Please help a Mac newbie!

I need to buy a MacBook Pro for my son--it's required for the advertising graduate school he will be attending. I am only familiar with PC specs--so I'm not sure how many bells and whistles we need to put on a MacBook Pro to make sure it performs with no glitches. My son will be using this computer for photo and video editing, page layouts, website production, copywriting, and general personal use--iTunes, etc.
First question--2.4 GHz or 2.6 GHz processor? Do we need the fastest processor for video editing?
Second question--2 GB or 4GB of RAM? I've read that Macs handle memory much better than PCs. We need a minimum of 4 GB of RAM on our PC to handle video editing functions. Can we get by with 2 GB on the Mac?
Third question--Final Cut Studio 2 or Adobe Premiere, et. al. for video editing?
Finally, can you truly edit video on a laptop with an external hard drive connected? (If so, should the external hard drive be firewire or is USB okay?)
I appreciate any and all advice from experienced Macbook Pro users!
On Edit: Which screen glossy or flat? I'm truly not sure which is better for his needs.
Message was edited by: samdogmom

As someone who works in advertising and instructs at an advertising school, I would strongly recommend against the glossy screen. It may look better at first glance, but that's because it tends to blow out contrast a bit. The matte screen will give you something that is not only more accurate but more reliable to calibrate with when you're trying to make what's on your screen match exactly with a production press or even regular printer.
Regarding the other questions, I think the processor speed (2.4 or 2.6) is mostly preference and cost. If you can afford it, it will help him when video editing or when working on a 500 mb photoshop file.
I'd definitely go for more RAM. Right now, Final Cut is simply more pervasive. That may change in the future, of course. Hopefully by then, either he or his future employer will be flipping the bill.
As far as external drives, you can indeed edit video with one and I've had many people warn me against using the internal drive if you're doing really heavy duty editing (it works fine if doing a home movie or personal project). In this case, get a Firewire 800 drive. For truly superior performance, he should consider a very fast RAID setup. If editing an uncompressed Quicktime file for example - a :30 commercial will usually be around 1 gigabyte - most computers and drives aren't even able to play such a file. It will play with extreme stutter if at all if you're using your internal drive as your scratch disk. My guess is he won't be working with files as big as these, though.
Now I will offer one word of caution on all this. I'm not sure what your son is intending to study (copywriting, art direction, graphic design, video, web design, etc.), but you really don't need all this power if, say, he's studying to become a copywriter and is going to be taking one video editing class. Of course, if money is not an issue, the more computer muscle the better. Waiting for video to render or for a photoshop filter to be applied to a megalarge file can never be too quick.
Sorry for such a long entry. Good luck to you and your son.
Message was edited by: BW Lee

