THE BORE

General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Howard Alan Treesong on November 14, 2008, 12:52:22 PM

Title: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Howard Alan Treesong on November 14, 2008, 12:52:22 PM

I got my new Macbook! It is soooo sexy. :-*

But I don't know anything about OSX or "standard" Mac software installs.

What should I install on it to turn it into a powerful beast of a machine?

So far, I've added:

- Firefox with deli.co.us plugin :D
- Adium with Growl :-[
- World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King :zzz

What should I use for document editing/creation? OpenOffice? Google Docs? iWork? It needs to be Word/Excel compatible.

Any must-install free games or other programs I should look into?

Thanks for making my Mac as sexy on the inside as it is on the outside.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Like tauntaun's buttocks. :-*

[close]

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Vizzys on November 14, 2008, 12:54:55 PM

install windows

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: drew on November 14, 2008, 12:58:59 PM

install quicksilver

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: G The Resurrected on November 14, 2008, 12:59:34 PM

Boot Camp is your friend

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Eric P on November 14, 2008, 01:00:07 PM

hey, i'm on a mac too and i don't use it for much other than the terminal (zomg so nice to have this native), thunderbird, and firefox.

my solution was to go out and buy office.  or rather have my job buy me office.  i hear that open office and iwork don't translate as well as you'd like.  if you're just doing casual stuff it may be good.  personally, i dunno.

i really liked setting up spaces and working with the user preferences to do a lot of stuff on this machine.  it feels far more comfortable now than straight out of the box.  i really like the mouse pad gestures

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Eric P on November 14, 2008, 01:00:39 PM

Quote from: Drewsy on November 14, 2008, 12:58:59 PM

install quicksilver

i did and i don't think i'm using it to the fullest extent.  i even took it off my dock

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 14, 2008, 01:03:15 PM

install vista

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: drew on November 14, 2008, 01:03:58 PM

Quote from: Eric P on November 14, 2008, 01:00:39 PM

i did and i don't think i'm using it to the fullest extent.  i even took it off my dock

here's how i use it:

click icon => window pops up => hit the first letter of the program i want to open then hit enter => program opens! =>  ? => profit!

that way you don't need to have a huge dock or dig through your apps folder

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Howard Alan Treesong on November 14, 2008, 01:04:46 PM

0) Does Boot Camp come with all copies of Leopard? So I can just say "hey, Boot Camp this machine" and feed it Vista?
1) what's Quicksilver?
2) My brother, a Mac user, also says I need to just get Office as well. Sniff.
3) What's a "space"?

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Don Flamenco on November 14, 2008, 01:05:24 PM

iWork is great. Easiest productivity suite I've ever used and the results are always great looking.  You can convert to pdf, word, rtf, and other formats.  Not sure how much it costs normally (I got it for $50 student discount), but it's worth every penny...goes right along with your "sexy on the inside" request. I'm sure plenty of people will recommend open office and all that, but screw it.  I use that on my windows PC and it's incredibly clunky and slow compared to iWork.

Some good free software:
Media players - get VLC mac
Torrents - Transmission is the best until uTorrent releases their client
.rar - UnrarX

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Tauntaun on November 14, 2008, 01:07:54 PM

Quote from: Synthesizer Patel on November 14, 2008, 12:52:22 PM

Thanks for making my Mac as sexy on the inside as it is on the outside.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Like tauntaun's buttocks. :-*

[close]

 :-[

spoiler (click to show/hide)

:tauntaun

[close]

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: TakingBackSunday on November 14, 2008, 01:08:47 PM

Handbrake-DVD to mpeg4 converter
Max-audio file converter and extractor
Plex-port of XBMC, pretty cool
The Unarchiver-archive unpacker program
VLC-widely supported media player
Multiclutch-assign trackpad movements to functions in ALL programs.  Makes three-finger swipe enabled in Firefox basically
Flip4mac wmv-maes wmv files playable

edit:

Quote

0) Does Boot Camp come with all copies of Leopard? So I can just say "hey, Boot Camp this machine" and feed it Vista?
1) what's Quicksilver?
2) My brother, a Mac user, also says I need to just get Office as well. Sniff.
3) What's a "space"?

-Yeah, Boot Camp works right out of the box for everything.  All you need is a copy of Windows.  Make sure you kept the Leopard discs the computer came with, it has the drivers needed when you install windows
-Quicksilver is like a beefed up Spotlight, but I've never had the desire to use it
-Yeah, just get Office, that's what I did
-You have 4 separate desktops, basically, with spaces.  You can arrange what you have open that way--I have firefox on one, itunes on another, word on the third, and maybe porn on the fourth.  Go into System preferences and go to expose and spaces, and you can fiddle around with corners and such

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Eric P on November 14, 2008, 01:11:37 PM

Quote from: Synthesizer Patel on November 14, 2008, 01:04:46 PM

0) Does Boot Camp come with all copies of Leopard? So I can just say "hey, Boot Camp this machine" and feed it Vista?
1) what's Quicksilver?
2) My brother, a Mac user, also says I need to just get Office as well. Sniff.
3) What's a "space"?

spaces comes with your macbook (i think you got the exact same one i did).  what it does is it gives up you up to four simultanious desktops.  i use it for a space for terminal, a space for work webpages and a space for personal webpages and then i leave one blank. 

