New to Macs, what do I need?

The iBook will come with everything you need. Personally, I purchased Office 2004. Others may reply on how Appleworks meets your needs.

Go for the bigger harddrive, once you start storing photos and music your space will go quickly.

Also, if your tempted to wait a few weeks there will probably be a Cram 'n Jam offer, wherein you get a couple hundred bucks off an iPod with your iBook (or any laptop) purchase.

Welcome to the world of things that work!

I would try the NeoOffice or Openoffice.org before I bought M$ Office. I have done several assignments at postgratuate university level using Openoffice in Linux and it worked very well. 🙂

I second the openoffice.org software.
It's GREAT! I have used both neoffice J and the openoffice that runs in X11.
I had better results with the NeoOffice J for printing things.

It's a really great software bundle for FREE. AWw yeah.

THX said:

I will be purchasing an IBook as soon as it is updated (hopefully rather soon, Monday would be best 🙂 ). I'm a student on limited budget and I will be using my computer for rather simple things: 1) Notes/Essays, 2) Digital Photo Storage/Viewing and 3) Watching DVDs. I'm wondering what software I should purchase to suit my needs? Also does MacOSX come with a word processor or must I purchase Office 2000?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

1) Notes/Essays - Appleworks is included
2) Digital Photo Storage/Viewing - iPhoto is included
3) Watching DVDs - DVD player is included

Simple, huh?

In my personal opinion, AppleWorks won't cut it. At LEAST get iWork (which doesn't do a great job at word processing either, but cheap and great at design layouts). I'd definitely reccommend going for Office 2004 if you're typing though - it's the best Office program I've ever used. Plus it's really the only program that lets you exchange Word and Excel documents flawlessly with Windows users.

And then there is protecting your investment 🙄

You don't want to wait to buy these. No point protecting something that's already been scratched up. In fact I recommend getting all the protection accessories together BEFORE getting the laptop. Get a case. Get iKlear, works really well at cleaning your system and leaves a thin film that helps reduce microscratches on the white glossy plastic. And get a pack of generic PDA screen protectors. Take two protectors and apply them on both sides of the touch pad. This will keep the wrist area from looking like ^&*% in six months. Might also want to get a cloth screen protector from radtech, you put it inbetween when you close the laptop and it prevents marks from being left on the screen from the keyboard. And if you plan on using it at home alot on a desk, get the iBreeze. It keeps the laptop running cool, looks beautiful and it's slant makes typing much easier, and it's only like $30US. After your wallet recovers, get a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, assuming you ordered your iBook with Bluetooth. However I have a strong reason to believe that the updated iBooks will come standard with Bluetooth anyways 🙂