Reset Macbook Pro to factory questions

Hey all, just a few quick questions. I'm giving my mid-2010 Macbook Pro to my mother and wanted to reset it to factory settings, but had a few questions.

1. What do I need to do in order to reset it so it is like the macbook i bought back a few years ago? I have found http://www.mactalk.com.au/content/preparing-your-old-mac-sale-1127/this link which explains how to clean it off, but wonder if I need to de-authorize it or something so it is no longer associated with my Apple ID.

2. When Mountain Lion came out, I upgraded to it, but I'm curious if there's a way to keep Mountain Lion after wiping the computer clean or if the upgrade is attached to the Apple ID?

3. I have backed up my media, but am wondering what happens when I try to restore from a disk image. Does it just reinstall all the programs? or is it like a copy machine for my computer? I would like to avoid having to wait God knows how long when I try to sync my iPad Mini and iPhone 5 because they are syncing to a new library.

4. Speaking of the iOS devices, If I were to not restore from the image that I will likely create shortly before my new laptop gets here, is there any way to copy the onboard backups of the iDevices to the new computer? I'm sure I can find the backups somewhere on my current computer, but it would be nice to back up those backups to an external HD before creating the image just in case something goes sideways in the restore.

5. two last questions about the backup process, how big will the file be and how do you actually restore from it?

6. last question is simple and I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but can't find out for sure. My mother has bought and paid for Pages on her iPad, but asked me if she would have to pay for it a second time. I assume that it is two separate apps, that the iOS app is a separate entity completely from the OSX app. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

w00t951 said:

1. Insert your OS X install disk and boot while holding option. Boot to the install disk. Go to Utilities -> Disk Utility -> HDD (name) -> Erase -> Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Yes, it's completely "factory reset."
2. Read this guide. It'll let you create the disk to be used in the step above.
3. Restore from a disk image? That'd be like you just copying the entire computer over to the new one. All of your old files, settings, etc. would show up on the old computer. I personally would do a clean install on the new computer, but that's just me.
4. No, I tried. Copying the iTunes folder doesn't seem to keep any sync data.
5. The entire computer restore image will be as large as your data on the old HDD. I don't know about the iOS restore images, because I haven't been able to track them down yet.
6. Yes, they're separate. But once you download it for a platform, you can just keep redownloading them. You can even copy the OS X version onto a USB drive and give it to someone else. It won't ask for your Apple ID. Yay no DRM!

Click to expand...

So with the new computer will my phone act like it's being synced to a different library or the one I'm currently syncing it to? I'm wondering if it will be like plugging it into somebody else's computer, and want to erase all the stuff off the phone/ipod/ipad. I'd just like to make this transition as easy as possible, starting with a clean install is tempting, but as my current MBP isn't really having any issues, I'm not sure starting fresh is a necessity.

w00t951 said:

1. Yes, they're separate. But once you download it for a platform, you can just keep redownloading them. You can even copy the OS X version onto a USB drive and give it to someone else. It won't ask for your Apple ID. Yay no DRM!

Click to expand...

Ok, maybe I'm missing something, I downloaded and installed Pages on my MBP awhile back and was trying to download just the installer for backup purposes, but it's telling me I have to re-purchase it, doesn't make any sense. BTW, the process you gave me for the Mountain Lion Boot disk worked perfectly, thanks.

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w00t951 said:

1. 
   No, I tried. Copying the iTunes folder doesn't seem to keep any sync data.
   
   The entire computer restore image will be as large as your data on the old HDD. I don't know about the iOS restore images, because I haven't been able to track them down yet.

Click to expand...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4403519?start=0&tstart=0

The above link describes where the backups are found on Apple computers. I found them and can't make anything of them. The whole folder with all my old backups is around 13GB though, not sure what to copy aside from grabbing the whole folder as the files aren't named anything that makes sense. The path to get to the backups is as follows:

~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

I struggled to find the library until I read that you have to be in a finder folder or just on the desktop with the finder menu at the top of the screen, and hold down the "option" key while selecting the "Go" menu, then the "Library" selection.