Quote

click icon => window pops up => hit the first letter of the program i want to open then hit enter => program opens! =>  ? => profit!

oh nice

since this is predominately for work, i have a very manageable dock for right now but that may change in the future

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Eric P on November 14, 2008, 01:12:20 PM

Quote from: BrandNew on November 14, 2008, 01:08:47 PM

Handbrake-DVD to mpeg4 converter
Max-audio file converter and extractor
Plex-port of XBMC, pretty cool
The Unarchiver-archive unpacker program
VLC-widely supported media player
Multiclutch-assign trackpad movements to functions in ALL programs.  Makes three-finger swipe enabled in Firefox basically
Flip4mac wmv-maes wmv files playable

is there a good dvd ripper?

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: TakingBackSunday on November 14, 2008, 01:15:24 PM

To be honest I've never had to rip any dvds, so I'm not sure.  I don't ever use handbrake, lol

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Eric P on November 14, 2008, 01:17:38 PM

since the conversion from vob to other formats is still lengthy and resource intensive on my desktop i was going to hopefully farm it out to this laptop so i can game while the conversion chugs along.

i seriously need to buy ableton for this thing though

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: hyp on November 14, 2008, 05:48:46 PM

yup, boot camp comes w/ leopard.

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Eric P on November 14, 2008, 05:53:58 PM

Quote from: hyp on November 14, 2008, 05:48:46 PM

yup, boot camp comes w/ leopard.

oh neat

i didn't know that.

anyone have a spare copy of vista?

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: drew on November 14, 2008, 05:54:59 PM

in that case head out to Best Buy and buy Counterstrike Source (comes w/ Half Life: Deathmatch)

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Van Cruncheon on November 14, 2008, 09:50:29 PM

Quote from: Eric P on November 14, 2008, 05:53:58 PM

anyone have a spare copy of vista?

:teehee

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Rman on November 14, 2008, 10:02:07 PM

-Handbreak is awesome for ripping DVDs. 

-Honestly, I would just get a Mac version of Office for the best compatibility.  Get the Student Teacher Edition.  It's cheaper.  Or you can get iWork.

-Photoshop

-QuickSilver is an awesome, context based app launcher.

-VM Ware Fusion for Windows virtualization if you do not want to use Bootcamp since it requires a reboot to switch OSes.  Parallels desktop is also a fine choice

-Delicious Library 2- Scan all your games, books, movies, using your Macs built in camera to read UPC codes.  It creates virtual shelves of all your media.  It imports images from the Amazon database.

-iStumbler- Get detailed wireless network info.  Very useful for troubleshooting wi fi issues.

-Keynote- Awesome Macafied version of PowerPoint.  More design friendy.

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Eric P on November 15, 2008, 03:56:53 PM

handbrake is really nice.  lots of easy to use options (it seems).  i'm ripping down something really quick straight from the dvd for timing purposes

unfortunately the macbook dvd itself seems to reject non-region 1 discs, or at least it does the standard "change 4 times then lock" of dvd drives.

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Smooth Groove on November 15, 2008, 04:31:08 PM

Patel, get the new 24" LED monitor from Apple.  It's beautiful. 

I just wish its screen was matte instead of glossy but I'd still get one if it were PC compatible. 

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Eric P on November 18, 2008, 02:25:56 PM

quicksilver is kind of neat with the ability to contextually set up comands based on the application

unfortunately i don't have much call for it right now other than to launch apps.

handbrake was good for a one stop ripping shop. 

any other apps i should look at?

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Rman on November 19, 2008, 11:53:36 PM

yep, VLC is basically a region free player.

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Cormacaroni on November 20, 2008, 02:44:00 AM

Quote from: Groo on November 19, 2008, 11:54:54 PM

orly, I didn't know. Can handbrake rip any region DVDs though? Or does VLC handle any point of that workflow? I have tons of Region 1 stuff I need to archive before getting rid of/packing up.

it sadly cannot, AFAIK. i tried but i'm no expert.

but you can still switch your DVD drive to region 1, do all your ripping, then switch it back if you need to.

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: TVC15 on November 20, 2008, 02:45:48 AM

Quote from: Cormacaroni on November 20, 2008, 02:44:00 AM

but you can still switch your DVD drive to region 1, do all your ripping, then switch it back if you need to.

Ooo, how!  This would be like the holy grail for me.

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: T-Short on November 20, 2008, 03:35:37 AM

Install Applejack (http://applejack.sourceforge.net/), good thing to have on there if you need to clear caches or check the drive and you don't have a boot DVD around.
Applejack <3

Title: Re: Laptop, laptop, laptop, ack! I mean Mac! Guys!! How do I use this Mac??
Post by: Eric P on November 20, 2008, 09:07:36 AM

Quote from: Rman on November 19, 2008, 11:53:36 PM

yep, VLC is basically a region free player.

i was trying to put a region 3 dvd in and the mac made me confirm my region.  when i didn't change it, the mac immediately ejected the disc.

maybe this is a new feature?