Just brought a MacBook but never used a MAC - Help

[polaris20]

Must-have apps:

Web:
Firefox

Open Source Office:
NeoOffice

FTP:
Filezilla
FireFTP plugin for Firefox is also excellent, and works through a SOCKS proxy

IM:
Adium

Virtualization:
VirtualBox (Open source--not as fancy, but solid)
VMWare Fusion (Now with DX9 support, but w/ a Macbook not really important)

Misc:
Quicksilver (Launcher, make-life-simple tool)
Caffeine (Lets you easily toggle the screen dimming/sleep function)
Dropbox (Sync between computers, plus online access/backup, 2GB free)
VLC (Multimedia player for just about everything)


If you're going to run Virtualization, definitely get 2GB of Ram or more, especially given that it's so cheap and so easy to install. (Even if you're not, running virtual machines, I still recommend it, you'll notice an improvement.)

If you're still working with PCs, Microsoft also has a RDP client for Mac that's free and works OK.

Just a sidenote; have you tried out OpenOffice.org 3rc1? Pretty solid native OS X version of OOo. I'm really digging it.

And I echo the VirtualBox and Fusion recommendations.

 

[jamin100]

i've just brought and installed 2 x 2gb ram sticks and its actually showing up as 4 gig. I was expecting it to say 3 because this is a MB 2,1

 

[logana]

i've just brought and installed 2 x 2gb ram sticks and its actually showing up as 4 gig. I was expecting it to say 3 because this is a MB 2,1

It shows as 4GB but it cannot address the bit between 3.3 and 4 though. If you check in memory usage in Activity Monitor I think it treats the 700MB as reserved or something....

Glad to hear it is working fine and PC World actually had something in stock (for a change) - another must have for your MacBook is the iStat pro widget - download from Apple.com - it is usually in the top 5 most popular widgets..

 

[Boomhowler]

sure about that logana? I mean, the mac pro can handle 32Gb with the same OS... or is it something with the motherboard?

 

[logana]

sure about that logana? I mean, the mac pro can handle 32Gb with the same OS... or is it something with the motherboard?

Well it's all in this article - http://guides.macrumors.com/Understanding_Intel_Mac_RAM

Core 2 Duo MacBook (2,1) model - 3.3GB limit