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        <td><a href="javascript:;" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('NavigationBar_r1_c2','','Navigation Bar/Navigation Bar_r1_c2_s2.png',1)"><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c2" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c2.png" width="70" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c2" alt="" /></a></td>
        <td><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c3" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c3.png" width="2" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c3" alt="" /></td>
        <td><a href="javascript:;" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('NavigationBar_r1_c4','','Navigation Bar/Navigation Bar_r1_c4_s2.png',1)"><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c4" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c4.png" width="94" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c4" alt="" /></a></td>
        <td><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c5" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c5.png" width="2" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c5" alt="" /></td>
        <td><a href="javascript:;" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('NavigationBar_r1_c6','','Navigation Bar/Navigation Bar_r1_c6_s2.png',1)"><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c6" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c6.png" width="82" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c6" alt="" /></a></td>
        <td><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c7" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c7.png" width="1" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c7" alt="" /></td>
        <td><a href="javascript:;" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('NavigationBar_r1_c8','','Navigation Bar/Navigation Bar_r1_c8_s2.png',1)"><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c8" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c8.png" width="77" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c8" alt="" /></a></td>
        <td><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c9" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c9.png" width="2" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c9" alt="" /></td>
        <td><a href="javascript:;" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('NavigationBar_r1_c10','','Navigation Bar/Navigation Bar_r1_c10_s2.png',1)"><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c10" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c10.png" width="119" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c10" alt="" /></a></td>
        <td><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c11" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c11.png" width="2" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c11" alt="" /></td>
        <td><a href="javascript:;" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('NavigationBar_r1_c12','','Navigation Bar/Navigation Bar_r1_c12_s2.png',1)"><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c12" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c12.png" width="118" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c12" alt="" /></a></td>
        <td><img name="NavigationBar_r1_c13" src="Navigation Bar/Navigation%20Bar_r1_c13.png" width="11" height="57" id="NavigationBar_r1_c13" alt="" /></td>
        <td><img src="Navigation Bar/spacer.gif" alt="" name="undefined_2" width="1" height="57" /></td>
      </tr>
    </table>
</div>
</div>
<div id="description">
<section>
    <p>We are a leading gym in the local area for people trying to improve their strength, <br>
      and overall physical condition. Whether you are a bodybuilder, powerlifter, athlete or<br>
      simply interested in health and fitness. We can accomodate a wide range of fitness <br>
      objectives at either end of the training spectrum, from beginner to advanced.</p>
    <p> </p>
    <p>POWERHOUSE GYM CHORLEY offers non – contractual memberships, <br>
      no ******** induction fees and pay per session training. We also take great pride in <br>
    offering a friendly, ego free and sociable atmosphere.</p>
</section>
</div>
</body>
</html>
The CSS style sheet is -
@charset "utf-8";
#main_wrapper {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
width: 1366px;
height: 1000px;
z-index: 1;
margin-left: -683px;
left: 50%;
background-image: url(../images/BkgdRustedHomeBorder2.jpg);
background-repeat: repeat-y;
#headerbox {
position: absolute;
width: 940px;
height: 185px;
z-index: 1;
left: 197px;
top: 37px;
box-shadow: 0px 5px 10px 0px rgba(0,0,0,8);
position: absolute;
    left: 50%;
    top: 0%;
    margin-left: -470px;
    margin-top: 20px;
#logo {
position: absolute;
width: 319px;
height: 281px;
z-index: 2;
left: 684px;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -450px;
margin-top: 30px;
#logo_title {
position: absolute;
width: 319px;
height: 281px;
z-index: 3;
    left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -502px;
margin-top: -15px;
#train {
position: absolute;
width: 939px;
height: 233px;
z-index: 4;
left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -468px;
margin-top: 225px;
box-shadow: 0px 5px 10px 0px rgba(0,0,0,8);
#scratched_box {
position: absolute;
width: 701px;
height: 235px;
z-index: 5;
left: 50%;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -470px;
margin-top: 480px;
box-shadow: 0px 5px 10px 0px rgba(0,0,0,8);
#small_box {
position: absolute;
width: 219px;
height: 233px;
z-index: 6;
left: 50%;
top: 50%;
margin-left: 254px;
margin-top: -19px;
box-shadow: 0px 5px 10px 0px rgba(0,0,0,8);
#supplements {
position: absolute;
width: 940px;
height: 247px;
z-index: 7;
left: 685px;
top: 0%;
margin-left: -470px;
margin-top: 740px;
box-shadow: 0px 5px 10px 0px rgba(0,0,0,8);
a img {
    border: 0;
#facebook_logo {
position: absolute;
width: 47px;
height: 46px;
z-index: 8;
left: 687px;
top: 493px;
margin-left: 340px;
margin-top: 20px;
box-shadow: 0px 5px 10px 0px rgba(0,0,0,8);
#youtube_logo {
position: absolute;
width: 48px;
height: 48px;
z-index: 9;
left: 687px;
top: 550px;
margin-left: 340px;
margin-top: 20px;
box-shadow: 0px 5px 10px 0px rgba(0,0,0,8);
#twitter_logo {
position: absolute;
width: 48px;
height: 48px;
z-index: 10;
left: 687px;
top: 607px;
margin-left: 340px;
margin-top: 20px;
box-shadow: 0px 5px 10px 0px rgba(0,0,0,8);
#description {
position: absolute;
width: 525px;
height: 213px;
z-index: 2;
left: 50%;
top: 0%;
margin-left: -365px;
margin-top: 525px;
font-size: 12px;
body,td,th {
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 12px;
color: rgba(255,255,255,1);
font-weight: bold;
#h1 {
position: absolute;
width: 595px;
height: 50px;
z-index: 11;
font-family: "Arial Black", Gadget, sans-serif;
font-size: 8px;
left: 50%;
top: 0%;
margin-left: -402px;
margin-top: 480px;
font-weight: bold;
font-variant: normal;
text-shadow: 1px 2px 2px rgba(19,20,21,5);
#nav_bar {
position: absolute;
width: 592px;
height: 40;
z-index: 12;
left: 684px;
top: 0px;
margin-left: -125px;
margin-top: 147px;
}td img {display: block;}
As you can see my knowledge of coding is abysmal, i'm definitely more of a designer than a developer. Can any one of you benevolent, intelligent and hopefully patient individuals please offer me some help and advice on how to progress, and also how to clean this cluster f*ck of a nightmare coding up. So that i can transform this into a decent desktop/mobile website. Do i have to create a whole new mobile website. and some how link to it? So that a device trying to view this on a smaller resolution automatically accesses the mobile version. How would i proceed with this?
Thanks again for any help you can offer me, it's most appreciated

Hi & welcome to the Dreamweaver Forums!
Illustrator or Photoshop are OK for making images and design comps. But don't use them to generate code. The code is hopelessly rigid and unstable; not suitable for use on real web sites.
You'll be doing yourself a huge favor if you close DW for about a week and learn everything you can about HTML, CSS and web design theory. Without a working knowledge of fundamentals, DW is going to be a frustratingly steep learning curve.   If you come to grips with code first, DW is fairly easy to learn.
Tutorials sites:
http://www.html.net/
http://w3schools.com/
http://www.csstutorial.net/
http://phrogz.net/css/HowToDevelopWithCSS.html
http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/sessions/web-design-theory/
#1 Don't paint yourself into a box. Web pages need to be flexible to work in different displays and devices.
#2 Page height is determined by content; not explicit values. Your CSS layout needs to be built in such a way as to accommodate both long and short pages. Otherwise it will fall apart when visitors change their browser settings.
#3 Positioning (APDivs or Layers) are pure poison in primary layouts. 98% of what you do requires no positioning whatsoever. Learn to use CSS floats and margins to align elements.
#4 Start with one of the pre-built CSS Layouts in DW. Go to File > New > Blank page > HTML. Choose a layout from the 3rd panel and hit the Create Button. SaveAs index.html. Add your own images, text and CSS backgrounds. Examine the HTML & CSS code in Split View to learn how the page is structured.
Feel free to post back if your run into any problems.
Good luck!
Nancy O.

Please help a Mac newbie!

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