Hello friends, my name is Xephrey and I am now a Mac. This is definitely the most money I've ever spent on a computer, but I seriously consider the Macbook Pro Oct 2008 model VERY worth it. I've wanted to switch to Mac for about four years and until now, I just wasn't feelin' it. If I was going to do it, it'd probably be at the beginning of a new product cycle (despite the majority of tech experts advising against doing that). I'd always go to a friend of mine's place and mess around with his macbook pro, noticing all the subtle (and a few not so subtle) differences between apple laptops and the competition's windows laptops. Everything from the way it opened without having to secure the base of the unit - yet it still having enough friction to stay firmly in place, to all the revolutionary ways the software and hardware architectures work so well together to give the user a smooth, incredibly capable - zero bottleneck feel. Then bootcamp started to come standard, then the new unibody design with the nice nvidia boost. Eventually, with all these constant improvements I figured that it was time.
If anyone has any advice for me - a new comer to OSX and the Mac universe, please speak up! I usually make it a hobby to, when I buy a nice new piece of hardware, make it as efficient and capable as I can; whether that be custom scripts or implementing home-made software, I'm down with anything. Please let me know which software packages are a must have and which are to be avoided. Anything that any of you think could help me out.
I hope I can contribute something to ya'll as well (although I'll probably only be able to offer my opinions, which may not be considered much of a contribution)
Thanks so much! I'm so happy that I'm finally a Mac user!!
Aloha Xephrey,
Welcome to the light! You sound just like I did when I switched over in 2006. I first got an iMac, then a MacBook Pro. I recently sold that MacBook Pro and purchased the new MacBook Pro (GlassBook Pro) and I absolutely LOVE my new laptop. That being said, use what you have first and learn the ins and outs of the Mac OS. There is a bit of a learning curve, as you'll have to do things "the Macintosh way" as opposed to the Windows way.
One of the first complaints is with respect to the green zoom button (next to the red close and yellow minimize buttons on the top left of your app windows). That button zooms the window as wide as the content contained within, and no more. In other words, it does not by default expand over the entire expanse of your desktop, unless the content is that wide. In that way, the Mac OS is more intuitive than Windows, but that's my opinion.
With respect to the dock, you can try it on the right or left-hand sides, but you can also display it in 2D as opposed to 3D.
Using Mac is a great site for learning all kinds of things about your Mac and its OS. Look for links to terminal commands (I would give you a direct link, but they've undergone quite a bit of website renovation, and I have to hunt for everything myself
) The easiest way to change your dock appearance is via the command line, but that really freaks some people out. Just be sure to type everything in exactly as you see it - case is important - and you should be OK.
Keeping with the dock, depending on how many app icons you end up having there, you may want to make it a bit smaller and use magnification. Open System Preferences and look for the Dock section (in the top row), and you'll see what I'm talking about there. You can also choose to hide the dock if you don't want to always see it on your desktop.
I also advocate using Spaces. I have my web browsers on destop 1, mail.app on desktop 2, Photoshop and Dreamweaver on desktop 5, MacTheRipper and Toast on desktop 7, XCode and Interface Builder on desktop 6, etc... That way, I know which desktop shortcut will take me to the desired app when I have lots of things running.
I mentioned MacTheRipper - I don't know if you plan on ripping DVDs, but that is the best ripper for Mac OS X. You can also use HandBrake, but I normally rip with MTR and use Handbrake to encode the movies for iPod/iPhone and import them into iTunes that way.
As for FTP, I also use Cyberduck and highly recommend that app to all other Mac users. You can simply drag and drop, as you can with most Mac apps, and set it to keep up the connection if so desired.
The iLife suite comes preloaded on every new Mac, but you may also want to consider taking a look at iWork as well. There's nothing in the Windows world that can touch iLife, especially at only $80.00 and while iWork is no Office killer yet, Keynote by itself more than justifies its $80.00 pricetag.
With respect to burning DVD movies, either ripped movies or external MPEG-2 movie files, you have two choices: Toast or Popcorn. Both are Roxio products, but Toast costs twice as much (but also does a lot more for the money). Either is perfectly fine to use, but I prefer Toast myself.
You also mentioned Bootcamp. There are good things and not so good things about using that app. One of the negatives is that you either boot into Windows or boot into Mac OS X. That is not so bad, but on your MacBook Pro, you only have nVidia 9800M GT graphics while in Windows via Bootcamp. I will warn you that the bottom of your MacBook Pro will become VERY hot - as a matter of fact, it burned my thighs a little before I really noticed it. You should also consider using a Virtual Machine environment, such as Parallels for Mac or VMWare's Fusion, to run Windows. Both apps cost $80.00, if memore serves, but are well worth their price. One thing to remember about VMs versus Bootcamp is resource utilization. While in a virtual environment, system resources will be shared between it and the Mac environment, which could result in slightly sluggish behavior. In Bootcamp, all system resources are devoted to Windows. That is something to consider when contemplating running Windows on your Mac.
I think I've given you enough to chew on, at least for now. Welcome to the Macintosh world and may your computing experience be at least as good as mine, if not better!
HawaiiMacAddict
