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Just got my first MB. Needing tips on software.

M

mappletosh

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hey,

Just got my first MB and im new to the scene. Have no idea whats good. Been on the pc for far to long. Just wondering if anyones got any suggestions n good software for any purpose?

Ta
 
Go and read this

I would personally recommend:

Quicksilver
Adium
VLC
Cyberduck (FTP)
Onyx
Appcleaner
Cooliris
UnRarX
Monolingual

It depends what you are going to be doing really?
 
I second:

Adium (if you use MSN, this is by far the best program to use - Microsoft's Messenger:Mac totally sucks)
VLC (plays virtually every video format)
Onyx (for disk cleanup)
Appcleaner (to totally uninstall every file associated with a app you no longer want)

I also recommend Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr), for converting videos.
 
Doesn't it seem a little counter-intuitive to install Monolingual in order to free disk space? You can get rid of all those language packs yourself when doing a clean install of OS X, and you don't need Monolingual or any other program to do it.

I submit:
Firefox
Flux
Growl

If you do any web coding:
Smultron (or Text Wrangler)
Opera (to check compatibility)
 
Hi there, heres my two pence after switching a month ago,

OFFICE:
iWork 09 - seems a cool alternative to the Microsoft Office weve all been used to. The end results of Keynote are quite impressive.

SYSTEM TYPE STUFF:
Coconut Battery & Coconut Identity - Monitors battery life and charge cycles, tells you the age of the mac and when and where it was made.

Macpilot or Onyx - Seems ok for tweaking and the odd cleanup session. bearing in mind theres not much need to clean up stuff on the mac.

Caffeine - Cool little app that sits in the finder menu at the top, click it to keep your mac awake.

Perian and Flip4Mac - Codecs for Quicktime to let you play the majority of video files, i just have these installed instead of having two media players on my system, kinda eliminates the need to install VLC.

Paragon NTFS or NTFS-3g - NTFS write drivers for the mac, comes in handy if you have a portable drive thats formatted to NTFS. (You can also turn the driver off in system preferences if you have the paragon one.)

BURNING:
Disco - A novel way to burn stuff, dmg image files and files folders etc...
Also Burn (the freeware) is very very good.

MISC / GAMES / ETC...
Transmission - best torrent client for the mac.

Chronosync - great if you have a portable hard drive, keeps things in sync.

Deep Shredder Chess seems the best Chess game for the mac if your into chess.

and finally...........Appzapper - uninstalling all the other stuff your trying on your new mac 🙂

Theres a couple more cool ones ill post later as im not at my mac at the minute and cant remember what else there is or what ive tried.

Im now tempted to start a thread of getting a cream of the crop software list up, any suggestions welcome?......
 
I also second UnrarX and Adium - though it has no video support, at the min there is a beta of Windows Live Messenger 8 which has video support, the "but" is its hit or miss on peoples machines, you hear good things and bad things about it. Still could be worth a try, google is your friend!
 
I recommend these programs as must have:

VLC
iStat Pro
Coconut Battery
Firefox
Transmission
Onyx
unrarX
 
+1 for firefox and adium both are great.

Also try burn its really handy, it even allows you to mount iso images!

Enjoy the macbook, they're unreal!
 
Insulin Junkie said:
Very much agree!
Regarding your sig... how long did it take you to get one? =0
Click to expand...

This is totally off topic but in answer to the above...Months and months, I got it through a friend in apple (employee discount) but it took so long for him to get it. And in the middle of it all there was a mistake in the order and i got sent a white book(pre spec update). But the moral of the story is it was well worth the wait, I couldnt have asked for a better laptop! 😀
 
I recommend:
MacTheRipper (ripping dvds)
Handbrake (converting video files)
Toast titanium 10 (burning and other uses)
Adium (had too many bugs on microsoft messenger for mac, swapped over to this and prefer it by a longshot now)
Microsoft Office 2008 (will always be an MS office man)
Appcleaner
VLC (never found something it cant play)
Transmission (best lightweight torrent program, tried all the others)
Soulseex (p2p program)
aMule (p2p program)

Go download windows 7 rc and install it via bootcamp. Runs like a dream on this mac. Just handy to have it installed on a small partition if u do need to use windows for something (very rare these days)
 
Thanks all everybody! Im suprised by the amount of feedback and have fallen deeply in love with my UMB!
 
scienide09 said:
Doesn't it seem a little counter-intuitive to install Monolingual in order to free disk space? You can get rid of all those language packs yourself when doing a clean install of OS X, and you don't need Monolingual or any other program to do it.

I submit:
Firefox
Flux
Growl

If you do any web coding:
Smultron (or Text Wrangler)
Opera (to check compatibility)
Click to expand...

You could just do a re-install, but what's the point if you just want to remove languages? I made the choice to spend 5 minutes to download, install and run a program, rather than 30 - 40 mins to re-install OS X. Just my 2 pence worths

I also forgot about Handbrake and a few other ripping utilities
 
alphaod said:
Why not CS4 Master?
Click to expand...

CS4 does not have enough demanding new features for me to cough up more dough.

I mean, CS4 will do😉, but for me I always wait to purchase the newest Creative Suites because of compatibility issues. I'm a marketing director for a medical firm, and when doing projects back n' forth with other firms, the last thing I want is to make my project slow down for any reason.

Plus, I am truly waiting for the 64bit CS5 to come out before I purchase my next Creative Suite. For me & my company, CS4 did not have many striking new features to answer the '$2000 question'.

CS3 Rocks!!!

CrackBookPro😎
 
alphaod said:
But we're making suggestions for the OP 😉
Click to expand...

I would still advise the OP to get CS3 😉...alphaod, you get your HyperMac yet?

I'm very interested to know how you make out with your HyperMac? I remember you saying in a previous thread that you're gettting the largest size...

CrackBookPro😎
 
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