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what to do first, with a brand new macbook?

E

e8w117

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
31
0
hello ladies and gents... using macmall's great prices and their inauguration sale, i just scooped the aluminum macbook for around $1300, shipped.

now, i'm a complete n00b when it came to apple products and apple applications but i was REALLY frustrated with my current 8 year old desktop.

so.... i'm expecting the mac tomorrow and wanted to get ideas of thing do first, preventative measures, things to add/delete... whatever....

any help would be greatly appreciated, thnx....

if this is a repost, sry.
 
plug it in when you turn it on. The setup is quick and painless.

Let it charge fully and stay charged for at least 2 hours, then calibrate the battery (search on apple.com for detailed directions on calibration).

Other than that, you should be good to go. Macs tend to be ready to go right out of the box.

Reading around on these forums should give you ideas about good apps to get.
 
First thing to do is calibrate your screen. To do this, head to "System Prefernces", then under "Hardware" you will see a "Displays" button. Go there, and choose the "Color" tab, then select "Calibrate...". From there, everything is self explanatory.

Get some cool wallpapers from Interfacelift


Here are a list of applications that I consider must haves.
The free stuff
smcFanControl
InsomniaX
UnRarX
Stuffit
Slim Battery Monitor
OpenOffice (if you only do semi basic office work and do not want to spend money on Office or iWork)
Adium (an iChat replacement that handles more protocols)
Transmission (for torrents)
Quicksilver ( best to check it out on youtube, but it is cool :) )
VLC Media player (Better than spending the money on Qucktime Pro, because it will play almost anything you throw at it)


The not so free stuff
Microsoft Office (it is worth the money if you need the features, or are just familiar to how it functions.)
VMWare (purchase this over Parallels)
Aperture
Final Cut Express
CleanApp
Candybar ( if you want to customize your icons, dock, folders, ect. I made my theme sweet thanks to this app)


You can also give Opera or Firefox a try for a web browser, but I find that Safari runs faster than the two, plus it handles multitouch gestures better.

Hope that helps.
 
There is nothing to delete, it's a Mac! It doesn't come bloated with crapware.

You will need this for sure:
http://www.perian.org/
and this
Flip4Mac



As for Apps, it's all up to you and what you will need. The above two just add components to Quicktime player so that it can play pretty much any video. :D
 
Congratulations with your purchase. As for first things to do... turn it on, do the quick setup, fully charge the battery and then fully drain it.

Some must have apps are:
Flip4Mac
Perian
Handbrake
OnyX
Transmission
Adium
iStat Pro
VLC

Depending on what you wanna do with your computer, there are some other great apps that are either free or well worth the small charge.

I also spent weeks fiddling with all of the system preferences and different app preferences and toolbars until I got them and the system just the way I like it (this was my fist Mac).

Good Luck!
 
Another good one is Xslimmer. It goes through your Apps and allows you to delete universal binaries and other unnecessary files.

On my month old MacBook, it freed up nearly 3 GB of space!
 
yousoldtheworld said:
Another good one is Xslimmer. It goes through your Apps and allows you to delete universal binaries and other unnecessary files.

On my month old MacBook, it freed up nearly 3 GB of space!
Click to expand...

Thats a good app but if you arnt experienced with macs you can get it to delete stuff your programs need to operate.
 
First step: Connect an external hard drive (or a Time Capsule) and make sure Time Machine is set up properly. Let it do its initial backup which may take several hours.

Step two: In my opinion, don't download the ten most indispensable must-have apps just yet. If you are not used to OS X yet, start to learn the new environment. Watch the iLife movies on the apple site, for instance. Read the help files in Finder and the various apps. Learn iLife and the Mac way of working. It is different from Windows. When you know what OS X can and can't do, find the apps that provide the stuff YOU need.
 
There are a few things you may not need, like all the languages and the 'test drive' of Microsoft office. You may want to wait till you are used to the machine before you start nuking the programs you don't need. Go to MacUpdate to see all the Mac programs that are around. You can set up your search on just the free stuff to begin with but after awhile you will love places like MacHeist and MacUpdate package sales for paid programs (you get them around twice a year and you buy 10-12 programs for about $50 total where if purchased on their own they run about $20 or more each.
 
pesc said:
Step two: In my opinion, don't download the ten most indispensable must-have apps just yet. If you are not used to OS X yet, start to learn the new environment. Watch the iLife movies on the apple site, for instance. Read the help files in Finder and the various apps. Learn iLife and the Mac way of working. It is different from Windows. When you know what OS X can and can't do, find the apps that provide the stuff YOU need.
Click to expand...

