I just bought my first Mac in the form of the new Macbook and am expecting delivery on the 30th but i have a couple of questions before it all arrives. As im pretty new im quite ignorant or just plain stupid on some things concerning Macs. So is there any tips, hints especially software that i should get or need to know. Another question is will everything work on My mac that sounds a dumb question but some people are always scare-mongering about Macs saying that you'll struggle with compatibility is this rubbish or something i need to watch out for. Also what do the new trackpads involve as im really not sure i know they dont have any buttons, how does that worK!? Thanks for any advice you may give from 1 Mac owner to another.
Safari (included) is a great browser, I was once stuck to firefox, but Safari eventually won my allegiance. I will still use firefox on Pc, Linux, or even on the mac if Safari fails to work. I just now prefer Safari.
As for things you may want/need, I'll give you names, you can search google for most, and anything I type with ($$) is shareware. Those can be found on versiontracker website (excluding quicktime pro)
Flip4mac - WMV extension for quicktime. You should be able to play internet videos in the wmv format, as well as movie files.
Perian - this gives quicktime a large amount of codecs for playing various types of video.
Quicktime Pro ($$) - quickly trim movies, and save them, as well as other features you may find interesting
Messenger:mac - MSN messenger for mac
NetNewsWire - a great macintosh RSS feed viewer.
Transmission - for torrents
1password ($$) - password manager for Os X. I use an app called Steel, which holds the passwords, but 1password has auto-fill capabilities with your browsers.
Keyboard maestro ($$) - Macro program. Easily create hotkeys to control various functions on your mac.
Handbrake - convert DVDs to movie files for iTunes/apple TV and more.
iSquint - free application to convert movie files to ipod/iTunes.
Visual Hub ($$) - much like iSquint, but much more functionality. Convert to and from different formats, and even burn video DVDs
FunnyPhotographer - probably not needed if you have Leopard, but for Tiger, it contains more iSight effects than photobooth.
Paintbrush - simple paint program. Closest thing to MS Paint.
Renamer4mac - quickly re-name large amounts of files. Works perfectly when sorting large amounts of photos (at least for me)
Justlooking - photo viewer. scroll buttons scrolls through images (great for viewing a folder, not having to click each one like priview.app). It also plays .gif animations -- and does not crash like xee.app does (xee is a similar third party app)
Snap Pro X ($$) - Screen shot, and recording app. Record movies MUCH more efficiently than any other program out there as far as I know.
I used to use one for PC, and it slowed my computer down ridiculously, even caused it to stop responding. While on my mac, I thought I would try it out again. I got some free apps, and I believe I foolishly payed for a shareware app which did the same thing. I thought 2.0GHz intel duo was enough RAM to do screen capture, not to mention I'm on OS X, not windows. The mac slowed right down, dock was unusable, programs (including the recorder) stop responding, resulting in a loss of the recording. This was particularly annoying if it was something I could not re-create easily. I came across snap pro X -- and everything changed. It records the screen, and audio perfectly, efficiently, with no noticeable drop in computer performance. I can easily record, stop, and save the movie. Saving may slow things down a bit, but at least it saves, and doesn't stop responding, and lose the save. I drop the movie file into Visual Hub, and compress it to a small mp4 movie file, and I'm good to go.
that should get you going good. I wish i had that list when I started. It took a lot of searching, asking, and more searching. I don't know what I'd do without google, or macrumors.
the shareware costs between 20-40 each for single licenses, so keep that in mind. With that said, I don't feel cheated out of anything, the apps work well in what they do, especially Snap Pro X.