A Mac-to-school Guide from ZDnet

I happened upon this Mac-to-school guide from ZDnet’s David Morgenstern today, and since back to school time is rapidly approaching I thought I’d add my two cents. I completely agree that a Macbook is a great choice for a student laptop, and for those who need more power and less portability the iMac is definitely the way to go. For most students, 1GB of RAM will be plenty, however, if you do decide to up your memory to 2GB as suggested in the article I highly recommend going the mail order way. Upgrading RAM in the ‘new’ 2007 iMac is very very easy and doing so in the Macbook is fairly straightforward. If you are unsure, here are a couple tutorials to get you started upgrading your Macbook’s memory.

• MacRumors guide with useful pictures
• Alternative Video Walkthrough

I can also vouch for the usefulness of a keyboard cover such as the iSkin Protouch for Macbook line around a dorm room environment. Actually a keyboard protector probably isn’t a bad idea even in an office workplace — grande coffee in your keyboard anyone?

I doubt most students could go a week without Microsoft Word

One big omission I noticed was no mention of Office for Mac. While using a Mac in a Windows world has never been easier, I doubt most students could go a week without Microsoft Word. While Google Docs gets better all the time, it still isn’t a viable solution for writing a term paper. Apple’s iWork software might also be a good alternative to Microsoft Office but since I don’t have personal experience with this product I can’t recommend it. If you are going to be printing often and don’t need color, I strongly urge you to avoid multipurpose inkjet style printers and opt for a low cost laser printer such as the HP Laserjet 1018. The cost of replacing ink cartridges for most inkjet printers has got to be one of the biggest ripoffs in technology today.