New Mac User

Li_Akahi

Okay, I am getting my black Mac Book (2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB memory, 250GB hard drive, Double-layer SuperDrive) tomorrow (6/19) and I was wondering if any of you Mac users have any tips or tricks that you could pass onto a newbie like me. Please?

Andrew

Throw out all of your old clothes and buy new ones which are more trendy. Thrift shops work particularly well in making you achieve the proper look. Also, try getting a tattoo or a new stylish haircut. You are now a Mac user and you must act trendy. If you wear glasses, throw them out and get black rimmed glasses instead (preferably with rectangular frames). Remember to always look down upon Windows users and abbreviate Microsoft as M$ (the dollar sign is really important here).

Linton

In my view Butler (application shortcuts e.g. Alt + S = Show Safari), Quicksilver (app. launcher), Coffee (turn display sleep on/off from the menu bar) and Adium (IM client) are essential first-day download apps. The freeware community for OSX is pretty awesome so look around for applications that interest you.

Immediately set the dock to ''hide'' so you have the use of the whole display, turn off the transparent menu bar and think about putting Itunes in a separate ''space'' (works great when using Butler shortcuts) to free up your screen.

I would use Safari for browsing unless you're a big extension guys(the Adblocker plugin works great) because it's faster and nicer than Firefox (although i haven't tried FF3 yet)

Don't use Microsoft office. iWork runs much smoother and more pleasantly if you're not a GoogleDocs kind of guy.

Definitely don't get Norton AntiVirus or suchlike. It slows the machine down and gives annoying updates all the time, as well as being completely unnecessary.

That's it for now I think!

HMTKSteve

When picking out what clothes to wear with your Mac just look at what the other Mac users are wearing. You may all look alike but you are still "different".

Apreche

Do the Boot Camp, otherwise you will forget what a video game looks like. Also, you definitely needs some sort of external storage. Either get a NAS, a Drobo, an external hard drive, Time Capsule, or use JungleDisk.

konistehrad

If you're looking for any of the old-school Unix applications you'll probably want to look into Fink, which is a Debian-like package installer specifically for OSX. It'll give you access to Wine, WireShark, GIMP, etc.

Do the Boot Camp, otherwise you will forget what a video game looks like.

MacBooks ship with Intel 950 graphics. He'd do well to start the forgetting process.

kiwi_bird

Well, he could still play World of Warcraft.. ^_~

ladyobsolete

I second getting Adium, though I do like using firefox for my browser. You might find some of these applications useful also http://www.opensourcemac.org/.

As for clothes, might want to get some discrete platforms so that you can better look down your nose at other people.

kiwi_bird

No one here a fan of the Camino Browser?

konistehrad

No one here a fan of theCamino Browser?

Camino's nice, but I think with Firefox 3 it's becoming less and less pertinent. FF3 wraps up a lot of the interface problems that plagued FF2. Your mileage may vary, of course.

kiwi_bird

No one here a fan of theCamino Browser?

Camino's nice, but I think with Firefox 3 it's becoming less and less pertinent. FF3 wraps up a lot of the interface problems that plagued FF2. Your mileage may vary, of course.

I just remember FF2 not being very nice to use under Mac, but it seems now that has changed.

Cramit

Quicksilver is definitely key, but I would also read a little bit about it. It is very powerful, but not very obvious. Life hacker has some great articles on how Quicksilver can be used. I also really like both Growl and Hazel. Growl is a notification system, it pops little windows up to tell you when things are happening. Hazel automates many different tasks, such as moving downloaded files to specific folders based on the file type. Unfortunately Hazel is not free. Finally Tinker Tool is great for customizing how your mac looks and acts.

