About to purchase MacBook...

What do I need??
Do I need anything extra (ie AppleCare?)
I'm a Mass Communications/Journalism student and will mainly use it in my dorm and will take home. I have a messenger bag but should I get a sleeve for it??
Any other suggestions?

Welcome to the discussions!
RAM. You need more than 512MB, but you can get it from a reputible third party like Crucial, Other World Computing, or even New Egg. I have 2GB of Patriot RAM from New Egg in my iMac and BlackBook and it works fine. I'd say for most people 1GB is a realistic minimum.
I like sleeves and have one from Radtech on the way. I have a laptop screen protector from OWC that keeps my fingerprints off the display.
I would highly recommend that you get an external FireWire hard drive to clone your system to using a program like SuperDuper. SD will make an exact copy of your HD on the FW drive that you can even boot from in an emergency.
Probably a USB flash drive for moving files around between your Mac and the computer lab when you want to print. Best Buy has a 2GB drive on sale for $59 by me.
AppleCare is a great idea since it covers your laptop and offers software support for three years. As a student you get a discount on it as well.

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