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Introduce myself + for the first time a Mac owner! Suggest and tips!

D

DutchAmerican

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 26, 2012
41
0
Drunen, Netherlands
Hello guys and girls ofcourse,


I'am new on this forum because for the first time I bought a Macbook! I already got an iPhone and (new)iPad and now finally a Macbook Pro.

I own this Macbook now for 4 days and I have to say, great experience and exactly what I had expected! I am a person who can handle new system pretty fast so I already know a lot of the system (and ofcourse a lot I don't know;P).

But now I come to a point were I have to get help. On the iPhone and iPad the app store is a fast an clear shop. You buy a simple app and you use it. I have only apps I really use on this systems.


Now I would like to buy some Mac-apps what can improve some of my aspects of using the Mac. I would like to know which apps are a real must, or where some of you would say, dam bro, you really have to one of these because it is amazing!


I hope you can suggest me or telling me some tips. And I am really looking forward to be an active person on this forum!

Thanks all and speak you soon :)

DutchAmerican,

Jeroen
 
first things i do is usually personalize my mac the way i want, this is what i do:

1. Hook up my external drive and throw movies, music and stuff in (so i already have som entertainment for the bus, train, flight / whatever)

2. Have all the software i use up to date.

3. backup iPhone, iPad and everything on it (if you use laptop for that kind of thing)

4. Install BootCamp (windows 7) and install all the games i use (this is just me, but i usually use my mac for lan parties and just hook it up to a 100Hz gaming monitor, i only play Counter-Strike or WoW at lans so no problem there for gaming!)

5. basically just use it, like you normally use a computer, it will be a great experiences the more you use it.

6. i Don't really use the appstore that much for the mac, i only have some small ones that like tell me the weather and change wallpaper and such.. theres also some light games on there as well (nova, dungeon hunter, i guess you know these from the iOS appstore)
 
Welcome!

Congratulations and welcome to the world of Macs! You won't be disappointed!

One app that I like is Pixelmator, it is beautiful, and a good replacement for Photoshop, if you don't have to do super-specific hardcore editing.

I am into photography, so I use Aperture instead of iPhoto. Aperture is made by Apple, and it syncs with iCloud services, like photo stream, which is great with your iPhone and iPad.

One thing that somebody told me when I started using my first Mac was, "if you don't know how to do something, ask yourself, what is the easiest way to do what I want to do? Drag and drop goes a long way in a Mac". Sure enough, it worked most of the time.

Welcome again!

Gus
 
is there anything you're looking to do specifically? its hard to suggest things without knowing.

don't forget that mac now also has its own app store as well. you can check out all the top sellers/editors picks etc etc just like you can with the app store on ipad/iphone.
 
A couple of apps i love:

Alfred - search, start apps, google search, and just about anything
skitch - screenshots w/ uploading
istat - if your a bit of a geek and would like system info
caffeine - keep the mac from going to sleep
Better snap tool - get apps to fullscreen, halfscreen, etc..
unarchiver - winrar basicly
app cleaner - uninstall apps

and of VLC and other std. apps

Thats my list of "must haves" :)
 
Congrats and welcome to the club!

In terms of must have apps.

If you have any DVD collection at all, I recommend:

1. Handbrake (google it)
2. VLC

You'll see the real power of a mac creating digital backups of your personal DVD collection. Now add an Apple TV to your list of toys and you'll be in Apple nirvana!

If you need Windows while you make the transition, I recommend Parallels (others will recommend VM Fusion...both great virtual machines). This will allow you to run a purchased copy of Windows as a virtual machine on OSX. Another option (and cheaper) is bootcamp (comes with OSX).

I'm a big fan of Cinch (Apple app store)
Pages (App store)
Keynote (App store)
Numbers (App store)

The last three work well with iOS versions (Documents in the Cloud)

Again, congrats and good luck. There is much to learn in this forum!
 
Last edited:
It's not on the App Store but RightZoom is a small download that makes the green maximize button in the top-left corner of windows behave like in Windows and always make apps maximize to full screen, yet your menu bars stay there unlike the Full screen button in the top right corner.
 
