ITS Computer Buying Guide

Table of Contents

• Step 1: Types of Use
• Step 2: Laptop vs. Desktop, PC vs. Mac
• Step 3: Individual Platforms
  • Laptop - PC
  • Laptop - Mac
  • Desktop - PC
  • Desktop - Mac
• Step 4: After your computer arrives
  • PC
  • Mac

Step 4: After your computer arrives

Phew! That's over! You are now a few hundred (or thousand) dollars poorer, but one computer richer. Take a break, bookmark this page (Favorites/Bookmarks > Add this page...), and come back here in a few weeks after your computer arrives in the mail.

A few weeks later...

Okay, your shiny new machine has arrived, and if you're anything like me, you can't wait to start surfing the internet, installing programs, and checking your e-mail (all at the same time, of course, because you did buy a computer with at least 512 MB of RAM , didn't you?). However, before you do this, please, please, please read this page! It won't take very long and can really save you a few headaches down the road. On that note:

1). Update Mac OS X

Since your machine is new, it probably comes with a very recent version of the OS X operating system. Still, you should check to see if any updates are necessary. Once you've gotten your computer set up so that it can connect to the Internet, go to Apple > Software Updates... and install any updates that it says you should. This will ensure that you have the most recent version of Mac OS X. (If there are any updates available, you will probably have to reboot your computer to complete the install.)

2). DON'T INSTALL THESE PROGRAMS

(or) INSTALL THESE (BETTER) PROGRAMS, INSTEAD!

What's this you say? But most of the things on this list come from legitimate companies! What's wrong with them? The problem is that these programs are either somewhat buggy (RealPlayer, AOL Instant Messenger) or there are better alternatives (iChat, QuickTime)

In many ways, these are just examples of bad programs. In general, be very wary if installing programs from the internet, especially if free and is from a commercial company. They don't make money by giving away free software.

iChat / AOL Instant Messenger

Yes. iChat came with your computer. Yes. It's a pretty good piece of software. However, Adium X is better! Adium is actually a replacement for iChat, AIM, MSN Messenger and Yahoo messenger. It allows you to be logged into accounts for each of those protocols at once. You can reduce your dependency on two or three different programs down to one!

Okay, so you really only have your one AIM screenname. Why shouldn't you just use iChat? Well, Adium also has extensive support for themes. You can change the sounds, you can change the dock icon, you can change the format of a chat window, and you can change the buddy list. Best of all, you don't have to do this by hand. Just see http://adiumxtras.com, which is the official site for people to post their themes (and of course, they're all rated)!

Really. I promise. You should try this program. It is awesome.

Real One / Real Media Player

While this media player's ads are very annoying, its real crime is its instability and sometimes-weird GUI issues. Also, RealPlayer just loves to get into battles with other media players over who gets to play what kind of movie or music file type, which usually causes neither of them work.

Alternatives: Other media players, such as VLC, QuickTime, and Windows Media Player can play most "normal" types of movies and songs. If you ever come across any proprietary RealMedia files (e.g. .rm, .ra, .rpm) that you need to watch or listen to, you may have to bite the bullet and install RealPlayer.

Windows Media Player / QuickTime

Okay, so WMP and QuickTime both come pre-installed and there's really nothing wrong with QuickTime. However, Microsoft no longer supports WMP for Mac OS X. Additionally, it uses up a lot of a computer's CPU power when playing videos., whereas our recommended program, VLC, does not use nearly that much. VLC is an open-source media player that can play just about anything kind of movie or sound file you throw at it except RealPlayer's silly .rm format.

Also, unlike the free version of QuickTime that came with your computer, VLC supports full-screen mode (just hit Cmd-F once to enter full-screen mode and once more to exit).

If you would like to be able to play WMVs in QuickTime, you should take a look at Windows Media Components for QuickTime, a Microsoft-provided plugin for QuickTime that enables it to play most WMVs.

Bad peer-to-peer (P2P? ) programs

DISCLAIMER: ITS does in no way condone actions that are in violation of copyright and would in any way upset the Copyright Act and its associates, the RIAA, the MPAA, and the ESA.

On the other hand, if you're going to download P2P? programs for whatever reasons, you should do it safely. There are legitimate purposes for P2P? programs. But be careful, some of the most popular P2P? programs (Kazaa being the best example) contain spyware!

Even though spyware is not nearly as prevalent as on PCs, you should still be cautious about what P2P? programs you install. We recommend you use one of the following (though this is by no means a complete list):

• Azureus - Open-source BitTorrent client.
• Direct Connect - Direct Connect is a free program, but is ad-supported. It will occasionaly open your web browser and redirect you to an ad page.

3). Other neat programs you might want to install!

This is a compilation of a few really neat programs that you might find really useful.

Virtual Desktop manager

If you're a hard-core power user and usually have a bunch of windows open at once, you might want to consider a virtual desktop manager such as Virtue. Virtual Desktops are basically screens full of windows. You only view one of these screens at once and you can switch with a changeable key-combination. When you switch desktops, all the windows that were on the previous desktop are hidden while all the windows for the new desktop appear. Once you get used to it, it's a very powerful and efficient way to keep your computer's precious screen space organized.

Note that, at the moment, all of the available Virtual Desktop managers are beta software and therefore probably have bugs. Also, they are not guaranteed to work with all future versions of Mac OS X.

4). Relax, computers are cool!

Okay, now that we've got that messiness out of the way, you may want to start taking advantage of, you know, that computer thing you just ordered. Go surf the web, check your e-mail, play a game, have fun! Speaking of e-mail, here are instructions for setting up your e-mail, along with other common tasks, as well as some useful links:

How to:

• How to set up your Pomona e-mail account (you need to know your Pomona username and password)
• Getting the mostest from Firefox
• How to connect to the network once you get to Pomona
• How to print to Pomona network printers (from your dorm room)
• How to save files to your Pomona userspace (from your dorm room)
• Come up with a data backup system

Useful sites:

• Google - If you want to search the web for, well, just about anything, Google is the answer.
• The Wikipedia - The largest free encyclopedia on the internet. It's actually pretty rare to find something the Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for. (Note to Firefox users: just type "wiki your_word " into the address bar to automatically search the wiki)
• Dictionary.com - Searches many online dictionaries and displays the result for you. Also has a thesaurus. (Firefox users can type "dict your_word " directly into the address bar).
• IMDB.com - Ever thought an actor in a movie looked familiar, but couldn't remember what else he's been in? The Internet Movie Database is the answer (Firefox shortcut: "imdb your_search ").
• The Pomona ITS Wiki (you are here)
• Pomona Webmail - Allows you to check your Pomona email account from anywhere, just by typing http://mail.pomona.edu into a web browser. NOTE: for "Username", enter your Pomona email address in "xyz01234" format (e.g. ces02004, not cecil.sagehen).
• My.Pomona.edu - A good place to check your classes, GPA, and the official course list.