Jain7th

Try iStat menus, or if you don't like it, iStat for your dashboard.
smcSpeedFanControl is great for keeping a mac cool if it gets hot (shouldn't be such a big problem with the never macbooks).
macserialjunkie or codez4mac will soon be your friend, or at least kcnscrew (this little piece of wonder together will trials is perfect).
Perian is the Swiss army knife for Quicktime (yes it actually gets useful), if that doesn't work go for VLC.
For downloading jDownloader, Azureus, Cyberduck (or Transmission) and Solarseek should work.
For breaking wlan encryption get KisMAC.
Stuffit Expander and 7zX should decompress everything.
I like Aurora for all my waking up.
Go here if you need emulators, N64 sucks and the PSX emulator has no iso support so google cdrmooby.psxplugin and place it in the app (right click, show package contents).
GimmeSomeTune gives you all you need as a menubar assistant for iTunes, if you aren't happy with the lyrics it finds search for pearLyrics.
For NTFS support in OSX get Paragon NTFS or go with the free Mac FUSE on the Windows side it's pretty much Macdrive, if you want to access hdds formatted for a mac.
A better finder rename does a lot for batch file renaming.
Handbrake rips DVDs, for encoding I'd recommend MPEG Streamclip or pay for VisualHub.
Growl, it just makes using a mac so much easier.
iAlertU secures your mac from thieves.
LittleSnitch stops apps from phoning home.
MainMenu ensures your mac runs smoothly.
Monolingual frees up a lot of hdd space by trashing all the languages you don't need.
For integrating you bluetooth phone with you mac try Romeo.
And Simple Comic is the best comic viewer.
Toast does everything more advanced than burning files to a cd/dvd.
ClamXav, so you don't send windows friends a virus.
XLD is nice for converting audio files, which iTunes doesn't like.

Use Quicksilver for all app launching you do and keep the dock as free as possible.
Change the settings you you can right-click when you have to fingers on the trackpad, otherwise you scroll with two fingers, or zoom.
http://www.tuaw.com/ gives you updates on nearly everything happening in the mac world, otherwise you can try the MacCast podcast.
Get comfortable with Automator, it will help you out so many times.
Explore the search in finder, there is so much you can specify to narrow down searches.
Try F9, F10 and F11, once you know Expose you will love Expose.
Use quicklook, it makes looking and using files so much easier (look for plug ins, for example to view the content of folders and zip archives).
Through out the stacks, they only show you a few files and then just a link to browse the folder with finder (if it is however a folder with only a few files go for it).

For Windows emulation try crossover (a port of wine, which costs you money, or go with darwine) or if you want virtualization, even the bootcamp partition, there's VMware Fusion or Parallels.

Tyashki

Monolingual frees up a lot of hdd space by trashing all the languages you don't need.

Monolingual has been known to be unstable. If you're getting a new Mac anyway, just don't install the languages in the first place.

MacBooks ship with Intel 950 graphics. He'd do well to start the forgetting process.

I thought the new Macbooks shipped with X3300 graphics?

Dkong

otherwise you will forget what a video game looks like.

Yep, cause no mac user can own a game console or handheld...

Also, you definitely needs some sort of external storage.

250GB hard drive

I fail to see why he would... Really, unless you are a HUGE anime/movie downloader, 250gb should be just fine. I have 120 gb, and it is plenty sufficient for my music (~1000 songs, ~5gb), podcasts (almost 10 gb worth), and anime (~40-50gb, and that's already ~150+ episodes plus a few movies).

Sail

I think he means that you really shouldn't have your laptop be the only place your important data is stored.

But regardless, 250 GB is way too much for a laptop. I have 60 gigs on mine and think I have too much. With a laptop, weight should be your biggest concern, unless what you're really looking for is a mobile desktop. In which case there are probably better solutions.

Tyashki

It depends how you use your laptop. I have 160GB in mine and it is my primary machine (obviously I don't play many games these days). I have never run out of space though that's only because I delete videos after I watch them.

I'd like to have 250GB in mine, only because I have a large music collection that currently isn't on the laptop.

Apreche

I'm not talking about having enough space, I'm talking about backing shit up.

YoshoKatana

I use a Macbook Pro as my laptop, and I have to say, external harddrives are the way to go. I'll eventually set up my desktop as a fileserver, but backups are really key. As for fashion, try thriftstores and college towns, I hear they usually have some good stuff.

