Q: Hiring someone to update my Mac OS X 10.4.11

Apple, itself, will no longer deal with older Macs.

Especially those that run can only OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard.

You can do an online search in the LA area for Apple authorized service centers or Apple authorize resellers who, also, perform updates and repairs. You would have to bring your iMac in for the service.

You could, also, do a search for local computer shops who work on both Macs and PCs and bring the computer to them for updating.

Also, if you're looking for an individual to do this instead of bringing the computer to an Apple repair facility, you could try and see if you have any Mac user Groups (also called MUGs) and see if you can get a user of one of these groups to help with your issue.

Another way to get help is to use an online bulletin board, like Craigslist, and see if they have an Apple section where you can either search for a service there or place your own free ad/post for help in doing what you plan.

Question.

Do you even know what type of iMac you have?

Do you know what year, Processor speed, screen size and amount of RAM (Random Access Memory) is installed?

If you do not know where to find this in OS X, at the top menu bar, click the Apple symbol, a pop up menu appears.

Click on about this Mac or about this computer and a pop up window should appear giving you some basic info about your iMac.

We are all users here, if we can get this info from you, we maybe, just maybe could walk you through the processes of doing the yourself with our help here.

Depending on how old this iMac is, you may find that paying to have this done for you maybe more than the iMac is worth if you have to perform any other upgrades to accomodate an OS X system upgrade/update.

You can upgrade all the way to Mt Lion if you max out your RAM. You will need to purchase the Snow Leopard Upgrade DVD which is 10.6.3 then update to 10.6.8 which gives you access to the App Store where you can purchase and download 10.8.2. If you have older Applications that are Power PC then I would recommend partitioning the hard drive at Snow Leopard and putting Mt Lion on its own partition creating a Dual Boot System.

If it's an early 2006, you can only go to Snow Leopard (10.6.8); if it's a late 2006, you can go to Lion (10.7.5); here are the specs for Mountain Lion (iMacs mid 2007 or newer):

http://www.apple.com/osx/specs/

Also, you would need to significantly increase your RAM; with the info you posted, I believe it is a late 2006 - you can upgrade to 4 GB although your machine will only address slightly more than 3 GB.

At this point, considering the age of the machine (and the older slower processor), I'd suggest saving your money and getting a newer refurbished machine from the Apple store - great savings and you get a regular warranty.

Updating the RAM and upgrading/updating the OS aren't that difficult for the end user to do.

Before upgrading the OS, you would need to upgrade the RAM.

This is the only user upgradeable/installable hardware in an iMac.

It is, also, not very hard to do.

First you need to purchase the additional RAM.

Your iMac can take 4 GBs of RAM max.

There are two reliable online sources for Mac RAM. Crucial memory or OWC.

RAM for iMacs is fairly cheap to buy, now.

Here's the specs of the RAM your iMac takes

3.0 GB (4.0 GB can be installed, only 3.0 GB will be addressed)

Memory Slots     2 - 200-pin PC2-5300 (667MHz) DDR2 SO-DIMM

And here's the procedure  for replacing and installing the RAM in your iMac.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1423

As you can see from the diagrams, this is not too hard to do.

Next, you will need to purchase a retail copy of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. This disc can be directly purchased from Apple by calling 1-809-MYAPPLE. Ask for retail software sales. They will have OS X 10.6 for $19.99 plus shipping.

Once you receive this disc, before installing OS X 10.6, if your iMac has a lot of data on it that is important to you that you wish to  save, the easiest and most direct way to so this is to purchase an external FireWire 400 hard drive and copy all of the data from your iMac to your new external hard drive. This is a backup or safety for your data Innthe event something does go wrong with upgrading/installing your new OS.

Search online for FireWire 400 external Hard drives. Should give you results where to find and purchase.

You need to download a program that will exactly copy of the contents of your iMac's hard drive to the new drive you just purchased. There are two programs that do this. One is called CarbonCopyCloner. The other is called SuperDuper.

Either one of these programs is capable of copying/duplicating the contents on the hard drive of your iMac.

Once you have done this, you can now insert the install disc, you purchased, and follow the instructions to begin the installation process of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

There are install options I am not sure which options retains all of your data and all the various settings already setup in your iMac.

It's either going to be an Update Install or an Archive Install.

Someone else maybe able to tell you this for sure.

Once the installation is all completed and your iMac is back up and running and everything appears to be functioning OK.

Under OS X system preferences panel click on the Software Update icon.

Click on find updates to update your system to OS X 10.6.8. And, also, to update any other software on your iMac.

Once allof this is all complete, locate your name home folder, Applications folder, Utilities folder and look for the Disk Utility app. Dbl. click this app to launch it . Do a permissions repair on your iMac's main drive.

Once your iMac is up to date, your dock should have an icon for Apple Mac Apo store in it now.

If you choose to upgrade the OS further, you need to click on the Mac App Store icon in your OS X dock and search to see if OS X 10.7 Lion is available for purchase and download.

If OS X 10.7 Lion isn't available for purchase and download , you may have to contact Apple software sales, again to see if it can be purchased in a different manner.

You could also do another software update in the system preferences panel to see if the option to upgrade to OS X 10.7 Lion appears, also. It may not, but won't hurt to try this.

My advice, since your iMac is fairly old, I would stay on OS X 10.6.8 and NOT upgrade to OS X10.7 Lion.

This is the best I can do to walk through what is a fairly involved , but very user doable OS upgrade.

I know there is a chance I missed something so, hopefully, other really experienced users here will fill in any gaps I may have missed.

It seems like a lot of steps until you've tried this once.

Doing OS upgrades isn't quite as bad the more times it's done.

If you choose to,try this yourself, then good luck!

Every one here in these discussion forums is here to help you if you need it.