Switcher ??'s, or Robot Invasion? You Decide!

So, I got my MacBook in the mail 2 days ago. I'm very happy with it, but I haven't done much besides some photo/video editing, and some movie-watching (in bed! I love it!)

I have no mooing, and it doesn't seem to get THAT hot.... even when I was uploading/playing video. I have never had a laptop before, so I have nothing to compare it to.

One problem I was having was, it wouldn't start up unless it was plugged in. I think this is because I was shutting the lid before the computer was completely shut down. It seems fine now.

I have not gotten onto the internet with it yet, as I have not been in a place with wireless.

Concerns:

- I feel like it's going to take me SO long to get familiar with all this new software.... iPhoto is easy enough, but iMovie and Garage Band are kind of foreign, as I've never done any video editing or.... whatever it is that Garage Band does. I'm a music major, so it seems like something I should figure out. I need a tutorial or something...

- My question about iMovie: I have some clips that I want to arrange in various ways.. how can I save the individual clips, so I can still access them all individually, and arrange them as I see fit? Does that make any sense? I don't want to upload them every time I want to use them.

- I could have sworn Office came with the computer. I guess I was wrong. I'm in college, so it's a necessity. Is there going to be an updated version for the Intel machines anytime soon, or should I just go get it now?

- Is it better for the machine to turn it off after I use it, even if I'll need it again later in the day, or put it to sleep? I was told that turning it off and on creates wear and tear, but I feel weird leaving it on.


That's all I have for now. I need to transfer music, photos, and all that onto my new machine, but I will consult other materials first to figure out how to do it. Then, when it doesn't work, I'll come here. Thanks for all the advice here, I love my Mac.

You have an external hard drive by chance? I used one to transfer most of my pc files. Just had to plug it into the pc, copy/paste what I wanted, plug into my new mac, and there the files were. Or I know you can do a direct connect to the pc with an ethernet cable, but not sure how that works.

I feel like I'm learning a foreign language with the mac. I knew windows back to front so it was quite a shock to not even know how to do something as basic as install a program.

I haven't messed too much with iphoto or any of the built in apps. I'd had already organized all my pics into folders with dates on the pc, basically what iphoto does. I don't know if I'll ever import all my pics to iphoto or not.

I did try to make a simple movie in imovie, but it didn't go smoothly. Windows movie maker seemed SOOO much easier to use.

I'm gettiing more comfortable with the mac as the days go by though. Still haven't installed bootcamp (although I have it downloaded). I originally planned to put xp on right away, but in the end decidd to MAKE myself use OSX without falling back on windows. Probably at some point I'll install xp.

same here. All those people are like
" ya took me a day to get used to osx"
on my second week and it seems so foreign. I still have to figure these stupid file extensions out...


office has been made universal so guessing your on a intel based you can use office. I use it on my macbook.


after seeing that mac commercial about the mac not having to restart I barly resart mine. It does make me feel good when it only take like 28 seconds total to startup

It does take a while sometimes to acclimate. Many times the way something works is just so simple one doesn't even think to check that way to see if it works. Even as a comp/sci major some things escaped me until I realized that the way to do it was as simple as it turned out to be.

I would wait on MS Office. It is not universal, it runs using Rosetta (the 'emulation' software on intel macs). The next version will be universal. The current version runs fine on intel macs and you can use it fine. But if you can, wait for the universal version which will surely run better. In the mean time, try AbiWord, or NeoOffice, both are free and work with Office files, and can hopefully carry you through until the universal Office premiers.