Comments on: I now have a MacBook as my primary computer – err, help?

By: Ravi

Ravi — Tue, 11 May 2010 06:53:05 +0000

latest tips and tricks collection at enews18.co.cc http://etricks18.blogspot.com

By: Bill Kempthorne

Bill Kempthorne — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:59:01 +0000

My short list of ‘must haves’ for any Mac. LaunchBar($), 1Password($), Adium, and Dropbox. There are free ‘launcher’ solutions but I love Launchbar plus it gives you a Clipboard recorder so no more hopping back and forth with copy and paste. 1Password for all the online passwords – that’s for safety, Adium for cross platfrom chats (AIM, iChat, gTalk, MSN, Facebooks, etc) that’s free. Dropbox to backup the basic settings, and important files – that’s free too.
Then it gets down to personal preference. I do lots of text work and there are a massive number of cool text editors Textwrangler (free), Textmate($), and BBEdit($). I also like TextExpander for all the macro-functions. Makes email, blogging, and documentation a lot easier.

And Last, you need to at least play a bit with Delicious Library – probably the poster child of a Mac Application and gives you a bar code reader for books with your Laptop’s iSight

By: David Holt

David Holt — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:03:00 +0000

Scot,

I guess I work differently than you do. I have never understood the value of having multiple desktops. Expose is somewhat useful, but less so now that the dock will group together an application’s open windows when you click and hold on the icon. I found that no matter where I put the “hot spots” for Expose, I would invariably accidentally move my cursor there and disrupt my work.

I strongly recommend you DO NOT buy Parallels. I can’t understand why so many in the Mac community seem to like it. It is not an industry standard like VMWare and will likely not exist in a few years. They have lost this war to VMWare quite awhile ago. VMWare is used extensively and has thousands of pre-built virtual machines. Parallels really has nothing going for it. If you’re going to purchase virtualization software it would make a very poor choice. You’ll end up with a product that has limited appeal, a small user base, an uncertain future, and very little third party support.

By: zaheer

zaheer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:18:01 +0000

Congrats! … if you should experience Windows withdrawal you can run Windows on your new MacBook using either commercial products VMWare Fusion or Parallels

By: Terry

Terry — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:54:12 +0000

Walked in your shoes a year ago. This helped me, al “conversion chart “between If on Windows, Then on Mac put out by apple support. After inadvertently deleting my Systems Preferences and making new best friends at Apple Support, I Love my Mac now. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2514

By: rcn

rcn — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:49:41 +0000

Oh, good, you’re just a bit ahead of me in this move. I can glean some great suggestions from the comments here! So, hearty thanks!

By: Alexis

Alexis — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:11:00 +0000

I got my first Mac this past summer (had never even used a Mac before) and haven’t regretted it. I still have my old Windows PC, but I haven’t turned it on in quite a while. I thought it would be hard to switch, but really, it wasn’t. I’ve discovered that I really like iPhoto and iWord, though haven’t tried the other programs yet.

I use Mixero for Twitter and Adium for IM. I’ll also give hearty agreement to getting Time Machine. It was plug and play and gave me wireless access instantly in addition to the automatic backups.

By: Scot Colford

Scot Colford — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:33:31 +0000

I actually do enjoy my Parallels quite a bit. And I stick by my spaces/expose recommendation. I’m shocked to read David’s diss of them, since virtual desktops are one of the best things about the KDE and Gnome desktops in Linux!

By: AP

AP — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:53:35 +0000

In 15 years, I have had one Macintosh, one e-mac, one Macbook, one technical problem ( a decade ago sorted immediately at no cost to me) and I have never ever had a virus. I think it works out cheaper than a PC – free iPhoto for example, no repair bill, no antivirus suscriptions… Time Machine is worth getting. I have a friendly technician who casts an eye over both the e-mac and the macBook every 18 months, tweaks the settings, suggests a few improvements – it takes him about 30 minutes. You’ll probably find someone like this already on your staff.

William Morris said “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” – both apply to the Mac.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:37:25 +0000

I think you’ll love your new machine. It’s probably already been suggested but I highly recommend vlc player, the wmv component for quicktime, adium for chatting, cyberduck for ftp, and there are scores elsewhere. I was using net news wire but now I just use the google reader plugin for firefox. handbrake is a good DVD ripping utility – makes nice little mp4 files if you need to convert DVD content. There are a host of others – feel free to ask if you need suggestions.