Hi there, need some handy help

[DrBunsenHoneyde]

Well hello everybody, new to the board but have been browsing around mac rumours and the forums for around a year now. Yesterday i ordered a MacBook for all my small work for university nothing major but with have such programs as photoshop and other apps that i will need.

To get to the point why i need a smigin of help. I have never owned a mac and to be honest have never really used one. The good thing is i have been playing around with the mac's at my university and so far i seem to be geting on with them very well. I was wondering if you guys could give me any advice on what i should look into on the machines at uni before i get mine and what i should keep an eye out for on OS X that would come in handy. In this time i will be looking around at guides and such but so far so good.

Thanks for any help and please dont be afraid to make me sound like an idiot when you explain things i am PC lit but to be honest mac's cant compare in useability.

 

[mooncaine]

Apps that make your whole computing life nicer:
TextExpander
Butler
iSnip

You didn't say what you expect to do on your Mac, except some general hints, so there are some generally useful apps for you.

Photoshop 7 rocks, and CS2 is, meh, not good enough to be worth upgrade money and not as stable for me.

 

[mooncaine]

Bookmark macosxhints.com and visit it once or twice a week, scan the stories, and see what fun stuff others are doing with their Macs. It'll give you ideas.

 

[WildCowboy]

A good place to start is our very own Beginner's Guide...it's an extensive resource that will take some time to get through, but there's good stuff in there.

 

[DrBunsenHoneyde]

Thanks so far guys, should of said what i would use it for shouldnt i . any way it will be used for general every day use, music, word processing etc etc but then when i am not at home on my home PC i will be using Photoshop on it plugged into one of my uni's 20 inch monitors or just general small use where ever i am. To help you in this idea i am a Art Foundation student at Gloucester University. I have already used old G4 mac mini's and they can handle photoshop well enough for the scale of work i will be doing on this so that was a good enough test for me already

OH OH also forgot that i will be setting up a digital portfolio of my photography/Graphic Design work but from what i can see already i can just use iPhoto for a quick presentation of my work or use keynote for a better one with titles and such.

I also forgot to ask is the built in mic and camera good enough and simple enough to setup for such programs as msn and skype?

P.S i feel like an idiot for not checking this sites guides page lol somebody slap me?



Yet another edit, something i also forgot to ask, i was just looking at a few of the links that people have sent, is there a way of setting span mode or secondart monitor on the macbooks or any mac for that matter? instead of just a clone of the actual macbook screen on the 2nd monitor

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Thanks so far guys, should of said what i would use it for shouldnt i . any way it will be used for general every day use, music, word processing etc etc but then when i am not at home on my home PC i will be using Photoshop on it plugged into one of my uni's 20 inch monitors or just general small use where ever i am. To help you in this idea i am a Art Foundation student at Gloucester University. I have already used old G4 mac mini's and they can handle photoshop well enough for the scale of work i will be doing on this so that was a good enough test for me already

OH OH also forgot that i will be setting up a digital portfolio of my photography/Graphic Design work but from what i can see already i can just use iPhoto for a quick presentation of my work or use keynote for a better one with titles and such.

I also forgot to ask is the built in mic and camera good enough and simple enough to setup for such programs as msn and skype?

P.S i feel like an idiot for not checking this sites guides page lol somebody slap me?



Yet another edit, something i also forgot to ask, i was just looking at a few of the links that people have sent, is there a way of setting span mode or secondart monitor on the macbooks or any mac for that matter? instead of just a clone of the actual macbook screen on the 2nd monitor

All Intel Macs (i.e. all of the current Apple line up) support screen spanning, as you requested. Older macs also did this but the iMac and iBook machines needed a hack to do so.
The built in microphone and webcam are perfectly good enough for skype and the like. However, msn for Mac does *not* support audio *or* video. Well the official Microsoft client doesn't. Personally, I use aMSN which doesn't enable audio but it does enable video. Also, the current Beta version of Skype for OS X supports the webcam too.
As for presentations, keynote's simply wonderful imo. I haven't had the chance to use it yet for a proper presentation but I really want to! Maybe in my coming year I'll finally get my chance with my the module in communications we have this year.

 

[DrBunsenHoneyde]

All Intel Macs (i.e. all of the current Apple line up) support screen spanning, as you requested. Older macs also did this but the iMac and iBook machines needed a hack to do so.
The built in microphone and webcam are perfectly good enough for skype and the like. However, msn for Mac does *not* support audio *or* video. Well the official Microsoft client doesn't. Personally, I use aMSN which doesn't enable audio but it does enable video. Also, the current Beta version of Skype for OS X supports the webcam too.
As for presentations, keynote's simply wonderful imo. I haven't had the chance to use it yet for a proper presentation but I really want to! Maybe in my coming year I'll finally get my chance with my the module in communications we have this year.

Thanks very much dude that has answered my screen question, i was just reading about the hack and was curious if that included intel macs. msn i wasnt bothered bout the audio and visual but skype was the only use for that. Thanks for the good word on keynote also. If i get the time when i have the machine i will use that instead but for the time being when i have it i will just have to stick to simply using iPhoto