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Welcome to the Forum :)

I will be able to answer a few of your questions and I am sure others here will be able to answer the rest.

1. Check out these:
Ircle X
iRC
Fire
Xirc

2. Disk Image is like a temporary removable disk which makes it handy to install programs. Do not run any programs from the Disk Image. Drag and drop the program to the Applications folder. Then run the program from there. Then drag the disk image to the trash.

3. The book that I would recommend is The Missing Manual by David Pogue. Make sure you get the book that covers the OS version you are running - probably Tiger if you iBook is the new model.
 
frozendice said:
4. Where can I find codex files for video etc? I've found them before but only for windows and a few linux.

Quicktime comes with many codecs, for all the rest I use VLC which comes with _really_ many codecs; that way you also don't have to pay for full-screen playback. (I hope this helps, apart from DivX from their site I don't know many other individual codecs; I tried Ogg Vorbis for iTunes, but the one I found didn't work for me.)

frozendice said:
5. Does mac come with compilers? I'm starting school in 2 days and so far all I know it has is the java runtimes. Does it come with gcc, etc? Someone said it was on the campanion cd. Which is that?

The XCode tools, that should be included with your new computer somewhere (or IIRC are downloadable with a free student subscription at Apple's developer site) include the Apple gcc 3.3 and 4.0 derivatives; you can use them to bootstrap the generic gcc, including all (?) of the gcc supported languages. Other than that, many free/open compilers for Linux also support Mac OS X like ocaml, ...
 
Cheryl said:
2. Disk Image is like a temporary removable disk which makes it handy to install programs. Do not run any programs from the Disk Image. Drag and drop the program to the Applications folder. Then run the program from there. Then drag the disk image to the trash.
Hmmm...

I have several programs that I run exclusively from Disk Images. I've had no problems doing this.


BTW, the way I'd describe a Disk Image is being something like a compressed .ZIP file that uncompresses and mounts as a drive vs. a folder.

> 4. Where can I find codex files for video etc?

Use the QuickTime player for most of these... Download and use Windows Media player for everything else.


> 5. Does mac come with compilers?

Yes. You can either use the Unix ones from the Terminal command line or install the Developer Tools and use XCode.

> 6. Can anyone point me to a page which shows how to create scripts to run with the voice commands?

To speak text from the command line just type "Say Hello".

I know you can also make your machine listen to spoken commands... But not sure if you access this programatically via AppleScript or something command line... or both?

> 7. Is there any way that I can use the mac to vga cable to use an external monitor while turning off the mac's screen. Whenever I use the cable I have to keep the top open which uses up alot of battery. Do I simply have to turn off sleep on close of the lid? [SOLVED] I was missing the usb key
board.

Search this forum... There are multiple threads on opperating laptops with the lid closed/screen off...

Also make sure you read about and understand external monitor "mirroring"...

> I wouldn't usually post questions like these on a forum
>but its just that I'm starting my freshman year in 2 days
>and I've got a billion things to do. Hopefully people don't
>get mad or just respond "google it" because I already have.

Yep... Hard to start school without all of those video codec's. ;)

Before Googling, use the search functionality of this forum...
 
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