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Must Have Programs for New Macbook Pro owners?

sioannou said:
Forget OpenOffice it's too buggy :) try to use LibreOffice it's also free and i think it's by far less buggy than OpenOffice ;)
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I don't think either application is buggy. The reason why you should use LibreOffice is because Oracle Corporation screwed up the licensing with OpenOffice.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
Opera: by far the most feature rich "out of the box" web browser. I prefer it to all others, but there is a bit of a learning curve. However, once you learn it and use the features I think there's no going back to other browsers.
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Chrome with full screen browsing, plus 3-finger tab expose support (type about:flags in the URL bar), takes the browser crown for OSX.
 
By the way, it's not "programs", it's applications.

monstar-x said:
For what do u need handbrake?

AVPlayer and VLC both can handle DIVX, mpeg2, XVID.
AVPlayer can use x264 (transcodet with ffmpeg in 2 minuten) to real h264 Header, and the iPhone play 720 / 1080p in Realtime whitout shuttering (Hardware Decoded).
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Your post implies that AVPlayer can play non mp4 720p and 1080p format. That's simply false. The app's description says 720p format should be in MP4, Mov, M4v.

So yes, some people could use handbrake to transcode HD videos.
 
What about iStat?

I like coconutBattery as well.

Also, if someone is buying a MBP, then the 32bit version of Geekbench. ;)
 
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Better Touch Tool - enable different multi-touch gestures including "home" "end" and close applications under mouse cursor (love this one)
SMC Fan
Dropbox if you have mobile devices
Chrome - favorite web browser =)
Gfx card status
Steam for Mac if you want to game
Adium - prefer it over iChat
Flip4Mac if you do much video streaming (I use it for video archives for class lectures)
Office 2011
 
I can say in no uncertain terms that Better Touch Tool is one of the best applications I've got on my MBP.
 
microsoft office... seriously, don't listen to the fanboys...
its a great office suite, especially after the service pack...

Outlook is superb, in fact, I like it better on the mac.

Transmission is also good for torrents.

Calibre for converting ebooks...

toast is great for burning dvds
 
I don't think anyone has mentioned Super Duper. I use it to back up my Mac. It's also bootable, so if your hard drive ever crashes, you'll have a duplicate, bootable copy of your hard drive. It's been indispensable to me. I also use Transmit, an FTP software.:)
 
What about registry/computer cleaners?

I'm a new MBP user as well. The last mac I had was in 1988 when my parents bought me a Mac Classic with a 20MB LaCie external hard drive (over $2500 in 1988 dollars). I'm wondering what people use to clean the computers registry and keep it running fast? Also I'm wondering if there is any good astronomy software for mac?

Thanks!
 
ELA2 said:
I'm a new MBP user as well. The last mac I had was in 1988 when my parents bought me a Mac Classic with a 20MB LaCie external hard drive (over $2500 in 1988 dollars). I'm wondering what people use to clean the computers registry and keep it running fast?
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There is no registry in Mac OS X. You don't need to run anything to keep Mac OS X running well.
 
ELA2 said:
I'm a new MBP user as well. The last mac I had was in 1988 when my parents bought me a Mac Classic with a 20MB LaCie external hard drive (over $2500 in 1988 dollars). I'm wondering what people use to clean the computers registry and keep it running fast? Also I'm wondering if there is any good astronomy software for mac?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I use Cocktail and there's also Onyx for maintenance:

Cocktail is an application that serves up a scrumptious mix of maintenance tools and interface tweaks, all accessible via a comprehensive graphical interface. Most of Cocktail's major features are arranged in five basic categories. In addition, a Pilot lets you clean, repair and optimize your system with one click of the button.

OnyX is a multifunction utility for Mac OS X. It allows you to verify the Startup Disk and the structure of its System files, to run miscellaneous tasks of system maintenance, to configure the hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock and of some of Apple's own applications, to delete caches, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome and more.
 
diamond3 said:
Cinch, Alfred, Perian plugins for QuickTime, MPEGStreamclip are just the few ones I use that haven't been mentioned previously. It kind of depends though on what you use your computer for normally. Cinch is a must have in my opinion for a smaller screen laptop since it's great at resizing the applications to fullscreen or half screen so you can quickly put a PDF and word document side by side.
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All of this + Clean (search it!Clean Mac App)
 
thank you diamond for Perian plugin app. I was getting annoyed by VLC's stream lag over the airport. QT is streaming my AVI's better.
 
aznguyen316 said:
Better Touch Tool - enable different multi-touch gestures including "home" "end" and close applications under mouse cursor (love this one)
SMC Fan
Dropbox if you have mobile devices
Chrome - favorite web browser =)
Gfx card status
Steam for Mac if you want to game
Adium - prefer it over iChat
Flip4Mac if you do much video streaming (I use it for video archives for class lectures)
Office 2011
Click to expand...

Will try better touch tool tonight.
 
acedickson said:
First I've heard of Alfred and, after looking at it, why would I want to use it over spotlight as a launcher? Maybe their site is just underselling it.
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First I use free version and secondly it can launch websites directly from it by typing the url -- besides doing everything spotlight can already do.

So install alfred and instead of C+space bar, press Option+spacebar and type away anything you need.
 
Wirelessly posted (Johnny iphone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

+1 for handbrake, VLC, CCC, angry birds, smartsleep, insomnia, gfxcardstatus

Also like
Winclone- copy of my bootcamp hdd image
Istat pro - dashboard widget
Xmarks- syncs bookmarks, login and passwords on: fox, safari, google chrome

Quickbench - as I have an ssd

Plugins: perian, tuxedo ntfs, wmv plugin, full screen,
 
Wirelessly posted (Johnny iphone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Ps3 media server
Transmission rules for torrents IMO
Dropbox>>>> MM
- 2gb for free :)

Mac cleaner- nice app let's u delete unecessary crap, easy software update, undelete, stolen mac optn; virus scan n mor

Roxio popcorn and toast are ok - hardly use the former since I love handbrake

Ip app- scan local ip addresses of wifi devices
Candy bar app- customisable icons/folders

Widgets: BBC news, eBay, tube status (it's a London thing), istat, currency rates on rss
 
ELA2 said:
I'm wondering what people use to clean the computers registry and keep it running fast?
Click to expand...

OSX doesn't have a system registry. Nor does it use DLL's or require defragmenting. I used to worry about all this crap in my windows days - that's why I left. :D

Seriously, let OSX manage your files. Just keep your home folder organized. Let iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, etc. have its way. You'll be tempted to tweak it like some here do but don't fight it. There's more to life.

Just use your mac and don't worry about what's under the hood. (That's a nasty habit to shake, I know).
 
jvmxtra said:
First I use free version and secondly it can launch websites directly from it by typing the url -- besides doing everything spotlight can already do.

So install alfred and instead of C+space bar, press Option+spacebar and type away anything you need.
Click to expand...

Started playing with it the other day and it's not bad but my favorite is bettertouchtool, by far. Absolutely ingenious.
 
-

Mozilla FireFox

Adium = Messenger app

Wouldn't recommend Appzapper cos i've heard it still doesn't delete an application entirely.

Microsoft Office

VLC Player

Gfxcardstatus =To manually switch between your integrated graphics (uses less power) and your dedicated graphics card (for games)

Angry Birds, Borderlands, PLANTS vs ZOMBIES (pls don't bash me if you get addicted to this one) :D
 
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