[dj4mula]

I get home from the Dentist without 2 Wisdom teeth and on the table is my 12" PB. I'm a PC user who has decided to purchsae an Apple for Audio production, so I'm still a bit new to the entire new system. I still love my PC for games and other appplications but the Mac just rocks on audio.

Anyways, i'm new to the forum and to the entire mac scene. Any tips you can give me setting it up and software that I should go after. I was thinking StuffIt, Microsoft 2004, Toast & a virus scanner is all I need.

I gotta give it to Apple, the "small" things make the price tag seem like a steal. The stickers, the packaging, the welcome splash screen when I first turn it on and other stuff just adds to the pleasure of getting this machine.

~Tim

PS - I love message forums, so if I post alot of questions, I appologize in advance. I know my way around a PC, so learning a Mac system is gonna take some time.

[riotge@r]

Originally posted by dj4mula:
I get home from the Dentist without 2 Wisdom teeth and on the table is my 12" PB. I'm a PC user who has decided to purchsae an Apple for Audio production, so I'm still a bit new to the entire new system. I still love my PC for games and other appplications but the Mac just rocks on audio.

Anyways, i'm new to the forum and to the entire mac scene. Any tips you can give me setting it up and software that I should go after. I was thinking StuffIt, Microsoft 2004, Toast & a virus scanner is all I need.

I gotta give it to Apple, the "small" things make the price tag seem like a steal. The stickers, the packaging, the welcome splash screen when I first turn it on and other stuff just adds to the pleasure of getting this machine.

~Tim

PS - I love message forums, so if I post alot of questions, I appologize in advance. I know my way around a PC, so learning a Mac system is gonna take some time.

Welcome to the Mac OS. I would get a nice laptop bag for your 12". I'm using Office 2004 and it is pretty nice. I haven't run it through its paces yet.

[JKT]

If you go to the Software forum here there is a sticky at the top of the page that lists some commonly used applications for commonly performed tasks which is as good a place as any to start. FWIW, if you aren't a power MS Office user, I'd recommend trying out NeoOffice/J (or OpenOffice.org in X11) before plunking down a substantial amount of money for MS Office - they are both pretty powerful but free open source office applications (roughly equivalent to Office 97/98/2001) and are largely capable of dealing with MS Office formats (although not perfect).

First priority for your PowerBook is to calibrate your battery by charging it fully, letting it run all the way down (e.g. watch a DVD or something CPU intensive) until you get a low battery warning and then charging it fully again. This is to make the estimated time/% charge remaining indicator (more) accurate.

Next thing to do is switch off Airport and Bluetooth if you don't use them - this will increase your battery life further. Do this in the appropriate sections of System Preferences (Network and Bluetooth). Also, reducing the brightness of the display will further prolong your battery life (under Displays section).

My biggest recommendation would then be to calibrate your screen - go to System Preferences>Displays>Colour and click the calibrate button, then follow the instructions. Alternatively download SuperCal which is a bit better than the inbuilt calibration software. FWIW, you can revert back to the default setting easily if things don't look the way should afterwards (i.e if you stuff up the calibration )

The importance of doing this is that it improves the quality of the display to suit your eyes better.

[dj4mula]

JKT, that's for the information. I will definetly run my battery down to nothing.