First iMac! What to do

[ltzraymond]

Hey guys i just made the switch over the macs, and this is my first. I am freaking loving it, the screen is gorgeous and there are so little wires, its amazing. Im wondering what kind of application or some suggestions i should do on my new mac?

[MacDawg]

Congratulations and welcome to the Forums

Here's some things to get started with...

Mac Beginner's Guide (http://guides.macrumors.com/Mac_Beginner's_Guide)

Finding Mac Software (http://guides.macrumors.com/Finding_Mac_Software)

List of Mac Software (http://guides.macrumors.com/List_of_Mac_Software)

Software Recommendations (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=226403)

[Resist]

You bought a new computer and don't know what to do with it?

[ltzraymond]

No, i do im just wondering what beneficial stuff i can get with mac only

[bcrguy]

welcome to the apple side... heres my answer.. do whatever you want.. you can do everything you did on your old pc on your mac.. so ask in the forums surf the web and find out..

[MacDawg]

Here is also some free Open Source software (http://www.opensourcemac.org/)

Personally, I would recommend these right off the bat

Adium
Handbrake
VLC
Perian
Flip4Mac

[Sambo110]

Adium if you need an IM client (seriously, don't use MSN for Mac).
Transmission if you are planning on downloading torrents.
Perian if you need Quicktime to support more filetypes.

[WilliamG]

Path Finder if you want a usable Finder.

[mtnDewFTW]

So, since you're looking for software, I'll post my favorites/the ones I find most useful.

Aperture 3 + Photoshop CS4 - picture editing/t-shirt design/anything else I feel like making.

iStat Pro - Probably the most useful piece of software out there to know what your Mac is doing and how it's working.

Echofon - If you're on Twitter, this is perfect. I actually Twitter a lot, and like to be up to date with everything, so it's easy for me to just have it on my desktop and not have to go to Twitter.com every time.

UnRarX - Alright, so it's REALLY rare to run into a .rar file, most of the times it'll just be compressed to send via email, but UnRarX is probably the best one out there for uncompressing .rar

Perian - A codec for Quicktime that lets you play most of the formats out there. I actually haven't encountered a format that I wasn't able to play with it. So definitely recommend that.


Obviously I use iChat, Mail, PhotoBooth, iPhoto, Time Machine and all the other little apps that come with your Mac already that make life easier.

But yeah this wasn't a really big list, those are just some of the apps that I use most out of all. I hope I didn't miss out any.

I'm glad you made the switch to Macs. I hope you like it :)

[Badger^2]

http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/

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

http://www.lynda.com/home/ViewCourses.aspx?lpk0=67

[Seychelles]

No, i do im just wondering what beneficial stuff i can get with mac only

urm...zero, nada, nothing.

[KonichiJ]

great thread, in the same boat, just got mine today. Subscribed!

[scooterguitar]

Yep, this is helping. I've used a mac on and off, but just got my new one yesterday. Still scared about not running security for when I use CC"s and paypal online though.
I've found for Mac's programs, their tutorials are great!

[niuniu]

Get your Expose and Spaces set up! They should be in Preferences :D

[InfoSecmgr]

Path Finder if you want a usable Finder.

Thanks for the chuckle.

[scooterguitar]

THis is a helpful thread, I'd liek to see this keep getting nice simple suggestions.
Bumpy

[wilycoder]

If you possess a single creative bone in your body, the mac will help you realize it in ways you didn't imagine.

After getting into Macs I realized I was a photographer and also a music producer. A far cry from my scientist day job...

[MelvynG]

Got my Imac two days ago.

Used to use Greeting Card Factory on PC. Anyone know best alternative.

Some videos in emails not opening, can I improve Quicktime safely?

Otherwise very impressed by how quiet machine is and how fast.

[MacHamster68]

i prefer " camino " browser nice an simple and small

[mac-matt]

not sure if you got a magic mouse with it but "a better touch tool" is awesome. makes the mouse 100 times more usable. also iWork and iLife are quite handy. Autorate and Get Lyrical are a couple good apps for itunes. Enjoy your mac. just outta curiosity what one did you get.

[mac-matt]

Got my Imac two days ago.

Used to use Greeting Card Factory on PC. Anyone know best alternative.

Some videos in emails not opening, can I improve Quicktime safely?

Otherwise very impressed by how quiet machine is and how fast.

get VLC.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

and to make it the default player:
Right click on the type of file (in Finder) you want to always open in VLC. Click 'Get Info'. In the 'Open With' section, select VLC from the drop down menu. To apply this change to all files of this type, click the 'Change All' button.

[Jimbobo]

Yup, get your expose and spaces set up. Also try to use hot corners. I got my bottom right corner set up as desktop and my bottom left as dashboard. My secondary mouse button set up as All windows Expose. Switching through programs was never so fast. And I don't really need standard right click anyways (ctrl+click works fine). This is the true power of Mac. The ease and speed of navigating through programs.

[SpitUK]

Getting my first mac next week. I have been reading about spaces and it sounds great. One question I have, can it be set up so that you can hear sounds from the other desktops while using another? If i have a chat room set up in another desktop will i be able to hear the ping from someone posting when im editing photos on another desktop? Thanks.

[Talarspeed]

One piece of Mac-only software that I find to be excellent is Scrivener. This software gives logical flow to writing. Best writing software out there!

[martynmc7]

Hey guys i just made the switch over the macs, and this is my first. I am freaking loving it, the screen is gorgeous and there are so little wires, its amazing. Im wondering what kind of application or some suggestions i should do on my new mac?

When I got my iMac about two years ago I spent lots of time looking at the downloads page on the apple website. It's certainly not a full list, but it gives a great sense of the applications that are out there. They've buried it a bit thanks to the iPad tab, but here's the url:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/

[bobr1952]

I use VLC for most of my video viewing and there is a great iPhone remote app you can get for it as well.

I use Transmission for torrents, Unison for newsgroups, Fetch for FTP, Pixelmator for image editing, Coda for web development, Viewit for image viewing. Pulsar for streaming SIRIUS, 1Password for password management (again a great complementary iPhone app)--those are some of my favorites in my dock.