So last night I finally picked up my first macbook pro with retina display. Ended up going with the 13"/8gb/256gb. I have not purchased a carrying case yet, what are some of your favorites? I'm totally new to Mac coming from the PC world, what are some things I need to know or what are some programs I should download to start my experience off? I'm currently trying to sync my iPhone email with the macbook email, having problems with that. Thanks.
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First thing to do when you pickup a new Macbook?
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Download Caffeine in the MAS(Mac App Store) it allows you to disable sleep mode if you download a lot and don't want it to be interrupted. Purchase Aperture if you can- possibly one of the easiest to learn photo editors. Also just play around with the built in apps as well.
Welcome to OSX, you'll love it!
Obviously download your favorite browser or just use Safari. I recommend loading Spotify on there as it is great for when you are working. Caffeine is good for keeping it awake as was mentioned earlier. Who is the email provider (Google Gmail, Verizon, Microsoft Hotmail/Outlook, iCloud, etc.)?
Doesn't matter. In my experience I haven't had problems with the native Mail client.
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So just to make sure I'm understanding you correctly, you cannot download apps when the computer is in sleep mode?
Next question, when not using your computer do you shut it down? Put it in sleep mode? What if I just close the screen?
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The email host that is synced to my phone is office 365.
I never turn my laptop off. Its always in sleep mode. Just put the screen down nothing else needed.
If the laptop is in sleep mode, then no you cannot download things. However if you download an app called caffiene then you can force the laptop to never sleep.
Its a handle little app and you get a little mug in the status bar once installed and running, a full cup means its running and a empty cup means sleep mode is enabled.
Key thing to learn is using spotlight to quickly find things and open them.
In any app you are simply depress the command key and the space bar together and then type. You can also do math there: 2+2...etc
While there go to System Preferences to do any adjustments.
About letting the Mac on or off, most people prefer to leave it on, as overnight you can do the Time Machine Backups (if you have it set up). As well as from time to time some background processes are ran to keep the Mac running fine (spotlight indexing, and some maintenance tasks).
For power setting go into Energy Save and configure how you want it to behave.
For handling the windows go into Mission Control to explore the interaction and set up the Hot Corners.
And if you miss the Windows management of moving a window to the left side and it covering half the screen and another to the right side and it covering the right side of the screen, I highly recommend downloading some apps to cover it. I bought Window Magnet from the App Store and it works great.
I also use Caffeine and it works great.
In any app you are simply depress the command key and the space bar together and then type. You can also do math there: 2+2...etc
While there go to System Preferences to do any adjustments.
About letting the Mac on or off, most people prefer to leave it on, as overnight you can do the Time Machine Backups (if you have it set up). As well as from time to time some background processes are ran to keep the Mac running fine (spotlight indexing, and some maintenance tasks).
For power setting go into Energy Save and configure how you want it to behave.
For handling the windows go into Mission Control to explore the interaction and set up the Hot Corners.
And if you miss the Windows management of moving a window to the left side and it covering half the screen and another to the right side and it covering the right side of the screen, I highly recommend downloading some apps to cover it. I bought Window Magnet from the App Store and it works great.
I also use Caffeine and it works great.
Thanks for the suggestions McGiord, what exactly are the time machine backups and are they necessary? How do I go about setting that up? I will explore the energy save settings tonight.
Any other suggestions that others may have? This may seem elementary to some but I am brand new to the Macbook world. I have owned an iPad and iPhone for several years years so I am somewhat familiar with the mobile operating systems and the app store.
Time Machines are backups. You have to connect an external drive to activate to and then go in the system preferences and then the time machine tab to activate it.
First thing you do is check that everything works. Plug something in to every hole and try it. Free support doesn't last forever. Press all the buttons and keyboard stuff. Try to start up from the recovery partition (shut down, then hold down 'alt' when powering booting back up).
I really like Maverick's full screen mode, and use 4-finger swipe to go back and forth between full screen apps a lot. You can change some of the gesture behavior in system preferences/trackpad.
