I recommend these two threads for new switchers:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/apple-macintosh/249928-macintosh-most-recommended-software-list.html
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/apple-macintosh/255792-cool-osx-tips-share-your-favorites.html
Anything to add? :)
Gonna bump mine to a 500GB drive and 4GB for about 1/5 the price Apple wants for the 4GB/320GB/slightly faster version.
Scrivener and Celtx are the two most essential programs on my Mac.
Our local apple store just got the new macbook pro’s in.
Just picked up the new 13" macbook pro 2.53ghz, 4gb ram
extra power supply
mini display port -> dvi adapter.
I’ve gone through the initial setup and did all the software updates.
tested 802.11n and gigabit ethernet.
vlc installed
firefox installed though I’m liking safari 4
connected to my windows shares
streamed some 1080p mkv’s from my windows shares. Plays them really smooth in vlc though cpu gets up to 80%.
tried the sd reader. ummm it’s an sd reader and it works.
I’m a complete osx noob so I’m still finding my way around. This is my very first mac.
The hardest thing for me to get use to is the track pad. Having the pad being one big button is going to take some getting use to. I keep using a different finger to click when I could just use the finger that is moving the pointer around. It’s because my muscle memory is so use to pc laptop pads with actual mouse buttons.
So far yeah the initial “mac experience” is way different than pc. You sure do pay for it though. I’m not use to using such a nice modern laptop :-)
So here comes the noob questions:
Ummm what happened to Home/End keys?
recommend me a good vnc client (I use ultra vnc on the pc)
I plan to get a 500gb 7200 rpm hdd. Is this what I should be using to image the drive?
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Aw, that’s not fair. I ordered mine a few hours after announcement! Wanted to pick it up it up this weekend, and didn’t want to chance the Apple stores not having it then. Ah well, I’ll have it Friday.
I’m opting for a 5200 rpm drive, as I’m concerned the 7200 will put too much of a hit on battery life and add heat. Note that in reading around reviews, it looks like the Western Digital drives run less hot than the Seagate 2.5 500GB.
As far as imaging the drive, if it’s a new system, is there any advantage to imaging/restoring vs. just using the recovery discs to start anew on the new hard drive?
It’s funny to see the excitement over the SD card slot, given how long we’ve had that on PC notebooks. And even $199 netbooks. But still, I’d have been very frustrated if it wasn’t there.
You might check out mupromo.com – if you would use even one or two of those programs, it’s a bargain. Though with Snow Leopard around the corner, I have a feeling not-free updates will be following soon.
On the touchpad… I’ve read there’s a setting that will enable PC-style tap-to-click as well.
Congrats!
I use cmd-left-arrow and cmd-right-arrow. Meh, not the same but it works.
Don’t bother imaging the drive.
Hook up an external drive, use Time Machine to take a backup, swap the internal drive, and reinstall from the OS X DVD. During the install, you’ll be given an option to restore from the Time Machine backup.
I believe you can skip making the backup if you connect the old internal drive via USB/Firewire during the reinstall, but I’m not 100% certain of that.
How is that easier than a 1-step process of cloning the drive?
Damien,
You’re not going to get anything extra by doing that, if you haven’t gone and installed a bunch of apps/data, are you? I’m assuming you don’t get anything “out of box” that’s missing from the restore discs, right?
ARogan,
I’ve been doing some research, and it looks like the Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT is a better option than a 7200 RPM drive. Check out this review – it’s actually faster than the Seagate 7200 RPM drive in the majority of tests, and it’s cheaper.
Buy SuperDuper or use Carbon Copy Cloner if you’re cheap.
Thanks for the info. Doh my seagate 7200rpm drive already shipped. Oh well. I’ll give it a try anyways.
So it seems leopard has vnc built in and it’s called “screen sharing”? If I wanted to remote into a windows machine is it as easy as connect to server: vnc://mymachinename ?
Also, should I turn on the built in firewall? For home no big deal but I’m thinking about when I travel with the thing.
Allow only essential services? or manually specify for each app?
And closing apps don’t actually “close”? I have to command Q to actually quit apps? And the dock is like a mix of shortcuts that launch apps and also apps that are running? Stacks? Spaces? Yeah I’m confused!
So only one instance of any app can be running?
I’ve never tried that actually but it appears that the version of VNC that’s built in to Leopard is modified. Normal VNC viewers will work with it but they don’t support whatever compression Apple’s server uses which means it’s slow as fuck to update. I gave up and installed Vine on my Macmini HTPC so that I could control it from my work XP laptop.
It…varies. Some apps automatically quit when you close their last window, some remain running when all windows are closed. It mainly depends on whether the app is document-based or not (i.e., if an app can have multiple documents open, it generally won’t quit when the last window is closed).
Finder and the Dock will generally only allow one instance of an app to run, but you can manually start a second one up if you really need it with certain tricks. The main one I’m aware of is to start a Terminal and run the actual raw executable within the .app bundle. (It’ll be something like Whatever.app/Content/MacOS/Whatever)
You want to keep a backup anyway in case of drive failure, so it’s more of a 0-step process that way.
OSX has VNC built in. From Finder, select Go to Server in the Go menu, then use a VNC url (ie vnc://tapirs.quartertothree.com/).
(Oh yeah, someone mentioned that already. You can also use Chicken of the VNC, which is a VNC port for pre-Leopard Macs. May work better for you?)
Its performance over the Internet was pretty terrible last time I tried it (it would constantly refresh the entire screen, even after tweaking the settings), so I’d stick with the built-in client, especially if it has the optimizations dermot mentioned.
How about a good file/folder sync program? I’m trying to keep all my wow addons and settings in sync between my four installs of wow. I use robocopy and batch files on the pc side just fine. So this will have to work over samba shares.
would this be good?
http://www.lacie.com/silverkeeper/
Btw, finally got wow all installed (osx side, wont’ bootcamp until I get my 500gb hdd). Just running around stormwind I was getting 40+ fps at “high” settings at 1280X800 native resolution. This 9400m ain’t too horrible for integrated graphics.
Dropbox?
Ummm this is for syncing files locally between my pc’s and the mac. I guess dropbox would work but really wanted to keep it local.
