newbie here....need some insight.

[Haggerty484]

Hello everyone. After doing some research I've decided to buy a MacBook Pro in the upcoming month. This will be the first time I've owned a Mac and the second time I've ever used one. The first being over 10 years ago, needless to say I don't have much of a clue.
I really want the MBPro for its capability with audio/video editing and web design. Which programs are preferable for this and what peripherals should I order with the machine? I own a small gym and am looking to make videos of our workouts and post them to the website as well as play with some song editing and photoshop.
Any suggestions and thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[EricNau]

What web design apps are you currently familiar with?

 

[Haggerty484]

not much.....used yahoo site builder a bit. played with some other apps going back quite a few years. haven't done much with computers other than web browse and write college papers over the past couple years so I feel like I'm almost starting all over again as I look deeper into these applications.

 

[MikeTheC]

Well, the Mac will come with iLife 06, which includes iWeb, a CSS-based web authoring program. It lets you do both template-based and somewhat freehand page layouts which look pretty good.

As for image editing, well... Personally, I can't imagine not having ready access to Adobe Photoshop. If you're eligible, look into getting a school-related discount on Adobe products.

If you're in the mood to experiment, you could put your hands on Gimp for Mac (this is an open-source image editor that's pretty much standard-issue on any Linux install). It's a bit clumsy, but it's also free.

 

[banjomamo]

you can edit movies and drop in some audio with imovie (part of ilife) and the iweb app (also part of life) is pretty easy to work with. bear in mind these are consumer apps and you will pretty much only be able to edit the video and add some audio tracks. im not sure how creative it truly lets you get but if you want to really add compositing and do quality on a commercial level youll need to step up to final cut studio which definitely has everything you could want except photoshop. but that also comes with a price tag and learning curve that should not be underestimated.

if you have a dv cam and imovie i would think that you would be able to achieve results that are satisfactory for your needs. you may want to get a different audio editing app that allows a bit more flexibility like Fission http://www.rogueamoeba.com/fission/.

To offer you more specific advice you should let us know how much control or quality you are really looking to achieve.