Welcome! As a frequent visitor to the Netherlands I am happy to see someone from that fair country joining this forum.

Well, one must-have app that immediately comes to mind is 1Password. It's a bit pricey as utilities go, but it's worth every penny. (It can sometimes be found at a discount, particularly around the Christmas holidays.) One master password provides you access to all your passwords, software registration, personal information, account and credit card info. Visit a website and 1Password fills-in whatever is needed with one-click.

There is also an iPhone/iPad version. Keep your 1Password data in Dropbox (also essential and free for a basic account: www.dropbox.com) and it is automatically updated and available to any iOS device and Mac that you own. Your data is safely encrypted; just be sure to use a strong password or passphrase for your 1Password master password.

I also highly recommend David Pogue's "Missing Manual: Lion" which is available in a Kindle edition for around $10 U.S. (Download the free Kindle apps and read it on your iPhone, iPad and Mac.) I've been using Macs since the mid 90s and I always have a Missing Manual on hand. It's a great way to learn your way around Macs (I've learned a LOT from the iPhone 4S edition). It will get you up and running quickly and painlessly.
 
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Welcome!

Along with what most everyone has said already, a few apps that I am a big fan of are;

Caffeine
Handbrake
Automator
iStat
GeekTool

For pretty general use, these are most suitable for me. Others into serious programming and photo editing would add different things of course!

Enjoy, I'm sure you will love it.
 
WoW guys, what an awesome welcome! Thank you very much!

@Gus, thanks for the great tip. You have absoluttly right, think simple and you van find it. At this moment I am putting all my photos on the Mac so I have a simple view of all the pictures I got. When I am done with that I would like to photoshop them but not with Adobe Photoshop. The program is really difficult and I am not THAT hardcore photo editor. I just want to make some pictures looking better or with a great effect on it.

@Sketjne, I just downloaded Skitch and App Cleaner. App Cleaner seems to be a very good cleaner for the apps. Skitch I will make use of tonight, so I can get to know the app.

@GGJStudios, thanks for the sticky, I will definitely read this. (I already should have done that haha)

@Mojo1, nice to have a country-member here too! You can't find a really good forum about Mac in the Netherlands so I came here. And also, in the Netherlands everybody knows everything soo much better (mentality). Happy with an American forum.



I just installed Adium and some games (GTA SA and GTA VC, amazing!). The most difficult part is to learn all those small things like when you type an english word wrong it gets red, then how to correct it right. But, these things can be learn so will read everything that passes by! :D
 
With the tips of all you guys I have managed to make some things pretty clear on the Macbook. Only 1 thing isn't clear for me.


At a windows-PC you start a program, when you are done with that you close it and the program stops and closes.
With Mac it is different. But can someone tell me or suggest me the best way or program to have a nice overview of the running apps. Because this is my first and new Mac I don't want it to get contaminated.

What I would like to know:
- Which apps are running at the moment
- Which apps I can close that I don't use at the moment
- Programs that have a lot of unused scripts of other mess what you can delete without not working the app.

It doesn't matter if I have to pay for it, I just want an overview and controls to close apps and delete unuseful things.
 
DutchAmerican said:
What I would like to know:
- Which apps are running at the moment
- Which apps I can close that I don't use at the moment
- Programs that have a lot of unused scripts of other mess what you can delete without not working the app.

It doesn't matter if I have to pay for it, I just want an overview and controls to close apps and delete unuseful things.
Click to expand...

Why would you want to go there? The nice thing about Mac is that you don't have to care about things like that. I usually never close applications on my old MBP, and yet it runs like a charm. I have Mail, iCal, App Store, Steam, Skype, Trillian, R, TextMate, XCode, iTunes, Chrome with 20-30 tabs etc. open at all time - have yet to notice a slowdown. And yes, I only have 4GB RAM. Inactive applications don't really use many resources.

