New to Mac, a new owner of 15" rMBP 2015

[Kulfon]

Hello all,

Just wanted to let you know that I got my first ever MBP on Friday. I am a photographer (hobby) and I was looking for a good laptop for photo editing 4 year ago. I considered Mac, but it was so super expensive. I decided to go for the Samsung Chronos 7 as it was the same on paper for 50% of the price. I was so disappointed - the screen, how everything works, the build quality - really not good.

Now I needed the best screen possible for photo editing and I was waiting for the new MBP to come up. It did, be it with the old chip, but I still prefer to get it now and use it now for photo editing rather than waiting longer.

I turned the machine on on Friday and I was shocked - it is so fast and so beautiful! Can't believe!
Hope it will serve me well

BTW, have some questions:
1. I want to have an external HD for all photographs, I will not store them on my MBP SSD - can you recommend?
2. Any backup solution? How does it work with apple?
3. Synchronization with my iPhone and iPad - how to properly do it and what can be synchronized?
4. Battery life - should it be always connected to the charger or I should charge only when the battery is low?
5. In the PC world, you always shot down the computer, how does it work with Mac? Should I just close the laptop without shutting it down?

THANKS!

 

[yjchua95]

Hello all,

Just wanted to let you know that I got my first ever MBP on Friday. I am a photographer (hobby) and I was looking for a good laptop for photo editing 4 year ago. I considered Mac, but it was so super expensive. I decided to go for the Samsung Chronos 7 as it was the same on paper for 50% of the price. I was so disappointed - the screen, how everything works, the build quality - really not good.

Now I needed the best screen possible for photo editing and I was waiting for the new MBP to come up. It did, be it with the old chip, but I still prefer to get it now and use it now for photo editing rather than waiting longer.

I turned the machine on on Friday and I was shocked - it is so fast and so beautiful! Can't believe!
Hope it will serve me well

BTW, have some questions:
1. I want to have an external HD for all photographs, I will not store them on my MBP SSD - can you recommend?
2. Any backup solution? How does it work with apple?
3. Synchronization with my iPhone and iPad - how to properly do it and what can be synchronized?
4. Battery life - should it be always connected to the charger or I should charge only when the battery is low?
5. In the PC world, you always shot down the computer, how does it work with Mac? Should I just close the laptop without shutting it down?

THANKS!

Any external drive will do, but I'd recommend getting a USB 3.0 enclosure that supports UASP for good random I/O performance and stick in any 2.5" SATA3 drive into it.

Backup? Just use any external USB 3.0 drive and Time Machine it.

3. Sync using iTunes.

4. Do as you wish, the battery is designed to be used in any way as you wish.

5. You can just sleep it without shutting down, but I always completely shut it down for the sake of security. I'm a software dev and love working around with rootkits all the time, and I'm paranoid when it comes to things like this.

PS - make sure you enable FileVault.

 

[joema2]

...I want to have an external HD for all photographs, I will not store them on my MBP SSD - can you recommend?

The fastest single-platter external USB 3 bus-powered drive I've tested is the 1TB HGST Touro S (about 130 MB/sec): http://amzn.com/B00IVFDQ48 It's a 7200 rpm drive.

The fastest external USB 3 bus-powered drive overall is probably the 4TB Seagate Backup Plus Fast, which internally is a two-drive RAID0 array: http://amzn.com/B00HXAV0X6

There are many other options in both USB 3 and Thunderbolt interfaces from G-Tech: http://www.g-technology.com/products

Any backup solution? How does it work with apple?

The built-in Time Machine backup works very well. However you should have a dedicated drive for this, separate from any external data drive.

For really critical data, some users have two different types of backup, e.g, Time Machine plus Carbon Copy Cloner: https://bombich.com/

In the PC world, you always shot down the computer, how does it work with Mac? Should I just close the laptop without shutting it down?

That's because Windows laptops have historically been somewhat unreliable about sleep/hibernate and waking up from that. In general on a Mac laptop it works perfectly. Just close the lid.

 

[Laserducky]

Hello all,

Just wanted to let you know that I got my first ever MBP on Friday. I am a photographer (hobby) and I was looking for a good laptop for photo editing 4 year ago. I considered Mac, but it was so super expensive. I decided to go for the Samsung Chronos 7 as it was the same on paper for 50% of the price. I was so disappointed - the screen, how everything works, the build quality - really not good.

Now I needed the best screen possible for photo editing and I was waiting for the new MBP to come up. It did, be it with the old chip, but I still prefer to get it now and use it now for photo editing rather than waiting longer.

I turned the machine on on Friday and I was shocked - it is so fast and so beautiful! Can't believe!
Hope it will serve me well

BTW, have some questions:
1. I want to have an external HD for all photographs, I will not store them on my MBP SSD - can you recommend?
2. Any backup solution? How does it work with apple?
3. Synchronization with my iPhone and iPad - how to properly do it and what can be synchronized?
4. Battery life - should it be always connected to the charger or I should charge only when the battery is low?
5. In the PC world, you always shot down the computer, how does it work with Mac? Should I just close the laptop without shutting it down?

THANKS!

2. For backup just use Time Machine. Easy to use and just works.
4. For battery life, just treat it like you would treat your iphone : charge it when required and unplug when you need to travel or be mobile.
5. You can just close the lid and it should be fine. Macs behave very nicely when they hibernate so it shouldn't be a problem.

Congrats on your new purchase and enjoy your new machine.

Cheers !

 

[Kulfon]

Thank to all of you all for suggestions! It is a nice system. Another question I have - is it possible to unpin some of the programs from the menu bar at the bottom of the screen and pin new?

 

[iConnected]

Thank to all of you all for suggestions! It is a nice system. Another question I have - is it possible to unpin some of the programs from the menu bar at the bottom of the screen and pin new?

Right click on an icon, mouseover Options > click on Remove from dock.

To add new ones, when you have an app open, right click on the icon, mouseover Options and select Keep in dock.

You can also drag apps to the dock straight from your Applications folder.

 

[TechGod]

Right click on an icon, mouseover Options > click on Remove from dock.

To add new ones, when you have an app open, right click on the icon, mouseover Options and select Keep in dock.

You can also drag apps to the dock straight from your Applications folder.

You can also just hold an icon and throw it off the dock.

 

[maflynn]

You can also just hold an icon and throw it off the dock.

That doesn't work for me in Yosemite. I don't know why.

 

[iConnected]

That doesn't work for me in Yosemite. I don't know why.

It should still work:

Yosemite-specific info:​

"Remove an item: Drag the item out of the Dock until you see a puff of smoke."

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18815?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US​

The menu-based option may "feel safer", especially for a newcomer to Mac.

 

[TechGod]

That doesn't work for me in Yosemite. I don't know why.

It does for me.

 

[maflynn]

Odd, I can right click and remove it that way. I've never really thought about it because I don't add/remove stuff from my dock often.

 

[TechGod]

Odd, I can right click and remove it that way. I've never really thought about it because I don't add/remove stuff from my dock often.

I do, enough to notice it.