New 12" Powerbook (switcher)

Ok, I recently ordered my first mac (12" 1.5Ghz PB with superdrive) and am excited as **** to get my hands on it (should be in tomorrow or the next day). I've messed around with quite a few macs at school but have never used it for any practicallity.

My question is:
What are some of the first things you did or got/bought for your mac? I have a few things in mind, such as microsoft office and little programs like Toast for ripping dvd's and making/burning img's.

I believe the PB comes with Panther out of the box but with all this talk of Tiger around here i'd imagine that has to be atop my list of things to do.

What are some other things you would recommend for a new mac user?

What are somethings you love and hate (if any) about your mac in comparison to your old pc?

Thanks in advance! :mac:

Congrats on the purchase of your new system. As for Panther, if you purchased your system from Apple, then you should have Tiger already installed on it.

The first thing I would do is wipe the system clean and re-install the OS. The is a lot of stuff on the system that is loaded at default. that you may never use. I prefer not to load all of the languages and printer drivers. That takes up a lot of disk space real estate.

I have always use Apple products, so I can not give you a comparison of the two.

thanks! Actually i purchased it through an audio website that i buy from (they offer better financing than what apple had; plus i have a good rapport with the sales guy)... And, unless the particular listing on the mac hadn't been updated since tiger came out, it states that the pb has the latest version of panther. But i'll have to check when i get it.

I'll definitely look into formatting and installing a clean version of the os as you said. I'm sure there's plenty of material on that matter here.

Thanks again for the info! Anyone else?

I love my 12" PB

- Load Tiger up ASAP --- use the format and install option to wipe it clean
--- And hopefully you've got access to DSL or a high speed LAN because right after you load Tiger ... you need to go into System Preferences and select "Software Update" ------- this will install all the new Tiger patches plus updates to several other programs (about 80 - 100MB of stuff)

- Now you're rockin - just set up your email - wireless - etc.

- While the scroll area works great - you still should get a small USB 2 button mouse with scroll wheel - very handy to have

- Unless you absolutely have to have MS Office - check out NeoOffice/J - it is open source free-ware that is the equal of MS Office - even creates MS Office compatible files http://www.neooffice.org/flaming_yeti_download.html

- Start ripping CDs into iTunes

in00b said:

What are some other things you would recommend for a new mac user?

Click to expand...

Well, you already took one step by joining the forums here...welcome!! :black:
And you are already in the right place, "Switcher Hangout" so I would suggest taking a look around and searching through the threads and posts. There is quite a bit of valuable information here, and it is highly likely that all of your questions will be answered by searching here.
Congrats on your new Mac, and again, welcome to the forums.

DOPE!

Well, i've tracked and it should be here by lunch time (CST) and we'll have the verdict as to whether it's panther or tiger then.

I appreciate your help and i'm sure you'll be seeing more of me as i dig deeper into the PB.

Thanks again... :ninja:

Got it--I'm in love!

i've got a million questions but let me do some searches before i start bombarding you with noob questions.

Be back shortly...

in00b said:

Got it--I'm in love!

i've got a million questions but let me do some searches before i start bombarding you with noob questions.

Be back shortly...

Click to expand...

Did it come with Tiger or Panther? Tiger I hope!

Yes, Tiger it is!

I'm still taken back everytime i use it. It's sleek, rugged (feeling), and the OS makes a baby's azz feel like sand paper.

On top of that, there's almost everything i need to know on this forum. If i'm wondering about it, someone's asked the same thing.

Overall, it's good to have finally jumped ship! :biohazard

Glad you like it, but I dunno if now was the best time to buy, I heard they are updating really soon...

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/