I've come to the Dark Side...

[[AK]Sonic Boom]

An old girlfriend just gave me an old iMac G4. (iLamp?) I've spent a lifetime total of about eight minutes on an Apple, so I figure it'll be interesting to play around with and learn about what everyone tells me I've been missing.

I don't plan on spending much money on it, but from what I've read, it could use an upgrade to 1 gig of memory. I'll also probably get an airPort off of eBay for WiFi.

This machine is pretty much just going to be for web surfing and e-mail, so it shouldn't need much horsepower. I'm still not sure if I'm going to put it on my kitchen counter for recipes or in my room to listen to audio books at night.

Is there anything in particular I should know? Any good websites to teach me all things Apple?

[[AK]Bribo]

What OS is loaded on it? I'd highly recommend The Missing Manual book written by David Pogue.

[[AK]Squidly]

Yes, you will benefit greatly from upgrading your memory.

Get questions answered:
http://forums.macrumors.com/

http://www.versiontracker.com

Useful software, although your OS is no doubt pretty dated so some of it will be unusable for you.

Should work absolutely fine as a web-browsing pc and entry level OS X experience. Keep in mind that later versions of the OS are a significant upgrade over what you're seeing now.