I don't know what kind of work you are doing at school, but I've put together a web log chronicling my experiences using a Mac at the Harvard Business School: the Mac Experiment.
I don't know if this is of any help, but I found when reading through the literature that came with my new 12" PB that the battery requires "calibration." I've never noticed this requirement with a previous mac, but followed the instructions and have seen much better power management (than I experienced before I read this bit).
Instructions for "calibrating" the 12" PB battery:
charge 'till full (green light where charger connects to computer)
use without plugging in until computer runs out of battery (goes into sleep). now plug in power cord and charge 'till full.
apparently this only needs to be done once.
Your grandfather should look into MIT's implementation of information systems. There is virtually no reliance on MS yet complete choice for students.
The IS implementation at MIT is really a beautiful thing.
Too often schools fail to seek best practices before diving into new projects.
Another recommendation of IGOR. I'm a Mat Sci student at well (or was recently at MIT) and used IGOR extensively in developing my thesis. The graphing capabilities are really lovely, and the program is very powerful. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread there is a very inexpensive student version.
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I don't know what kind of work you are doing at school, but I've put together a web log chronicling my experiences using a Mac at the Harvard Business School: the Mac Experiment.
I don't know if this is of any help, but I found when reading through the literature that came with my new 12" PB that the battery requires "calibration." I've never noticed this requirement with a previous mac, but followed the instructions and have seen much better power management (than I experienced before I read this bit). Instructions for "calibrating" the 12" PB battery: charge 'till full (green light where charger connects to computer) use without plugging in until computer runs out of battery (goes into sleep). now plug in power cord and charge 'till full. apparently this only needs to be done once.
Your grandfather should look into MIT's implementation of information systems. There is virtually no reliance on MS yet complete choice for students. The IS implementation at MIT is really a beautiful thing. Too often schools fail to seek best practices before diving into new projects.
Another recommendation of IGOR. I'm a Mat Sci student at well (or was recently at MIT) and used IGOR extensively in developing my thesis. The graphing capabilities are really lovely, and the program is very powerful. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread there is a very inexpensive student version.