Help me Macophiles!

[0iD]

Right, on a whim I purchased this:

DESCRIPTION: Apple Mac IMAC with matching keyboard. OS 9 with 6.34 GB capacity, 128Mb RAM, 14 " screen with twin built in speakers and CD drive, 2 USB ports and Internet connection ports.
CONDITION: Very good condition and in excellent working order. Only problem is Keyboard is missing F11 button. F11 still works but it is just missing the plastic button top.

Thought it was a good idea at the time as daughter number 2 wanted a small computer to simply surf on. Well i'd overlooked one MAJOR problem.....MSN.

OMFG, am I deep in the doggy doo if there's no MSNing on a Mac. Help...pleeze save me.

Plus, upgrade software, or instll Mac centric Linux such as Ubuntu?

[BroadbandPlacey]

no you can get a normal version of msn but lots of things wont work

no video conf, no screen shake things, no custom message that says what your listening too

all you get is talking and a display picture

http://mactopia.msn.com

i think thats the right place

[BroadbandPlacey]

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default...d=msnmessenger

[0iD]

Cheers matey, better than nothing at all could just save mi bacon.

Still, the question now is upgrade to Tiger/Panther/Whatever, or Mac flavoured Linux?

[joelypolly]

I would say get more ram and install tiger.... installing linux on a mac....kinda defeats the purpose of getting a mac in the first place. Linux is great and everything but installing it on a pc makes more sense.

[BroadbandPlacey]

with the specs id say you'd struggle to run panther or tiger - maybe one of the older OS X's

[Spud1]

Upgrade to Jaguar (OSX), should be able to get it cheap on ebay, unless you can add more hard disk space and ram to let you stick on tiger

As for msn..ignore, remove, delete from memory microsofts MSN client for mac, even though it has improved immensely recently its still terrible, fugly and a pain to use.

I use AdiumX - a gAim clone for OSX, which is much much better Cleaner, simpler(once you have it configured) and much prettier.

As for the lack of screen-shake/winks etc, surely that's a good thing...msn7 is almost as bad as the mac version

[0iD]

Cheers Spud mate, will get Jaguar on

[headbrace]

The newer versions of OS X run quicker than the older versions, but Jaguar is a good half-way house as it isn't too expensive now. Other than that, beef up the RAM, I found that 384 was a fair amount, and runs OS X quite happily with room to spare.

As for MSN, there is a new OS X version of it out with display pictures, but I still prefer using one of the 3rd party options- I use Fire, but mainly out of habit.