Can anyone give me some advice on home recording?

Many questions in one. A recommendation for a good value condenser mic? A recommendation for a program to use?- currently using garage band- doubt I can afford pro tools, what are some others, and what are my limitations with Garage Band as you see. Recording into an Apple G4 laptop with an with an external to store files. Has an 1/4 in input- would a USB line in be clearly better? Specific of recording- will likely will be recording with one mic, one track at a time- mostly voice and guitar but also ukulele, bass, piano, and bells. I realize this is broad but any advice would be appreciated.