Topic: New Mac, Software suggestions

As posted earlier my new MacBook Pro is here so now it's time to get this bad boy ready to roll. It's my first Mac so I have to ask, what are the applications that I can't live without?

Particularly

Text Editing.
Web. Firefox? Camino? Safari?
IDEs.

And everything I didn't know I needed.



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

Ive got a MacBook Pro too, 2 weeks old

My favourites...
Firefox with deveolpers toolbar & LiveHTTPHeaders
Quicksilver: http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/
Audium: http://www.adiumx.com/
Colloquy: http://colloquy.info/
Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=remotedesktopclient
Smultron: http://smultron.sourceforge.net/ (a nice free editor)
TextMate (not free but really really powerful): http://macromates.com/

I'd really like to use the "Desktop Manager" that allows multiple desktops: http://desktopmanager.berlios.de/ BUT I've been warned that it just might create trouble on the intel platform even if it works on Tiger... So that I havn't tried.

/D

{cell 260} {Blog}
-{"Theories without facts are just religions...?}-

(Edited by DmS on 03-31-2006 08:51)

I use cyberduck [ftp], and Taco [Html Editor] in our lab.

BB Edit is nice but a little pricey for basicly a text editor.

I haven't tried these yet but they look intresting.

DropDMG looks useful if you need to create disk images.
http://c-command.com/dropdmg/

FontExplorer X, by Linotype.
http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX?PHPSESSID=415560881807aeabc78c37a7452de274

If you use font book, don't install Adobe's Helvitica Fractions 1 or 2 [postscript version], at the very least turn it off as Safari seams to choke on it, thinking it's helvitica and rendering the page in all fractions and symbols.

J. Stuart J.



(Edited by jstuartj on 03-31-2006 08:45)

AdiumX, BBedit, and MacNetHack are really the only three programs I just couldn't do without. Tho it wouldn't hurt to look into an extra system maintenance program like Onyx.

Using http://www.versiontracker.com/ and http://www.apple.com/downloads/ to keep an eye on whats new and fresh, and trying things out through those, will get you better aquainted with OSX.

Great.

I installed Quicksilver (this is very very very cool) and adium both awesome. The other app that came with it that I'm liking a lot is Omni Outliner.



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

Welcome to the club.

I second TextMate. I've always had BBEdit, but TextMate does some very wonderful things too. 30 day free demo to try out. BBEdit is certainly more mature (and much MUCH more than just a text editor). I rely on some html features like "check syntax" and inserting images. But -- TextMate has as far as I can tell one developer who is very responsive to requests, has spell check and - the best part - you can open a whole project in the side panel and have access to every file in that project, in it's hierarchy. The RoR community loves TextMate.

Camino is okay, but Safari is still my default browser (built in spell check and rss is very nice).

Transmit is my favorite FTP app. I have Onyx but I'm not sure I use it for anything significantly more than the built in disk utility can do (repairing permissions for example).

Disk Warrior is highly regarded for maintenance.

SuperDuper is excellent for backing up.

For what it costs, GraphicConverter is extremely useful. You might have even gotten it bundled for free with your Mac.

iPhoto is no slouch either for organizing your photos.

Marc Liyanage has some excellent resources for stuff like MySQL: http://www.entropy.ch/home/

ZipIt is good for making .zip archives Windows users will find compatible: http://www.maczipit.com/

If you use GMail, Google has a GMail Notifier that is helpful. GoogleEarth is also available for Macs now!

Skype has a Mac client that works great.

Some of these are free, some aren't. But there's a lot of GOOD stuff available. And a lot of the stuff that comes with the Mac is excellent. For example, Automator is pretty darn cool for making repetitive tasks easier.