I feel a little dirty
After years, and years of making my living supporting, and working with, Windows PC’s I ordered a Macbook Pro to replace my aging laptop this weekend. There’s no hope for me now, is there? I’m doomed to be a fanboy and have a Steve Jobs crush, aren’t I? 😉
OK seriously, one of the first things I’ll be doing with the MBP will be using Bootcamp to setup a Windows partition, (I need to use a Windows VPN client for work, and the Summation software I am now certified to train on both internally and freelance, won’t run on the Mac.) and my main desktop at home will still be my Windows machine, so let’s not get carried away. Still, I’m excited to see what the Mac can do as my laptop.
So, now that I’ll be getting my hands on my own Mac in a week or so, what are the must-have downloads I need to get? I already know I’ll be hitting Firefox, but what else do you guys recommend? I figure I need an FTP client, blogging tool, and pretty much anything else I’d use while on the road. If you were getting a new Macbook, what would be the first things you’d download?
Quicksilver. You NEED Quicksilver. Do a Google search. Watch the videos. You’ll never be able to use a Windows computer without feelings of deep disappointment again.
PathFinder is also a must-have. It’s not free, but it’s worth every penny. You’ll soon discover that the built-in file management with Apple’s Finder just won’t cut it. PathFinder solves all of those problems.
For IM, use Adium (though the latest version crashes a lot on me so maybe wait a couple weeks). iChat sucks in comparison.
For text editors, I like TextWrangler, the free version of BBEdit but there are several good ones.
After that, it’s mostly random stuff. You’ll need Flip4Mac to play WMV files. Fugu is a great SFTP client if you use that.
And, of course, Twitterific is a great Twitter client. I swear by it.
Good luck!
Transmit is a great FTP client, and I’ve just recently started enjoying Fluid, Twitteriffic. I have a few others, but am on iPhone, LOL. Will post later.
http://osx.iusethis.com/ is a good place to start, but be warned – from experience once you start down this route, you’ll find it harder and harder to go back to using Windows.
My OSX apps list is over at my blog, Mike.
http://blog.kevindonahue.com/archives/2007/06/01/my_mac_osx_apps/
http://osx.iusethis.com/user/txnole
I personally have found it very easy to live without Quicksilver, but a lot of people see it as a must have. Whatever floats your boat, I say.
My “musts” are:
Witch
Todos
Letterbox for Mail.app
SuperDuper (Leopard version coming)
Meteo
Adium
AppZapper
Even though I use Windows every day and had my certifications for a support job right out of college, I’ll feel pretty comfortable saying I will never go back to Microsoft.
One more thing, I forgot this list of “add-ons”…..
http://blog.kevindonahue.com/archives/2006/12/10/my_favorite_os_x_add-ons/
+1 for Adium, TextMate, Fetch or Transmit. Also check out VMWare Fusion, which I’ve not tried yet (no Intel Mac here) but I’m told is the fastest around.
For FTP: Cyberduck (free)
For text editing: Textmate ($45)
For Windows: VMware Fusion ($79) (You might be able to use your Windows VPN in Fusion, and not have to worry about rebooting for bootcamp)
Blogging: I flip between Windows Live Writer under Fusion or use the blogging bundle with Textmate.
You’ll also want to look at MacFUSE, so you can read and write your boot camp partition from the mac side and mount ftp directly in the Finder.
Welcome to the other side!
Rogue Amoeba has some great freeware – particularly Sound Source and Line-in, must haves. Rapido Serial is very useful as well. ImageWell is a must have.
Subscribe to the feed of MacUpdate and you will get more tips to great programs than you can handle. Can I ask a favour? If you have a successful conversion story, will you consider posting about it either in your blog in my blog where I am beginning to collect such stories?
Thanks for all the input, I can’t wait to check some of these things out when the laptop arrives. Dizzle, don’t worry, I’ll be blogging plenty about the experience! 😉
Repeating recommendations from a few others, but what’s the Internet without duplicate info:
Adium(http://www.adiumx.com/): All-in-one IM client
OSX Intel-optimized builds of Firefox: (http://firefoxmac.furbism.com/)
But you really should be using Camino (http://www.caminobrowser.org) as a web browser
GimpShop (http://plasticbugs.com/?page_id=294) for those who can’t afford Photoshop
Ecto (http://infinite-sushi.com/software/ecto/) Awesome blogging client
Endo (http://infinite-sushi.com/software/endo/) RSS Reader
NetNewswire (http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/) RSS reader
Garagesale (http://www.iwascoding.com/GarageSale/) eBay auction design/management tool
Twitteriffic (http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific) Twitter on your menu bar
Flip4Mac (http://www.flip4mac.com/) so you can play WMV files
And, if you are really hardcore, install Fink (http://fink.sf.net) and get a bazillion open source apps
As a recent (6 month) convert to the Mac (MacPro) I think you will be happy you made the switch.
I too have some “must-have” Windows apps. After much research I settled on Fusion and have had no problems. The advantage of Fusion over bootcamp is that you can have both operating systems active at the same time. In the Fusion “unify” view you often forget which operating system has control.
Some must have Mac apps include Jing and Skitch for screen capture, Devonthink Pro, Yojimbo, VoodooPad, and Mori for “digital notebook” needs, SuperDuper for backup, and of course Firefox and Thunderbird.
If you need web editors I have settled on bbEdit and CSSedit.
My full list keeps growing, but these are some of the key ones.
Phil