New to Mac

[Igottago]

So I just bought a refurbished Macbook from apple's web store. It arrived last night, and after years of using windows, I have no idea what I'm doing.

What do you guys recommend as useful programs or tools download?

I know Mac users like to think they don't need virus or anti-spyware software...is this true? Should I download some type of security software or not bother?

How about media players? Will most content be compatible with what's already on the Mac?

And how about office suites? I don't want to pay for MS Office for mac right now. Is there any cheap or free alternatives? Any good word processors?

Any other tips, tricks, or advice?

[kermitology]

I just got a new iMac.

Handbrake and VLC are good ideas.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Transmission is great for BitTorrent.

"aMSN" if you don't like the Mac MSN and want something closer to Windows Live Messenger.

[Titan]

openoffice is supposed to be a good Office alternative.

Also, check out the apple tutorials. I found they gave me a good running start.

http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/

I found that for burning stuff Toast 9 was the answer. The included stuff seemed pretty limited plus Toast has a bunch of other uses.

quicksilver is really cool for quick key commands and it does a bunch of other stuff I don't know yet.

Firefox of course.

Here is also an article from Wired with suggestions: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Optimize...X_Installation

Another useful link: http://www.myfirstmac.com/

Another switcher's guide: http://flernk.blogspot.com/2006/07/g...switchers.html

[Titan]

Another cool thing is the hot corners. I don't think it is unique to Mac but I never use it in Windows. Anyways, you can assign a function to the four corners of the monitor. For example, for me, the top right corner shows all open windows, the bottom right shows the desktop and the bottom left starts the screeensaver.

Also, the screensaver has an option to make a big picture out of many small ones. That is pretty cool. Can't remember what it is called.

As an aside, I was watching a movie on my pc and got infected up the yin yang almost instantly. On the mac, the same movie, nothing. Just saying, for what it is worth.

Another thing, I have heard not to use the Admin account for regular use, but I had already set up everything how I like it and am too lazy to redo. So, set up a normal account for everyday and and admin to use only when necessary.

Some other security thoughts here: Guy is pretty paranoid but some good tips
(The site is down now but they are working on it)
http://www.securethoughts.net/index.html

I haven't figured out the spaces thing yet.

[Russic]

Here's a thread I started when I got my mac a few months back that I recommend you take a gander at. It really helped me out.

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...ighlight=apple

• VLC for a media player is a must ... it seems to play pretty much everything.
• quicksilver is a handy launcher, but it can get quite deep if you want it to
• While it costs money, iwork is an excellent office suite and I recommend you at least try the 30 day trial. They are in the process of upgrading it but I believe you can still try it out.
• If you find things get a little cluttered with windows everywhere, give spaces a try (set it up from your system preferences). It's something that is included in your mac but not everybody uses. It helped me quite a bit.
• If you are an itunes user I recommend going to the itunes store and subscribing to the Apple Quick Tips podcast. It has loads of "oh i didn't know that" kind of movies.

There used to be the general idea that you didn't need anti-virus software on a mac, but recently it's been recommended. Unfortunately i haven't dug too deep into this yet so i can't offer my impressions on anything.

Enjoy!

[Titan]

Last thing. Don't know if you are familiar with Itunes but it defaults to copy all of your songs into the Itunes folder. I don't trust them enough so I keep my tunes separate and import the folder, but I did not un-enable this option and ended up with 2 copies of all my songs, a big GB mistake. Change the option in Itunes before you copy your songs. The second thing along this line is photos. Iphoto is pretty good but it saves your photos in a weird folder so you can't find an individual photo outside of Iphoto. I put all my photos in a folder and import them from there. This probably doubles the space as well but I am okay with that. Also, you can't multi-disk copy the Iphoto library. I like doing dvd backups but could not in iphoto. That is why I bought Toast in the first place. I just have to drag my photo folder into toast and it tells my how many dvds to have ready and away it goes. boom.

[Titan]

[quote=Russic;1595545]

• If you find things get a little cluttered with windows everywhere, give spaces a try (set it up from your system preferences). It's something that is included in your mac but not everybody uses. It helped me quite a bit.
• quote]

Do you use spaces? I can't get my head around it? I will check out your link.

[Russic]

[quote=Titan;1595560]

Originally Posted by Russic

• If you find things get a little cluttered with windows everywhere, give spaces a try (set it up from your system preferences). It's something that is included in your mac but not everybody uses. It helped me quite a bit.
• quote]

Do you use spaces? I can't get my head around it? I will check out your link.

Actually i only started using it a few weeks ago so it isn't in my link.

Basically just go into system preferences and select "Expose and Spaces". From there I just designated my top 9 applications their own space. Now when I open firefox it opens on it's own desktop. When I click on itunes my firefox desktop swipes away and my itunes window takes its place. I also mapped my scroll wheel button to it so when i press my wheel i get a grid view of all my spaces. What's nice is that at any time you need to combine things (such as a finder window in space 1 and an itunes window in space 2) you can just bring up the grid view and drag a window from one space to any other space.

Also, I agree with what you have to say about iphoto. I really like iphoto but it's organization is peculiar. I do what you do where I dump all my photos into a "photos" folder, get rid of the crap and then when I'm done deleting the garbage photos I import to iphoto. Yes it does duplicate your images but much like you I don't really mind.