Here are some programs I use on a daily basis:
Firefox
iLife (iCal, Mail.app, Address Book) - This helps for work, a lot.
Transmission - A Bittorrent client
Adium - The chat client
Ventrilo / Skype - for VOIP. I wish Skype would open up their platform, so I could simply use adium for everything.
Colloquy / irssi - for IRC, if you're into that kind of thing.
MacTheRipper / Handbrake / VisualHub - Decoding and converting DVD's to a usable format.
VLC - The only media player for OSX.
Senuti / iTunes - Audio, to and from ipods.
Garageband / MainStage / WireTap - For audio stuff, including songmaking and guitar amplification.
iPhoto / EXIF Viewer / Photoshop - For importing, categorizing, and editing photos. I tried Aperture, and (while it is a very good program) it did much more than I needed.
iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) - My main office suite. I'm awaiting the next iteration of OpenOffice. (I have NeoOffice installed, as a backup)
TextEdit - Comes with OSX, my most used application.
iSerial Reader / SerialBox - Move along, nothing to see here.
Toast - Excellent! Except when it isn't. Which isn't often!
XCode / MacPython - I'm still learning, but it's portable.

Also, I would reccomend dual booting / bootcamp, but I found I never went into windows and played games. I ended up dual booting ubuntu, which I use play around with often.

Jain7th

Monolingual has been known to be unstable. If you're getting a new Mac anyway, just don't install the languages in the first place.

I used it twice and never had problems with it. I installed Leopard twice and never found a way to not install the languages Monolingual removes. Besides it looked like it removed the addidianal PPC stuff that got installed too, which you don't need. After several minutes with Monolingual I freed up some gbs.

VLC - The only media player for OSX.

Ever tried Perian? It has a much better subtitle support, some may not like the fancier fonts but the correct placement is a definate plus.
Example

Luke Burrage

I'm only a macbook user of 3 months or so, but here is what I use most often:

Firefox 3 for tapping the tubes.
iTunes for podcasts and all music (I've finally sorted out all my music and finished adding my CD collection).
Skype for chatting to family and friends (probably better software out there, but I use what my peers use).
Cyberduck for FTP.
TextEdit - again, one of my most used software.
Neo Office because OpenOffice for mac really sucks and crashed often. I didn't try the mac or microsoft options as I've yet to have any problems with Neo Office.
Audacity for small audio projects and podcast creation.
Cubase Studio 4 for big audio projects and music creation (so far I think the only software I've paid for and installed from DVD, because, as Rym and Scott are often heard saying, free options for audio suck.)
Canon Image Browser came with my DSLR and works better with the EOS utilities than the OSX bundled image viewing software.
Google Earth, vital for traveling of any kind.
iMovie but it really, really, really sucks. I'm going to get some better video software as soon as I can.
Taco for HTML, RSS and text editing. Good for editing multiple pages at once. There are probably better out there, but I was happy with this one, the first I downloaded for the mac.
JugglingLab for juggling geekisms.
The Gimp for photo stuff, but I really want to get some better software than this. I'm just too used to photoshop ease of use.
AppleScript for one reason only. When you disconnect an external monitor sometimes windows are left stranded off the laptop screen and you can't get them back. I found a little script online to sort that out for me.
Finally Expose and dashboard for little bits.

I have backed up all my documents, but I didn't use the time machine or whatever it was called, just finder and did it manually. I think you need a dedicated external drive for time machine, as when I first plugged in an external drive a message popped up saying "Do you want to delete and format this drive for time machine?" I'll get a dedicated backup drive soon.

I also use a Crumpler screen protector/cleaner/mousemat thing which works a dream, a two button mouse with a scroll wheel and a USB hub. And an external 19 inch LCD monitor when at my desk at home.

Tyashki

VLC - The only media player for OSX.

mplayer handles subtitles better, VLC is usually my fall back after mplayer and Quicktime w/Perian.

