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tips for a recent switcher

J

jhomayne

macrumors regular
Original poster
i only recently took delivery of my lurvely new iBook and i have had great fun working through my cd and photo collection and lovingly arranging them perfectly in itunes and iphoto and i swear even if the ibook didn't work i'd prefer it over a pc laptop anyday even if i could only look at it!

anyway, my point being, i was wondering if there are any "recommended" first steps for a mac newbie (regarding system prefs. appearance. programs to acquire. etc) as i did a little searchy but couldn't find much.

any help much appreciated. 🙂

james

*apologies in advance if this has to be moved*
 
jhomayne said:
i only recently took delivery of my lurvely new iBook and i have had great fun working through my cd and photo collection and lovingly arranging them perfectly in itunes and iphoto and i swear even if the ibook didn't work i'd prefer it over a pc laptop anyday even if i could only look at it!

anyway, my point being, i was wondering if there are any "recommended" first steps for a mac newbie (regarding system prefs. appearance. programs to acquire. etc) as i did a little searchy but couldn't find much.

any help much appreciated. 🙂

james

*apologies in advance if this has to be moved*
Click to expand...


There's a lot out there GUI adjustment wise... check out www.macupdate.com for downloads.

I'd recommend a few cool iTunes visuals and maybe some nice backgrounds from wallpaper.deviantart.com.

If you are using a multi-login you can change the background image at the login screen by replacing a file called "Aqua Blue.jpg" in your Library->Desktop Pictures directory.
 
aha! i was hoping that there was something more interesting than the standard itunes visual out there! 😉
 
jhomayne said:
aha! i was hoping that there was something more interesting than the standard itunes visual out there! 😉
Click to expand...


Geforce and Whitecap are the most well know... I actually found some pretty cool ass ones though... I can't remember the names offhand but one looks like a glowing tube and the other is somewhat like a LED sound monitor except there are no trails on the LED so it looks somewhat like "stairs".
 
Since you enjoy the appearance of your iBook so much, may i suggest ClearDock? A great GUI mod which I install on every Mac I work with (although I too am a recent switcher). ClearDock is more OS X-like than the standard Apple setup.
 
always something to learn

i clicked on this forum b/c i was going to offer some sage advice to a new member of the Mac family, instead i got some good little suggestions. for some reason, i hadn't installed the ClearDock haxie, even though i use ShapeShifter (that's lots of fun if you haven't tried it yet). also, the VLC app is a nice little video player. i had been using MPlayer a lot lately, but VLC is very responsive, especially when resizing.

ok, here are my additions:

http://www.iconfactory.com/ – icons out the wazoo

http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/ – daily blog that just makes you proud to be a Mac user (see today's blog on why Mac users are smarter, written by a Linux guy)

http://www.resexcellence.com/ – everything you need to trick out your iBook (go get Shapeshifter and visit the 'themes' section)

http://www.ipodlounge.com/ – if you didn't get one w/ your iBook, do not pass go, go directly to your local Apple Store. you won't regret it.

http://www.panic.com/ – these guys just write great little apps (and beautifully designed interfaces. wow, that new 'drag & download' feature is pretty cool. never seen it b4)

have fun w/ those & have fun w/ that iBook...
 
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