If you absolutely want to see which apps are running, you can look at the Dock (highlighted apps are running right now and can be closed if you don't need them), or use Activity Monitor (be careful about it though, you can kill an important system process if you don't know what you are doing).

For managing disk space, I can recommend the excellent OmniDiskSweeper. It helps you to find big files and folders you don't need anymore and delete them.
 
pgiguere1 said:
It's not on the App Store but RightZoom is a small download that makes the green maximize button in the top-left corner of windows behave like in Windows and always make apps maximize to full screen, yet your menu bars stay there unlike the Full screen button in the top right corner.
Click to expand...

This is the first thing I install on all of my Mac's. I've never liked how the green maximize button works in OS X; I much prefer the maximize button in Windows, as crazy as that sounds, and with this simple tweak, I get the same functionality on a Mac.
 
Most of the apps that are mentioned in this thread are junk. Don't listen to these people and contaminate your new MBP with these vile apps. Most of them are redundant

Just get BetterTouchTool. Its hands down the best app for OS X.
 
GGJstudios said:
Care to post some facts to prove your claim? If not, it's just one person's uninformed opinion.
Click to expand...

Appcleaner. You don't need that. Just delete your app the usual way. Sure you have residual files left but if you know where they are you can easily delete them. Anyway those residual files wont harm the computer. Furthermore applecleaner doesn't find all those left over files.

Alfred - you already got spotlight to launch everything why need something else.

caffeine - my mac never goes to anyway sleep unless I close the lid. do you really need yet another app

istat/geektool - seriously even the ultimate nerds don't give a poopoo about monitoring their stats. I dont even use the build in activity monitor that much

parallels - virtualbox is completely free

vlc - mplayer (any derivative of it) has the same functionality and has a much cleaner/simpler interface. Isn't that why we buy from Apple in the first place? Anyway this might be just a preference




So yeah basically BTT is the only one that has any significant impact on ANY user. Its THE app to get. Of course you got other good apps but they are situational and not for everyone. Some are just common sense anyway
 
surjavarman said:
Appcleaner. You don't need that.
Click to expand...
I completely agree.
surjavarman said:
Alfred - you already got spotlight to launch everything why need something else.
Click to expand...
I don't use it, but those that do can probably tell you why they prefer it over Spotlight.
surjavarman said:
caffeine - my mac never goes to anyway sleep unless I close the lid. do you really need yet another app
Click to expand...
Caffeine is very useful if you want to temporarily override sleep settings without having to open System Preferences. One click on the Menu Bar turns it on or off. If you don't have a use for it doesn't mean others don't. I use it constantly.
surjavarman said:
istat/geektool - seriously even the ultimate nerds don't give a poopoo about monitoring their stats. I dont even use the build in activity monitor that much
Click to expand...
You may not, but there are many who like to track what's going on with their battery, temps, fans, uptime, memory management, disk free space and utilization, CPU utilization, network status, etc. iStat Pro shows all of that with a simple move of the mouse. Like a great many others, I find it quite useful.
surjavarman said:
parallels - virtualbox is completely free
Click to expand...
Again, it's personal preference. You may prefer VirtualBox, but others prefer Parallels or VMware Fusion.
surjavarman said:
vlc - mplayer (any derivative of it) has the same functionality and has a much cleaner/simpler interface. Isn't that why we buy from Apple in the first place? Anyway this might be just a preference
Click to expand...
Yes, it is a preference. Like many, I've found VLC to be more reliable than many other options, and it supports more file types than many others.
surjavarman said:
So yeah basically BTT is the only one that has any significant impact on ANY user. Its THE app to get. Of course you got other good apps but they are situational and not for everyone.
Click to expand...
Actually, I've never found a need for BTT. I know many like it, but it's clearly not for everyone.

