Any USB mouse will work, I often use a Microsoft/Dell two button mouse with scroll wheel. Most of the time I use the one button touch pad.

There's a setting to allow the touch pad to respond to taps.I quickly found that I was
bumping it with my palm when typing, so I turned that feature off. There's a button there, so it's no loss.

I keep Blue Tooth turned off to save a bit of battery power. I use the Airport, but if you don't, turn it off to save power also.

This is my first MAC and I'm surprized how happy I am with it. I still use XP in the day job and support my wife's XP at home.

Still waiting for PG Music to release their BIAB for OSX. They say it's in beta.

[This message was edited by Joey Ace on 08 March 2004 at 10:47 AM.]

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Greg Simmons
Custodian of the Official Sho~Bud Pedal Steel Guitar Website

I print wirelessly to the shared Laser Printer connected to my wife's PC. I also access a shared folder on that XP computer over the air.

Once I purchased some headphones for it at a large Electronics store. I had my Mac in the car and turned it on to try the phones, in the parking lot outside the store. It found their network and I was surfing the Net while sitting in my car!

I felt like a spy.

[This message was edited by Joey Ace on 08 March 2004 at 05:58 PM.]

Don't sell that Toshiba laptop until after the 4/3 jam, we need it for BIAB!

Glad you're joining the ranks of Mac. I've been there since 1987. My latest purchase is a G4 tower (QuickSilver) 1.25GHz. It took about 10 years for my Performa 6115CD (with the original PowerPC 601 processor) to lag enough for me to want to replace it (even after appropriate updates), mostly because of CPU speed and lack of OS-X capability. A decade with the same computer. Frankly, I don't know too many other computers that could hold their own for that long, and I'm a picky user.

I really like my new G4. I've used Unix at work for about 17 years, so having a Unix-clone OS on the Mac is very cool.

If you have Mac questions, email me. I might be able to help.

Incidentally, my mouse is a hard-wired USB LogiTech Wheel Mouse, 3-button. Works great.

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Bill, steelin' since '99 | Steel page | My music | Steelers' birthdays | Over 50?

You teach or lecture, and connect your Mac to a projector for the class to see a slideshow presentation. (Powerpoint, or Keynote, or similar). You can walk around with the wireless mouse, and still click it to change slides.

Neither applys to me.

quote:

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a wireless mouse has batteries that need to be replaced.

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quote:

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"I'll be able to run BIAB on it, won't I?"

---

The OS X version was set to be released, then was delayed again when Panther (10.3) waas released.

PG Music claims the OS X verison is now in beta and close to release. The problem is they've been saying that for over a year.

Like I said above, hold on to that Toshiba laptop, at least until PGMusic comes through with OS-X BIAB!

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Bill, steelin' since '99 | Steel page | My music | Steelers' birthdays | Over 50?

I don't own BiaB, but from what I recall, I believe you can export BiaB songs in MIDI. If that's true, here's a tip that will keep you busy. Export your BiaB tracks as MIDI. Go to VersionTracker and download a free utility called Dent du Midi, and use it to import the tracks to Apple's amazing GarageBand. Presto, no time lost. You might not find analogous samples for every BiaB instrument in GarageBand, but you'll be able to make it work pretty easily with similar (or better) sounds.

Although they are not the same thing at all, GarageBand will make you forget about BiaB in a hurry. It's really cool. I've always been a ProTools fan and user, but for having fun and laying down basic ideas and arragements, cutting and pasting and simple editing, GarageBand is pretty addictive. It has some good amp modeling built in, too. You can even plug in to the audio in jack directly without a pre and get a usable guitar or steel sound straight away.

(FYI, if you run GarageBand off an external drive you'll get superior performance).

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Bill, steelin' since '99 | Steel page | My music | Steelers' birthdays | Over 50?

iTunes is available for free download. The others are not.

I just got an email from Apple Canada and signed up for a full-day GarageBand seminar - I think there's a cross-Canada road show the next few weeks - it's happening in the Big Smoke (aka TO) March 29.

details here:
http://www.apple.com/ca/musicrevolution/

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Greg Simmons
Custodian of the Official Sho~Bud Pedal Steel Guitar Website

It's an even better bargain than the $49 cost of iLife.

BTW, it's not a "full-day GarageBand seminar". It's a full day music/MAC seminar.
GB is just one of the products in their outline.

[This message was edited by Joey Ace on 10 March 2004 at 12:18 PM.]

2 side buttons, 2 top buttons, and a jog wheel which is also clickable.
A small USB tranceiver attaches to the computer and is very good around other electronics. It tracks great and with my bad carpal tunnel it really is a must for me.

BIAB has a different interface, but essentially works the same.
I have done entire albums starting from MAC BIAB generated midi files as a framework.

All your exisiting BIAB song files should be read seemlessly.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 10 March 2004 at 12:25 PM.]

Do check on the security of the AirPort setup. A co-worker of mine told me that when his daughter went off to a dorm at college this past Fall with her AirPort-equipped laptop, she powered up her computer and was instantly online on somebody else's ISP. Her laptop apparently just grabbed the nearest AirPort and hooked up, no questions asked. So do check for privacy settings.

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Bill, steelin' since '99 | Steel page | My music | Steelers' birthdays | Over 50?

It is a good idea to have a decent firewall, but Apple is not bad with security... they have been watching Micorsoft get hammered for years.

And NeXT which was the basis for OS X original was very big in bank and stock market business, neccesitating severe security protocols as SOP.

Several decades of Unix hacking is embodied in the MAC OS, to our general benifit.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 13 March 2004 at 03:58 PM.]

Ed (with OSX help )

[This message was edited by Edward Efira on 13 March 2004 at 05:48 PM.]

I also have an older OS 8.x Mac as a server for the net with a firewall.
New or old I have very few hacker problems.

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Bill, steelin' since '99 | Steel page | My music | Steelers' birthdays | Over 50?