For breaking wlan encryption getKisMAC.

KisMAC doesn't completely support the network adaptor in Intel Macbooks.

Others I use that haven't been mentioned:

AppCleaner for uninstalling applications.
Awaken for my alarm.
Bokeh allows you to pause applications, or focus on one specific app.
Fluke allows me to play my FLAC files in iTunes.
InsomniaX keeps my macbook awake when I close the lid, rarely useful, but it has its uses.
NetNewsWire for a desktop RSS utility (syncs online).
phun, the physics playground (now on the mac).
Reader Notifier - growl notifications for google reader.
The Unarchiver, an improved unzipper that supports RAR and the like.
xACT or Max - Secure Audio Rippers (not quite Exact Audio copy, but the best you can get on a mac)

HMTKSteve

My wife raised an interesting question last night.

She is getting deep into digital photography and almost all of her contacts use Macs. Her background is in film photography (used to have a dark room still have all the equipment) and she has never used a Mac. She has Photoshop on Vista and publishes her better stuff to flickr.

Is there any real benefit for her to go Mac? Is there anything she could do with a Mac that she could not do with a Vista box? Is it just an image thing?

Rym

InsomniaX keeps my macbook awake when I close the lid,

That's really strange. On a non-Mac laptop, you simply decide what you want it to do when you close the lid. Mine, for example, will go to sleep when I close it unless it's plugged in to a power source.

You'd think something so basic would just be part of the OS, not a separate program you install and run.

Tyashki

It's one of those features that are annoyingly absent, because if you have an external display, keyboard and mouse plugged in it will stay awake when you close the lid.

Is there anyrealbenefit for her to go Mac? Is there anything she could do with a Mac that she could not do with a Vista box? Is it just an image thing?

Apart from image, not really. Photoshop is on both, camera software is on both, one of the main workflow applications, Adobe Lightroom, is on both. If you already have Photoshop on Vista all it means is that you'd have to get it again for the mac.

HMTKSteve

InsomniaX keeps my macbook awake when I close the lid,

That's really strange. On a non-Mac laptop, you simply decide what you want it to do when you close the lid. Mine, for example, will go to sleep when I close itunlessit's plugged in to a power source.

You'd think something so basic would just be part of the OS, not a separate program you install and run.

My non-Mac laptop is the same way. Sometimes it gets confused such as when you close the lid (hibernate) and then plug it back in to charge. Because my laptop is set to just turn the screen off when plugged in and the lid is closed it gets confused.

Other times I will close the lid and then pull the plug. When I go to use it again (hours later) I find it out of juice. The computer does not look at the state of the lid (up or down) when it changes from powered to battery status it only checks what to do when you close the lid.

Tyashki

That is one benefit to consistant behaviour, i guess. With the macbook I know that unless I'm using this program, closing the lid will put it to sleep.

konistehrad

I thought the new Macbooks shipped with X3300 graphics?

Oh, indeed, it does ship with the X3100 now, my apologies. My statement, however, hasn't changed.

That's really strange. On a non-Mac laptop, you simply decide what you want it to do when you close the lid. Mine, for example, will go to sleep when I close it unless it's plugged in to a power source.

From what I understand, running the laptop with the lid closed was actually fatal to the older models (iBook/PowerBook G4's), as they couldn't dissipate their crazy G4 heat. I'm imagining this behavior is a runoff from those generations, and like Tyashki said, an attempt to keep the OS consistent between architectures.

Tyashki

The Spore creature creator works with a X3100 macbook, but not a 950. He won't have to forget quite as much, but point taken.

Jain7th

For uninstalling I´d use AppTrap, just move the app into the trash and it asks you if you´d like to do the same with any additional files.

What's Keeping Me?, tells you what app is keeping you from emptying the trash.

Tyashki

AppTrap is then one more thing that's always on in the background. I very rarely uninstall programs, and AppCleaner works with Quicksilver.

Obviously though it's just two ways to do the same thing.

Ooh, WKM looks interesting...