Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Brand new Mac user - now help me get caught up

M

mjfor40

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 24, 2008
21
0
Well after many, many years of Windows and PCs I have finally sacked up and got a MacBook Pro (early '08) and am pretty excited. I have decent knowledge of how Leopard, iLife and Mac's work but what I am really looking for is some guidance for someone who has used Windows all their life and has little to no knowledge of the cool features that are at my fingertips.

Also what kind of programs (free) do I need to download that are made specifically for Apple and will improve my Mac-using experience?

I am big with photos, music and just organization so any recommendations are appreciated.
 
First thing is to re-install the OS but select 'Customise' and switch off the loading of all the endless languages etc. etc. It can save you around 1GB+ of disk space.
 
there are slimming utilities you can use to do that w/o reinstalling.

i would highly recommend bootchamp if you have bootcamp installed. it lets you reboot into windows in just 2 clicks. use it all the time!
 
chainprayer said:
i would highly recommend bootchamp if you have bootcamp installed. it lets you reboot into windows in just 2 clicks. use it all the time!
Click to expand...

I know that your post is extremely helpful to the OP, but am I the only one that finds humor in that the first thing that you have a new mac user do on his new MBP is install Windows? :D
 
chainprayer said:
there are slimming utilities you can use to do that w/o reinstalling.

i would highly recommend bootchamp if you have bootcamp installed. it lets you reboot into windows in just 2 clicks. use it all the time!
Click to expand...

I am new to back also, can you point me in the right direction for some of those slimming programs? Thanks!
 
Here is a program that will let you get rid of all the "extra" languages. I freed up 3.3gb with this. A friend warned me to be careful though. apparently Photoshop needs all the extra languages to run. Who knew?
 
O ya, a few ideas

mjfor40 said:
Well after many, many years of Windows and PCs I have finally sacked up and got a MacBook Pro (early '08) and am pretty excited. I have decent knowledge of how Leopard, iLife and Mac's work but what I am really looking for is some guidance for someone who has used Windows all their life and has little to no knowledge of the cool features that are at my fingertips.

Also what kind of programs (free) do I need to download that are made specifically for Apple and will improve my Mac-using experience?

I am big with photos, music and just organization so any recommendations are appreciated.
Click to expand...

If you dont want the hassle of restart get parallels, it costs but it works great. For me at least, and if you have any problems they will help you through any you might have. Also if u looking for free photo edit, look at gimp. But u have to have X11 installed. Um, lockdown is pretty cool, keeps people from messin w ur mac. Flip for mac, so you can play WMV. Switch, so you can make files any format you want. Snap and Drag, so you can take pics of stats or when u have problems you need to show somebody. Then get i stat pro for your dashboard so you can monitor your mac and have a way to check if you suspect something isnt right. And the last i can think of right now is coconut battery. So you can keep tabs on your battery, its just an fyi so you can now whats going on. And just browse like apples widgets for dashboard, tons of cool stuff. You'll find out there seems to be limitless super cool and useful stuff you can do with mac.
 
Here is what is in my launch bar. Should provide a useful smattering of stuff for you to investigate.

Firefox
Adium
Rivet
Transmit
NetNewsWire
Osx360
Toast
Vmware fusion
Visual Hub - now defunct =(
uTorrent beta (also, Transmission, pre Vuze Azureus)
Quicktime (search for Perian codecs!!)
VLC
 
What kind of cool things can I do on my desktop?

Widgets and news feeds etc? Kind of like how Google Desktop is?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back