The bottom line is that nothing you've said proves that any of the apps you mentioned are junk. AppCleaner is useless, but all the others serve a purpose that some will find useful and others may not. Just because you prefer an app doesn't mean others will, and vice versa.
 
surjavarman said:
Appcleaner. You don't need that. Just delete your app the usual way. Sure you have residual files left but if you know where they are you can easily delete them. Anyway those residual files wont harm the computer. Furthermore applecleaner doesn't find all those left over files.
Click to expand...

appcleaner is handy PRECISELY because you don't know where ALL the residual files are. if you want to search around your computer yourself and delete them, go for it. or you could not run a GUI at all and just do everything via terminal.

surjavarman said:
Alfred - you already got spotlight to launch everything why need something else.
Click to expand...

agreed. spotlight came along and basically made popular apps like quicksilver redundant.

surjavarman said:
istat/geektool - seriously even the ultimate nerds don't give a poopoo about monitoring their stats. I dont even use the build in activity monitor that much
Click to expand...

um i always use istat. it gives me an immediate indicator that something is taking up too many cpu/ram resources than it should. super handy if you're running a lot of applications and want to know which is suddenly bogging down your machine.

surjavarman said:
parallels - virtualbox is completely free
Click to expand...

sure. i use virtualbox with no issues.

surjavarman said:
vlc - mplayer (any derivative of it) has the same functionality and has a much cleaner/simpler interface. Isn't that why we buy from Apple in the first place? Anyway this might be just a preference
Click to expand...

meh. mplayer was slower and buggier for a long time. vlc definitely has a ****** UI though and stretches that ****** UI across pretty much all platforms but its always been the reliable workhorse for playing all video media.


surjavarman said:
So yeah basically BTT is the only one that has any significant impact on ANY user. Its THE app to get. Of course you got other good apps but they are situational and not for everyone. Some are just common sense anyway
Click to expand...

i defintely find BTT to be super handy, especially for the windows-like window snapping as well. i hate the way OSX does window management.
 
stevelam said:
appcleaner is handy PRECISELY because you don't know where ALL the residual files are.
Click to expand...
Neither does AppCleaner. In most cases, app removal software doesn't do a thorough job of finding and removing files/folders related to deleted apps. For more information, read this and this. If you just want to delete the app, drag the .app file to the trash. No other software needed. If you want to completely remove all associated files/folders, no removal apps will do the job.

The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:
 
Have had my Mac for about a week now and the following are apps that have made my transition more efficient and comfortable.

1. XChat Azure (IRC)
2. Caffeine
3. Xfinity Caller ID (For Comcast customers)
4. Firefox
5. Kindle
6. Twitter
7. Skype
8. Dropbox
9. Stuffit Expander
10. Steam
12. Adobe - Air, Flash, Reader
13. Pages
14. Windows 7 Premium via Bootcamp (For Windows only gaming)

Hope you are enjoying your new Mac as much as I have!
 
leman said:
Why would you want to go there? The nice thing about Mac is that you don't have to care about things like that. I usually never close applications on my old MBP, and yet it runs like a charm. I have Mail, iCal, App Store, Steam, Skype, Trillian, R, TextMate, XCode, iTunes, Chrome with 20-30 tabs etc. open at all time - have yet to notice a slowdown. And yes, I only have 4GB RAM. Inactive applications don't really use many resources.

If you absolutely want to see which apps are running, you can look at the Dock (highlighted apps are running right now and can be closed if you don't need them), or use Activity Monitor (be careful about it though, you can kill an important system process if you don't know what you are doing).

For managing disk space, I can recommend the excellent OmniDiskSweeper. It helps you to find big files and folders you don't need anymore and delete them.
Click to expand...

Well it is the idea of having an app closed. And yes, I have to step of the idea that I need to close a window or program to make it not working anymore, like in windows. It's the same as apps on the iPad, if you don't use them, they don't use any memory or CPU. But still I am wondering, if you have all those things active, don't you really feel any latency on your Mac?

Most of the apps that are mentioned in this thread are junk. Don't listen to these people and contaminate your new MBP with these vile apps. Most of them are redundant

Just get BetterTouchTool. Its hands down the best app for OS X.
Click to expand...

I Just installed the app and I am working with it. Is this the only app you have installed or do you have any other apps because you say these apps are junk ;)
 
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