.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

Another recommendation for Firefox on Mac. Never had any problems with it.

Thanks, I'll load up Firfox Monday.