Bought my first Mac

4saken

4saken

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Sep 14, 2004
Messages
13,174
After being a staunch apple hater for years, i became a massive hypocrite and picked up a 2012 13.3" Macbook Air. 128gb ssd, 4GB ram.

What sites/forums are big for mac users? Where is a good source of freeware, OSS, etc for Macs? I installed steam, diablo 3 so far, and have tried to learn the interface. Ive literally spent 2 hours on a MAC my whole life, so its quite a change. Anyway, any must do's for a new mac id appreciate. Looking forward to playing more with this notebook.
 
Why were you a hater when you haven't even tried a mac before? Anyway, Macrumors is a popular website/forum for anything apple.

*Not sure if I can post the name of that website here
 
I think the osx interface is the best! the dock, beautiful and detailed icons and coverflow make it specially fun to use. I wish microsoft would spend alot more time on the windows interface and I don't mean that metro garbage. I too did not like macs because of their high prices and lack of choices in hardware, software and gaming. However, that doesn't take away from the fact that apple makes ergonomic machines and intuitive operating systems that are both simple to use and pleasing to the eyes.

When you get a chance, check out mac.appstorm.net for some free apps.

http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/100-incredibly-useful-free-mac-apps/

I find the following apps good to install for osx: carbon copy cloner, the unarchiver, adium, bean, growl, handbrake, istat, onyx, perian, paparazzi, app cleane, and caffeine
 
4saken said:
anyone know what the best RDP app is on the mac?
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I personally use the Microsoft one because I full screen them on my macbook. My friends use cord on their work macs. I had issues with it and full screen so I went back to the ms one.
 
Try cord its better suited for people who rdp into multiple machines but also works if you just need to connect to one.
 
ashman said:
Try cord its better suited for people who rdp into multiple machines but also works if you just need to connect to one.
Click to expand...

i checked out cord, but it seems whenever i connect to anything i get no initial window of the desktop to pop up. My active session shows up on the left pane, but i never see any actual connection.

I did use the MS RDP and it seems to be doing the job so far. Thanks for the suggestions. Also just used Fusion 5 and put on windows 8. Really dig the swiping on the mac touchpad so far.
 
There's the obvious FOSS that are all available on OS X, VLC, OpenOffice, Virtualbox.
Some OS X specific programs that are personal must haves include Quicksilver (application launcher, can do a lot of other stuff if you take the time to learn it) and Witch (Windows alt+tab style window switcher) and iStat for temps and basic system info.

As previously mentioned, Growl is good for pop-up notifications. CCC or SuperDuper for backups/imaging. Adium is a good multi-platform chat client. I still like TextMate for what little coding I do, but many people have moved to Sublime Text since development of TM had stalled, and now has been open sourced.
 
PointandClick said:
There's the obvious FOSS that are all available on OS X, VLC, OpenOffice, Virtualbox.
Some OS X specific programs that are personal must haves include Quicksilver (application launcher, can do a lot of other stuff if you take the time to learn it) and Witch (Windows alt+tab style window switcher) and iStat for temps and basic system info.

As previously mentioned, Growl is good for pop-up notifications. CCC or SuperDuper for backups/imaging. Adium is a good multi-platform chat client. I still like TextMate for what little coding I do, but many people have moved to Sublime Text since development of TM had stalled, and now has been open sourced.
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sweet. thanks for the adium, worked like a charm for my works jabber.
 
MatDef said:
For RDP I prefer iTap's RDP client:

http://itap-mobile.com/desktop/rdp

Works a lot better than the never updated MS one imo.

I also use TotalFinder:

http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/

Adds a lot of great features to Finder, including tab support.

For Terminal I use TotalTerminal:

http://totalterminal.binaryage.com/

Have it bound to my ~ key, drops down just like the cli in all the old quake games. :p
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oh nice, that total terminal is totally legit. Nice call on the console hot key.
 
MatDef said:
For RDP I prefer iTap's RDP client:

I also use TotalFinder:

http://totalfinder.binaryage.com/

Adds a lot of great features to Finder, including tab support.

For Terminal I use TotalTerminal:

:p
Click to expand...

Have you used any of their other programs, specifically Asepsis? I'm not quite sure that I understand how it works, but I like the idea. I have a terrible time with .DS_store and .AppleDouble files on my NAS. They get picked up by XBMC and I end up with double entries in my Library. I usually ssh into the server and do a search and remove on the folder for those files but that's really a PITA.
 
PointandClick said:
Have you used any of their other programs, specifically Asepsis? I'm not quite sure that I understand how it works, but I like the idea. I have a terrible time with .DS_store and .AppleDouble files on my NAS. They get picked up by XBMC and I end up with double entries in my Library. I usually ssh into the server and do a search and remove on the folder for those files but that's really a PITA.
Click to expand...

I haven't, but it should work pretty well based on everything else I've used from them. I personally don't like mucking around with HFS+, as old and half assed as it is.
 
d4nnn said:
I, like you, have gotten my first macbook air this month.

I recommend getting

Arrange - window maximizing and shortcuts

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/34884/arrange

Unfortunately, I am finding many of the good apps are payware and osx is littered with it.
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Forgot about Transmission. Gotta d/l those *nix distros ;)

Does that Arrange app provide the half screen snap functionality of Win 7? That is one thing from 7 that I find really slick. If so does it offer keyboard shortcuts like some of these?
 
Yes it does, it also gives you corner screen, full screen, and keyboard shortcuts.

I find it essential essential to have.
 
MatDef said:
Doesn't support NLA, sadly (which rules it out for any version of Server past 08). It might be a personal thing, but I don't like lowering my security standards just for one app.
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How much of a difference in security does it give? I just checked out cord and its much much better than the microsoft RDP for osx. Wondering if its worth the $20-25 dollars for the more secure one?
 
d4nnn said:
How much of a difference in security does it give? I just checked out cord and its much much better than the microsoft RDP for osx. Wondering if its worth the $20-25 dollars for the more secure one?
Click to expand...

Doesnt really matter. My workplace has NLA in place for every server 2008 R2 and up. So that option is a requirement. Suppose if you are flexible on the NLA then it doesnt matter.

Anyway, really starting to dig OSX, the magic trackpad, etc. Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Have a usable machine now that I feel like i could almost go 100% OSX if i cared to. :)
 
Haiku214 said:
Why were you a hater when you haven't even tried a mac before?
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many schools and all universities who offer art/video/audio improvement classes have few macs so it's not safe to assume he hasn't tried it, i'm just saying as it was on my case. anyway, to be honest in my opinion, before macs actually were kinda very bad with apps and interface use now they are pretty smooth and have better nowdays.
 
I prefer fishfish for terminal
http://ridiculousfish.com/shell/

and MplayerX over VLC
(in the Mac App store)

and I use Chrome for things that require flash instead of installing flash for OSX

I also prefer Cord over anything else but I'm simply using it for hopping on my htpc at home on my personal network
 
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