I would've said use FireFox in the past, but not anymore. Safari is great. You can get extensions (using menu Safari->Safari Extensions... will take you there), I suggest AdBlock and ClickToFlash. You can enable ads on any website you want, and still get rid of the most annoying stuff. Oh ya, if you want to use flash, you actually have to install it. I wish flash were dead, but it's not entirely. But that's up to you.
smcFanControl is nice, but you don't really need it.
Manage your apple id.
Locate lost devices.
If you're sometimes hooked up to a hotspot, and don't want to burn though your data with automatic updates, you can turn that off in system preferences/App Store. But there is a nasty gotcha, it doesn't turn off iTunes automatic updates, you need to do that separately in iTunes' preferences. Of course, you'll still need to update periodically.
Apple's office suite is free for new computers, it's okay. OpenOffice.org might be useful too, but nobody really knows what programs you need to use except you. Xcode is free, iBooks Author is free, do you want to use those? Who knows?
I really like Maverick's full screen mode, and use 4-finger swipe to go back and forth between full screen apps a lot. You can change some of the gesture behavior in system preferences/trackpad.
I would've said use FireFox in the past, but not anymore. Safari is great. You can get extensions (using menu Safari->Safari Extensions... will take you there), I suggest AdBlock and ClickToFlash. You can enable ads on any website you want, and still get rid of the most annoying stuff. Oh ya, if you want to use flash, you actually have to install it. I wish flash were dead, but it's not entirely. But that's up to you.
smcFanControl is nice, but you don't really need it.
Manage your apple id.
Locate lost devices.
If you're sometimes hooked up to a hotspot, and don't want to burn though your data with automatic updates, you can turn that off in system preferences/App Store. But there is a nasty gotcha, it doesn't turn off iTunes automatic updates, you need to do that separately in iTunes' preferences. Of course, you'll still need to update periodically.
Apple's office suite is free for new computers, it's okay. OpenOffice.org might be useful too, but nobody really knows what programs you need to use except you. Xcode is free, iBooks Author is free, do you want to use those? Who knows?
some of my personal favorites:
F.lux: adjusts temperature of screen to make it easier on your eyes at night (not in mac app store)
memory clean: shows how much ram is being used in the status bar and you can "clean" your memory. although mavericks compresses ram on its own its nice to see how much the number fluctuates based on what you have open.
disk doctor: cleans up hard drive, helps save space especially if you don't have much to begin with.
better snap tool: lets you move two separate apps to half the screen like windows 7 will.
F.lux: adjusts temperature of screen to make it easier on your eyes at night (not in mac app store)
memory clean: shows how much ram is being used in the status bar and you can "clean" your memory. although mavericks compresses ram on its own its nice to see how much the number fluctuates based on what you have open.
disk doctor: cleans up hard drive, helps save space especially if you don't have much to begin with.
better snap tool: lets you move two separate apps to half the screen like windows 7 will.
Yep. Also read more about it. We can help only so much here because some things you just learn from watching videos.
First things I did when I got my Mac were spend time going there all the options in system preferences. I set everything to how I thought I wanted it (had to make some changes here and there as I began to use the computer). If I hit an option I didn't understand, I googled it. I was able to find out quite a bit of info about the OS X world just by doing this.
As with everything Apple, a hardcase and a bag. The stuff marks like crazy.
Seriously though, OSX is pretty much ready to go. No marathon update sessions required
1 thing I do always change is the trackpad settings as it tends to be a bit slow as default. You might want to change the right click settings also
If youve got a spare external drive its worth creating a clean Time machine back up. Can just add to this at any time by plugging in the drive.
I always grab VLC player for videos purely because thats what im used to other than that my apps are very personalised.
Seriously though, OSX is pretty much ready to go. No marathon update sessions required
1 thing I do always change is the trackpad settings as it tends to be a bit slow as default. You might want to change the right click settings also
If youve got a spare external drive its worth creating a clean Time machine back up. Can just add to this at any time by plugging in the drive.
I always grab VLC player for videos purely because thats what im used to other than that my apps are very personalised.
