thinking about macbook, alot of questions

[stealthsniper96]

this will be my first laptop and im thinkin about a macbook. first question is about security. will free programs (avg, avast, ccleaner, zonealarm) work with mac or would i be stuck to norton/mcafee. second is about ram- how much does it take, and where are the moduels i.e. is one under the keyboard or are they stacked behind a back panel. third- macbooks only come with IGP so which one does it come with and how is it for watching movies and the like, no gaming. next- the macbooks dont come with any ports to connect to an external monitor. how much is and adapter and will they run on any monitor or do i need some kind of apple one? last how much is that parelells thing? do i need to buy a whole windows OS to use it or does it include a simulated os? thx for the help i dont think i missed anything.

[Jester]

spyware and virii are not as widespread in OS X as in windows. The only time I had any kind of anti-virus software on my mac was when my wife was using it for school and the school required it. If you do feel the need to have anti-virus software for your mac you are stuck with norton, and mcafee. I would suggest mcafee.

The ram that comes standard with the macbooks is 1GB. You can upgrade it to 2. The modules are accessable from the battery tray on the bottom of the macbook, and are user upgradeable. The hard drive is also user upgradeable. You can find guides on how to do this at Macrumors.com.

Macbooks com with the Intel GMA 950 IGP. It is great for watching movies, using front row, light photoshopping, and even some light gaming. There have been people that have run HL:2 on the 950 chipset.

Mackbooks have a minidvi port on the side. Mac sells a minidvi-to dvi adapter for 17 with the macbook or 19 without. It will connect to standard DVI monitors. There are two other adapters they are the s-video/RCA adapter, and the VGA adapter.

The great thing about macs running with the intel processor is there is no more need for Virtual machines such as paralles, virtual pc, or VMware. You can dual boot windows on your mac with the program bootcamp. You can find the beta verson on apple.com, or you can wait till OS 10.5 leopard comes out. If you want to run windows while running OS X then you will have to get a virtual machine (parallels is suggested). In both cases you will need a full licensed version of windows.

hunt around apple.com there is a ton of info there to help first time buyers. There are also the mac guys here too. Good luck with your new macbook. It is a different experience than windows and totally worth it.

[stealthsniper96]

wow thats alota stuff haha thanks for the help