First Mac, few basic questions....

[Todasi]

My first post!
Been looking around and had a few basic questions. This is my first Mac, I have a MacBook Pro alu, I use about 2% of it's potential, basically e-mail and surfing.
I travel extensively so I wanted to pick up a game to play while on the road....getting board with Chess Looking at getting Call to Duty 4, which I have learned runs fine on my MBP, but what do you get to play it? Not a gamer at all, so would I purchase a mouse? Which one? game controller? My kid's xbox360 controllers are hard to use, for me, I can't shoot anything the few times I've played it, usually end up shooting the sky, or the ground...then get shot myself.

Looking at getting the new iLife, to better organize my photos and stuff, is it worth it? Also I can't watch my old videos which are formatted in WMV, how do you fix that?

Lastly, should I buy anti-spyware? I was told I didn't have to...is that correct?

Thanks for any and all help!

Chad

 

[swiftaw]

For your WMV files, install this:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx

 

[nebarik]

or you could use VLC player to play ur video files
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

they dont work as well in VLC then they do in flip4mac, but VLC's still good to have for the myriad of other video formats quicktime doesnt support.

for a first person shooter such as COD4, you will most definatly need a mouse. not being a hardcore gamer, you should avoid the more expensive 'gaming' mice as you wont notice much difference.

curious though, why did you go with a macbookpro if all you were gonna do was email and surf the web? seems a little overkill

 

[Zyniker]

or you could use VLC player to play ur video files
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

they dont work as well in VLC then they do in flip4mac, but VLC's still good to have for the myriad of other video formats quicktime doesnt support.

+1 VLC works like a charm for most formats (even some of the more esoteric ones).

 

[Todasi]

for a first person shooter such as COD4, you will most definatly need a mouse. not being a hardcore gamer, you should avoid the more expensive 'gaming' mice as you wont notice much difference.

curious though, why did you go with a macbookpro if all you were gonna do was email and surf the web? seems a little overkill

Well, I went with the Mac because 1. I've had 3 PC's crash and burn on me. 2. No matter what anti-virus I run the PC's will bog down, no matter how many times you clean them or how many spyware programs you run. 3. I want to be able to manage my photos, make DVD's, etc as simply as possible.
I could have gotten the just the MacBook, but really wanted the larger size...plus it should stay modern longer as it's more upgraded than the MacBook.

Thanks for the advice on the mouse! And swiftaw, thanks for the link

 

[Consultant]

Yes it'll help to have a mouse. Perhaps a gaming house.

I prefer wired mouse for gaming.

I also carry a mouse pad in my bag.

 

[nebarik]

+1 VLC works like a charm for most formats (even some of the more esoteric ones).

by all means i love VLC.

thing is though, atleast on my iMac, WMV files tend to be a bit pixelated when it hits a keyframe. espically if its highly compressed. Flip4mac doesnt have this issue. everything else though, go with VLC

and @todasi

ah yes i forget about screensize.

ive been thinking about going for the 17inch MBP myself maybe later this year when i can afford it. but then again im a videoeditor by profession, so ill be using quite a bit of the resources