Your advice please, for the MacBook-toting students

Every high school and junior high student in the Ballinger school district near San Angelo has been given a brand new MacBook. Lucky them.

Let’s assume that most of these youngsters have not owned a Mac before. What advice should we give them? What tips would make their computing life a happy one?

Here’s my list, which in some respects is similar to Alex Payne’s, linked above:

• don’t let your Mac automatically log you in. Pick a good system password and make sure you have to enter it to gain access
• back your stuff up. If your computer is going to die, the chances are good that it’ll die the day before you have to hand in that important assignment
• don’t overload your Applications folder with stuff you don’t need
• use a text editor to write. Only use a word processor for final formatting, if it’s necessary; even then, TextEdit or Bean are just fine for most of the basics
• learn about properly quitting apps (not just closing their windows); about using disk images and installing software from them; about grabbing screenshots with Command+Shift+3 and Command+Shift+4; about Expose and Spaces and Quick Look

Just a few tips off the top of my head. If you were in that school hall while those MacBooks were handed out, what advice would you have been giving the kids?

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