I’m the very happy owner of a brand new MacBook Pro. Tell me the must-haves for this slick new rig.
For software, there was a pretty recent list here, as a starting point.
Hardware-wise, a Bluetooth mouse is handy if you’ll be doing any gaming in Boot Camp, or right-clicking can be a pain. I’ve got a Logitech V470 that works well, though I haven’t had it long enough to judge the battery life on it yet.
To add to the software list:
- Himmelbar, if you like OS9-style launching.
- Hordes of Orcs if you like killing orcs.
- OnyX is a neat little tool to keep track of SMART status and perform maintenance on your drives.
Hunt around Deviant Art for cool new icon sets. CandyBar lets you replace system icons more easily.
If you’re a developer, FreeDMG should be all you ever need for packaging (combined with a little knowhow).
Make sure you get the AppleCare extended warranty, because your Mac will die no sooner than the day after the regular warranty expires.
No joke there, although I lucked out with my G4 iBook as it died a month before the original warranty expired. This time when the optical drive failed and the power cord wore out, I used it as an excuse to buy this new toy. I think I’ll buy a replacement power cord for the iBook and let my wife use it as a kitchen computer for looking up recipes and sending emails, etc.
Yeah… Our iMac G5 was a fine piece of machinery, until the warranty expired, and it decided to overheat and bake the logic board. It still works from time to time, for upwards of 10 minutes, before the graphical corruption returns and it’s unusable for an indeterminate span.
re: Applecare.
Probably a good idea if you bought a laptop and expect to use it in the field often. Maybe not so much if you use it only in the office or have a desktop IMO.
We’ve bought 7 machines in as many years and never had a problem. Did have 1 (one) hard disk failure. Maybe just good luck on our part.
Diego
Dwarf Fortress has an OS X port now. That’s essential in my book!
There’s a basically permanent warranty extension for certain common iMac G5 motherboard problems. Have it checked out at an Apple Store (or any authorized place) if you can. Bad capacitors… you could potentially end up with a brand new Intel model.
Would be a better deal if it was Fusion instead of Parallels. Parallels wins points for having been first to market with a good VM on Intel, but Fusion has been a more reliable product for me (I own licenses to both but I only use Fusion now).
Very cool Ryan :)
re: AppleCare. It is NOT an “accidental damage” warranty extension. If any number of things happen to your MacBook that Apple considers to be accidental you will have problems getting any warranty support. AppleCare or not. It seems like a poor value unless you need the technical support calls.
There’s a wide, nontrivial coverage gap between a 3 year warranty and a 1 year warranty. It’s very much worth the cost in many cases. It isn’t accident insurance, but it’s not priced like it either. Even if you don’t use it it’ll provide a good resale-value increase when you go to sell – buyers commonly ask about it.
The thing to remember about AppleCare is that you don’t have to buy it right when you buy the laptop – you can pick it up any time before the normal 1-year warranty expires, so you can take a while to decide whether the extra two years are worth it.
In my experience it IS priced like an accidental coverage warranty which is why I’m so irritated by it.
Considering how frequently Apple revs the notebook I find I’m better saving the money and self-insuring since I’ll get a significantly better notebook if the current one was to die.
Skitch has been pretty essential for me. I’ve also been quite impressed with Office 2008. Web browsing via Camino
Paragon Rescue Kit for Mac OS X for making image backups of entire drive/partitions.
Still in beta but it worked great for me today.
Tremulous runs on Mac. :)
Also, I believe that there’s a Mac version of NWN2 and MotB.
There is, but I haven’t seen any reviews of it – I’d kinda like to pick it up, but I don’t know whether it’s nicely done or just a shitty clunky port that won’t run well on my laptop.
Anyone tried it out?