Yes, I definitely agree with that! Even now that I've owned several Macs and know my way around them, when I get a new one I play with it for a few days and add apps and things once I need them. It's best to get a good feel for your new OS and system before you add MORE new things to it.
 
AWESOME..... this is ALL VERY HELPFUL.... i took delivery of the MacBook last night...

i've gone thru all the basic setup instructions. organized the Finder to how i like it and setup the hot corners.

coming from windows, configuring the AirPort took afew more minutes. i've also figured out what the blue little blob was and how to 'hard' quit an already open app.

is there a way to hard quit the Finder?

pls keep the ideas coming.

again, thnx for the ideas.....
 
Nero9171 said:
First thing to do is calibrate your screen. To do this, head to "System Prefernces", then under "Hardware" you will see a "Displays" button. Go there, and choose the "Color" tab, then select "Calibrate...". From there, everything is self explanatory.

Get some cool wallpapers from Interfacelift


Here are a list of applications that I consider must haves.
The free stuff
smcFanControl
InsomniaX
UnRarX
Stuffit
Slim Battery Monitor
OpenOffice (if you only do semi basic office work and do not want to spend money on Office or iWork)
Adium (an iChat replacement that handles more protocols)
Transmission (for torrents)
Quicksilver ( best to check it out on youtube, but it is cool :) )
VLC Media player (Better than spending the money on Qucktime Pro, because it will play almost anything you throw at it)


The not so free stuff
Microsoft Office (it is worth the money if you need the features, or are just familiar to how it functions.)
VMWare (purchase this over Parallels)
Aperture
Final Cut Express
CleanApp
Candybar ( if you want to customize your icons, dock, folders, ect. I made my theme sweet thanks to this app)


You can also give Opera or Firefox a try for a web browser, but I find that Safari runs faster than the two, plus it handles multitouch gestures better.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

This is the first time i've heard about Slim Battery Monitor, and I tried it out.. it's AWESOME!! Thanks for the tip :cool:
 
Nero9171 said:
First thing to do is calibrate your screen. To do this, head to "System Prefernces", then under "Hardware" you will see a "Displays" button. Go there, and choose the "Color" tab, then select "Calibrate...". From there, everything is self explanatory.

Get some cool wallpapers from Interfacelift


Here are a list of applications that I consider must haves.
The free stuff
smcFanControl
InsomniaX
UnRarX
Stuffit
Slim Battery Monitor
OpenOffice (if you only do semi basic office work and do not want to spend money on Office or iWork)
Adium (an iChat replacement that handles more protocols)
Transmission (for torrents)
Quicksilver ( best to check it out on youtube, but it is cool :) )
VLC Media player (Better than spending the money on Qucktime Pro, because it will play almost anything you throw at it)


The not so free stuff
Microsoft Office (it is worth the money if you need the features, or are just familiar to how it functions.)
VMWare (purchase this over Parallels)
Aperture
Final Cut Express
CleanApp
Candybar ( if you want to customize your icons, dock, folders, ect. I made my theme sweet thanks to this app)


You can also give Opera or Firefox a try for a web browser, but I find that Safari runs faster than the two, plus it handles multitouch gestures better.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Under the not so free stuff, 1 Password http://agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password?version=2.9.7-7328,
Check Book Pro,http://www.splasm.com/:D
 
e8w117 said:
AWESOME..... this is ALL VERY HELPFUL.... i took delivery of the MacBook last night...

i've gone thru all the basic setup instructions. organized the Finder to how i like it and setup the hot corners.

coming from windows, configuring the AirPort took afew more minutes. i've also figured out what the blue little blob was and how to 'hard' quit an already open app.

is there a way to hard quit the Finder?

pls keep the ideas coming.

again, thnx for the ideas.....
Click to expand...

Finder can't be quit. I thought that was really strange when I first got my iMac :p
 

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