You can find the iphoto file if you'd like by right-clicking on a photo and selecting "find photo" ... it'll take you to the folder where iphoto keeps it. Also one important thing to keep in mind that bugs me about iphoto. If you delete a photo from the application itself, the file still remains on your system (this is the reason I delete my crap photos before importing to iphoto).

As this process isn't ideal, I may be purchasing Adobe Lightroom 2 for my photo handling needs. I've heard good things. I believe they have a free trial as well.

Quick tip to the OP, quickview is very handy. Select any file and hit the space bar will bring up a preview of the file. Very handy for pdfs when you don't want to launch adobe reader. It's also how I determine which photos I want to keep and which to delete.

[maverickstruth]

Originally Posted by Russic

You can find the iphoto file if you'd like by right-clicking on a photo and selecting "find photo" ... it'll take you to the folder where iphoto keeps it. Also one important thing to keep in mind that bugs me about iphoto. If you delete a photo from the application itself, the file still remains on your system (this is the reason I delete my crap photos before importing to iphoto).

You can also find the files via the Finder (ie. outside of iPhoto).

Go to the Pictures folder. You should see your iPhoto Library. Right click (or control-click) and select "Show Package Contents". Inside you can find all of the original photo files.

If you don't want to go through that all the time, you can create shortcuts to the folders within (e.g. Modified, Originals) by using right-click -> Make Alias (and then move the alias to wherever you want -- for example, into the Pictures folder).

[Russic]

Originally Posted by maverickstruth

You can also find the files via the Finder (ie. outside of iPhoto).

Go to the Pictures folder. You should see your iPhoto Library. Right click (or control-click) and select "Show Package Contents". Inside you can find all of the original photo files.

If you don't want to go through that all the time, you can create shortcuts to the folders within (e.g. Modified, Originals) by using right-click -> Make Alias (and then move the alias to wherever you want -- for example, into the Pictures folder).

that's actually a good idea that solves a lot of problems. Thank you!

[Igottago]

Lots to learn. Thanks for all the tips.

[HotHotHeat]

Hold down shift and press the dashboard shortcut. Useless, but awesome to stare at when you're bored.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Hold down shift and press the dashboard shortcut. Useless, but awesome to stare at when you're bored.

Sort of like everything in OS X/Apple world?

[MrMastodonFarm]

Just to add..

If it's a refurbished one like you said, be mindful of the power cord fraying and parts of the case chipping away. Love Macs, but they can be shoddily built on the outside at times.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Just to add..

If it's a refurbished one like you said, be mindful of the power cord fraying and parts of the case chipping away. Love Macs, but they can be shoddily built on the outside at times.

Very true; the chipping on the case has been an issue on the last two that I've owned. As soon as you notice a chip, (assuming it's no longer under warranty) put a piece of scotch tape over it to stop it from spreading. Hopefully this is no longer an issue with the new 'brick' manufacturing process.

Spaces is great - I use it all the time; I usually keep one space for my web browser and chat client, and then another one or two for whatever productivity apps I'm using. Flipping between spaces is just a lot easier than stacking windows.

[Titan]

[Removed for dumazzedness]

I find it funny the vehemence with which people are attached to things that don't matter to them. Not to pile on you anonymous people that do this, or attack you, which I am not trying to do, but what do you care if some people like Macs or not?

Sort of like the Piss on Ford stickers people have. Ford, Chev, Dodge what difference does it make. They all suck!! TITANS RULE!!!!!!!!!

Just kidding around but it does make me wonder.

[kermitology]

^^ Did you happen to see the second post in the thread?

Brand loyalty is silly. My opinion so far of my iMac: It's nice, I wanted a desktop, I like how compact everything is, but I don't see how OS X is such a big deal. My Windows machine is basically running like OS X anyways with Rocketdock and my windows not all maximized. Furthermore I have ubuntu on my laptop as well. I'm the king of OS'.

What would be perfect these days are computers that play video/music well, surf the net and have a lot of storage space.

One thing that is irritating me though is that when I'm filling in text fields I press "end" and would expect that I'd go to the end of the text field, but that doesn't seem to happen for some reason.

[ah123]

Some software you might want consider:

* Little Snitch - software to monitor/control incoming/outgoing internet connections (not free)
* ClamXav - anti-virus software (free)
* MacScan - spyware scanner (not free)
* Yasu/Onyx - OS X maintenance/optimization tool (free)
* HandBrake - software to rip DVDs into different formats (free)
* VLC - media player (free)

Some sites with free software lists:

http://www.opensourcemac.org/
http://alej745.tripod.com/grassknucklers/Blank.html
http://macs.about.com/od/softwareand...p_freeware.htm
http://www.emmaalvarez.com/2007/11/t...-free-and.html

Some sites you might want to keep an eye on:

www.macupdate.com
www.tuaw.com

Hope that helps...

[Titan]

[quote=kermitology;1596424]^^ Did you happen to see the second post in the thread?

quote]


Sorry Dude. I was clearly mistaking you for someone else. Trad Ale maybe? Anyway, the comment still stands about people's love for things that don't affect them I mean.