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You’re heading to college – or your child is – and you want to figure out how to set up their shiny new Apple MacBook or iMac so that they’ll be maximally efficient and have fun too? Well, you could go and ask the people at the Apple Store what they recommend, but instead, we went straight to the source, asking undergrad Mac fan Zack Shapiro of the University of Colorado, Boulder for his recommendations.
So you’re about to go off to college in the fall or maybe you’re
going back. You’ve probably got the essentials to live your life, toiletries,
appropriate clothes, etc. but do you have the essentials for your computer?
1. Throughout your years in college you’re going to be typing a
lot of papers. This isn’t new information to you I’m sure, but you want to be
best prepared and on a Mac that means not
going with the norm of Microsoft Word.
Pages (www.iwork.com
– $79) is the way to go on a Mac – a word processor built for Macs from the
ground up. What does that mean for you? It means that your word processor was
designed around Mac’s software architecture and not as an after thought for a
companies’ main market. It will also run you about half as much as you would
pay for Microsoft Office. Pages runs extremely efficiently, loads quickly and
will give you everything that you get from Microsoft Word without the bugs and
lengthy loading times.
As an added bonus since you won’t be touting Microsoft’s Office
suite on your computer it will give you an easy out from those pesky group
Powerpoint presentations.
2. Next you’ll need a good Instant Messaging client to keep in
touch with your friends who don’t use Facebook Chat, Twitter or Text messaging.
Adium (http://adium.im/
– Free) is the best IM client for Macs. Not only is it open-source, it’s
incredibly customizable with a large group of developers and designers eager to
create new themes, dock icons and more. Adium did tabs way before iChat and did
them right.
One thing that’s missing though is a video chat feature which
comes built into iChat. Adium developers say that the feature is coming in
Adium 2.0 (which has no release date) but wait, there’s Skype!
3. Skype (http://www.skype.com
– Free) is an Internet telephony application that’s available across all
operating systems so no matter what kind of system you or your friends have,
Skype will work for you. In my first year of college I used Skype often to
video chat and keep in touch with friends and family all across the country.
It’s a breeze to install and you’ll be video chatting with your loved ones in
no time. Skype is a must have for any computer, really.
4. Maintenance: MacUpdate (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16790/maintenance
– Free) is a great application to have around for keeping your computer in
good, working order.