Attention: Mac-bore and computer pack rats

[The Business]

I just bought a new Macbook Pro and have less than a week to download everything I'll need and/or want for a potential year without internet.  If you were faced with this monumental challenge, what would you download?  I'm feeling overwhelmed. 

[Himu]

Music. And movies. Lots and lots of movies off of itunes.

The Wire is on itunes now for 12 bucks a season.

[T-Short]

a potential year without internet? sounds bullshit. are you going to the jungle somewhere?

[Joe Molotov]

You should probably just kill yourself, imo.

[Phoenix Dark]

pretty much

[Cormacaroni]

I just bought a new Macbook Pro and have less than a week to download everything I'll need and/or want for a potential year without internet.  If you were faced with this monumental challenge, what would you download?  I'm feeling overwhelmed. 

Prole showed me a great site for DL'ing and installing all your most-used free software automatically. (AIM, Skype, Steam, winamp, all that sort of stuff). I used it once and forgot to bookmark :'( 

[Pringo]

I just bought a new Macbook Pro and have less than a week to download everything I'll need and/or want for a potential year without internet.  If you were faced with this monumental challenge, what would you download?  I'm feeling overwhelmed. 

Prole showed me a great site for DL'ing and installing all your most-used free software automatically. (AIM, Skype, Steam, winamp, all that sort of stuff). I used it once and forgot to bookmark :'( 

I know exactly which program you're talking about but I can't remember the name of it for the life of me.

Anyways, get:
-Media player programs (I guess you'd have iTunes and QuickTime already, I don't know if there are better alternatives for OSX).
-Photoshop or whatever free image editing programs are out there for Macs. Especially important if you're a photography buff I guess.
-Steam if you're planning on getting some games.
-MS Office or iWork.
-Lots of music and videos, transfer this stuff if you've already got a bunch on a drive somewhere. New TV shows would probably be good to download ahead of time.
-Backup porn supply.

And I think that should cover it.

[Madrun Badrun]

How are you going to interact with people if you don't have the internet?

[Van Cruncheon]

I just bought a new Macbook Pro and have less than a week to download everything I'll need and/or want for a potential year without internet.  If you were faced with this monumental challenge, what would you download?  I'm feeling overwhelmed. 

Prole showed me a great site for DL'ing and installing all your most-used free software automatically. (AIM, Skype, Steam, winamp, all that sort of stuff). I used it once and forgot to bookmark :'( 

www.ninite.com

[Rman]

Are you in the military, Business?

[Madrun Badrun]

xcode if you program.

[Cormacaroni]

www.ninite.com

This is pretty cool, but I guess not for Macs.

Are you in the military, Business?

Yep!

Thanks Prole

[BlueTsunami]

I just bought a new Macbook Pro and have less than a week to download everything I'll need and/or want for a potential year without internet.  If you were faced with this monumental challenge, what would you download?  I'm feeling overwhelmed. 

Prole showed me a great site for DL'ing and installing all your most-used free software automatically. (AIM, Skype, Steam, winamp, all that sort of stuff). I used it once and forgot to bookmark :'( 

www.ninite.com

Holy fuck

[Tieno]

Movies will only get you so far and will be a waste of HDD space.

Download the complete The Teaching Company - TTC  (audio) Archive, especially the lecture series 'Big History - Big Bang, Life, Rise of Humanity'
 is incredibly interesting. (you can download the video version too). I'd also download a shitton of ebooks.



Big History answers that question by weaving a single story from a variety of scholarly disciplines. Like traditional creation stories told by the world's great religions and mythologies, Big History provides a map of our place in space and time. But it does so using the insights and knowledge of modern science, as synthesized by a renowned historian.

This is a story scholars have been able to tell only since the middle of the last century, thanks to the development of new dating techniques in the mid-1900s. As Professor Christian explains, this story will continue to grow and change as scientists and historians accumulate new knowledge about our shared past.

Eight "Thresholds"

To tell this epic, Professor Christian organizes the history of creation into eight "thresholds." Each threshold marks a point in history when something truly new appeared and forms never before seen began to arise.

Starting with the first threshold, the creation of the Universe, Professor Christian traces the developments of new, more complex entities, including:

The creation of the first stars (threshold 2)
The origin of life (threshold 5)
The development of the human species (threshold 6)
The moment of modernity (threshold 8 ).
In the final lectures, you'll even gain a glimpse into the future as you review speculations offered by scientists about where our species, our world, and our Universe may be heading.

[Tieno]

I just bought a new Macbook Pro and have less than a week to download everything I'll need and/or want for a potential year without internet.  If you were faced with this monumental challenge, what would you download?  I'm feeling overwhelmed. 

Prole showed me a great site for DL'ing and installing all your most-used free software automatically. (AIM, Skype, Steam, winamp, all that sort of stuff). I used it once and forgot to bookmark :'( 

www.ninite.com

discovered that website via lifehacker a few days ago (starred it via google reader). Haven't had the chance to visit but now I just did and it looks amazing. Will save me a bunch of time.

[Groogrux]

Like Tieno, I'd recommend a fuck ton of ebooks.  They'll last you longer than any movie will, and they're quiet and won't disturb other people.  Other than that, I'd download a bunch of music.  Download music you're not even interested in.  Because 3 months to a year from now, who knows? 

[bork]

What about cell-phone tethering?

For further entertaininment, load it up with MAME and a couple thousand ROMs!

[drew]

PORN

[Groogrux]

PORN

Oh yeah, and this.

[Corporal]

I'm not entirely sure if this would be useful, but I've noticed that I do use wikipedia quite a bit.
That's one thing I'd take with me into the hellish offline world. Probably a really low priority though. But hey, trying to think outside the box here.
The wikidump can be as big as 5GB and as small as 25MB, depending on content massaging and language. Some rudimentary googling turns up wikitaxi (Windows only) and okawix (Win&Mac). Setup appears to be really easy.


You already know where you'll be stationed, I guess. Maybe you can acquire translation software for the dominantly spoken languages. If applicable I'd install the IME too. Just in case you might need it. Always helps to be prepared.


Maybe think about installing some sort of VM like Virtualbox, VirtualPC, VMWare player or whatever. Make the images read-only so you'll always have a clean system. Shit happens if others have access to your stuff. It's OK, they'll only install that one piece of software they know, or change that one setting that'll make the thing run faster! Boom.
Have a working backup ready for the same reason. Who knows what will happen. You certainly won't have access to the web for drivers, howtos and updates, so make sure it's recent and correctly configured. Personally, I'd also encrypt the shit out of my personal info and data.


Other than that, I'd go with ebooks (time for a re-visit of ye olden baen library, for example), porn, music, and ROMs. Lots and lots of ROMs.