These are good posts…. helping out my little Mac Mini’s setup too.

No real use for iCal. google handles all of my email and 30boxes my calendar stuff. I’m always connected, so no real need to have any of that local for the time being.

To upload pics to flickr, I would need to own a real camera. I’ll stick to uploading from the phone for now.

I will be going through the system prefs to tweak the power settings. I do that know on all of my WinBooks.

I WILL be checking out the gmail notifier. would be nice to have with the FF extension.

I think I’m good with open office for the time being. programs like iWork (or the MS equavelent) scare me just a little. I like to use tables in my wordprocessor docs and macro’s in my spreadsheet.

Not gonna be a fangirl either Joshua. But thanks for the links and junk! I’ll be checking them out post haste!

And for Patricia and Raditionman…shhhhhh. I think you might have already said to much .

And, yes, I really, really, really did get a Mac. This is not some kind of joke (nor did the Earth open up and swallow me whole).

I know why he bought the Mac and it has nothing to do with his drunken nights in Vegas and EVERYTHING to do with a GIRL.

Yup, you see there’s this girl and db wants to “mac” on her….hehehe.

Oh, nevermind, db’s real reason isn’t really a reason as much as a complete excuse to do what he’s been talking about for months….he’s converting to the ‘dark side’ like the rest of us — it was only a matter of time.

He spent all weekend in Vegas with Todd and Gabe and their both big Macheads – they got him really really drunk and then took him to the Apple Store….

NEVER EVER go to the Apple Store, especially the one in Vegas while drunk!

1- Getting the most of your cpu: for laptops (or at least my wife’s ibook), they have power settings for everything- display, batter, and even cpu. Make sure you have it set to a custom setting where the processor performance is set to highest when running with AC adapter..otherwise, it will clock slower. Guess it makes sense when running just on battery, though (see system preferences, energy saver, options- bottom: processor performance)

2- Get a (free) copy of mac the ripper. Backup…home movies.. Nuff Said.

3- Great for techies (screen capture): Pressing Command-Shift-3 takes a screenshot of the entire screen, and Command-Shift-4 takes a screenshot of a chosen area of the screen or if you press Space afterwards you can choose a window on the screen to individually screenshot, these are pasted as images on the desktop and if you hold down the control key as well they are copied to the clipboard instead. You can also use Grab to take screenshots.

4- Gmail notifier for osx is slick

5- iCal syncs with 30boxes (just be in 30boxes and click the ical share link)

6- flickr export for iphoto app is a godsend..makes transferring large amounts of pics to your flickr account a cinch (includes tagging and set creation)..will send a link if i can find it.

7-PandoPando is pretty slick for large file transfers (up to 1gb)

8- and for pete’s sake, download and use a shed-load of widgets

ok, sorry for the long comment…yeah, i guess i am a fanboy, but I honestly do think the mac can make some aspects of computing more appealing and fun. Hope this list helps!

YOu may want to check out iWork. way cheaper than M$ office and a better experience. Depends on what you need though. Welcome

Looking forward to finding out why you bought it….