[Scylla]

Hi all

Having worked with PCs for ten years, I've made the switch and bought a 17" G4 PowerBook, which I love. However I've only had it for three days and am struggling with a few points I hope you can help me with:

How do you go about uninstalling programmes?
Do I need to install a firewall and anti-virus programme? (I connect to broadband through AirPort Extreme.)
Are there any tweaks I can apply to make sure it runs at its best for gaming and video editing? (I was an ardent PC tweaker.)

If anyone has any other tips they'd also be gratefully received.

Cheers

Scylla

[f1000]

Please do a search of the forums. There are threads for every question you ask.

[euphras]

Uninstall Prog´s: Simply drag them in the garbage can

Virii/worms/Trojans: on the Mac-platform no big deal. You don´t have to worry

As far as tweaking is concerned i believe a PB can´t be tweaked in terms of software/bios overclocking. But you can customize your system in order to get the best out of it.

[JKT]

Just to add to what has already been said:

Some app installers will include an uninstall option if it is needed, but generally all you need to do is delete the application/application folder and that is it.

Anti-virus software is only needed as a courtesy to Windows users - there are no viruses for MacOS X. If you frequently share files with Windows users, you might want to get AV software to make sure you aren't passing on infected files that you received from other Windows users, but at present AV software is a largely unnecessary luxury for Mac users. OS X has an in-built Firewall - the settings can be changed in the System Preferences>Sharing>Firewall pane.

The tweaks that can be made for better gaming (and equally apply to video editing) are:

1) run off the mains if you can - gaming is very CPU/GPU intense and will drain your battery comparatively quickly! It is also highly likely that your energy saver settings for battery use are designed to conserve as much juice as possible which means the processor will be cycled between low speed and high speed states depending on what is being asked of it.

2) Close as many other apps as you can to make sure as much of the CPU/GPU is devoted to your game as possible

3) In System Preferences>Energy Saver, you can tweak various options (such as switching your processor performance to highest etc) for various situations. Create a Gaming setting and tweak away.

4) Get as much RAM installed as you can afford!

HTH

[Scylla]

Guys, thanks a lot for the helpful replies; I do appreciate it.

[deanza4now]

You may also want to turn your software Firewall on if you have a broadband connection. The techies here could tell you whether it's a good firewall or not (a hardware router is the more secure set-up).

You can turn it on by going to System Preferences, then click on Sharing, then click on Firewall to turn it on.

[Maflynn]

As mentioned you can "uninstall" simply by dragging the application to the trash however there still may be remnants hanging around in your library folder. Do a search on the application name on your hard drive and you may find stuff there to trash.

As for anti-virus most people will say you don't need it but if you signed up for .mac you get one so I'd use that if I were you.

I found that the firewall included within OSX is capable. I used gibson's upshields and all of the ports were no found.

Mike

[BenN]

For optimized performance generally, I recommend the following:

1) Run off mains power, with Energy Settings set to `Highest Performance`, with HDD not set to sleep.

2) Install as much RAM as you can afford.

3) Repair Permissions using Disk Utility (in Utilities folder).

4) For best performance in video editing, don`t capture to your PowerBook`s internal Hard Disk. Its relatively slow (at best, 5400rpm), will get full quickly, and probably quite fragmented. Instead, get an external hard disk, to attach to your PowerBook`s FireWire port (if you have FW800, this is best for performance).

For reference, I use a standard ATA 200GB WD 7200rpm drive with 8MB cache, in an enclosure with IDE/FireWire bridge and FW800 and FW400 ports. I`m planning to get one of these in the near future - RAID 0 with FW800: G-RAID.

After each project is completed, I completely wipe the disk before I start a new one.