Macs and the Software that runs upon them

Mr_GrinchMr_Grinch Registered User regular
edited February 2007 in Games and Technology
Ok, so there's a current thread about how fucked Apple Care is but I feel this is a seperate issue. I have just recently purchased a Macbook, I am currently awaiting it to be posted (Ordering from Apple.com is horrendously slow!) and it should arrive 2 weeks yesterday. The spec is the bogstandard 13" Macbook with 2ghz Intel Core Duo processor, 1gb RAM and 80gb HD. Onboard graphics too (weak point).

My intention is to run Mac OS in the main but still have a small Windows XP (or possibly Vista) install for all the windows things I need to do.

I am a complete Mac beginner, I briefly ran through the operating system with a friend just to get the hang of it but have had no more than 10 minutes hands on experience.

What essential applications do I need? What will help in my day to day running?

It will be used largely for:

On a day to day basis:

Browsing the Internet, posting on forums, chatting on various IM's, Occasional IRC usage, watching various media (divx, xvid, h264, .ts, mov), writing (so an office style suite), probably "un-raring" or "un-zipping" files. It shall be connected to a small network of pcs and an xbox.

On a frequent basis:

Image editing (by image editing I mean touching up the odd picture, cropping, resizing, my artistic talents extend no further)
Video editing (just a bit of footage, parties etc, it's a small hobby). Currently I use Premiere and Ulead Media Studio depending on how the mood takes me and what I need to do (something quick and simple, Ulead normally does the job).

On an infrequent basis:

Play the odd game. Anyone know what I'll be able to throw at it what with the relatively weak 64mb (rising to 256mb) intel onboard graphics?

And finally, anyone with a Macbook care to comment on it's performance with HD media (preferably .ts h264)? I intend, if it's capable, to hook it up to my tv via the vga cable. I would use dvi but my dvd player currently has that one socket on my tv taken up. What software should I use to play the media?

Thanks for any help folks!

Steam: Sir_Grinch
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Mr_Grinch on

Posts

  • FallingmanFallingman Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Well, I did exactly what you're planning.

    I switched to mac, bookcamped for games... haven't looked back.

    I actually cant remember the last time I booted up XP, now that I use my XBox for gaming...

    Ok, so I cant answer all your queries, but:

    Browsing:
    Safari is the fastest browser I found. Occasionally its java doesn't like certain things (i.e. text editing on gmail) - I just have firefox there for these scenarios, but 98% I'm on safari.

    IM's are fine, the only one I use is Skype... but that works great.

    I dont IRC, but I'm sure there are about a zillion programmes...

    Video - VLC - all the way. I did use this on a PC, but the mac version feels slicker. Great app. I also get a copy or realplayer plugin - and "flip4mac" is a plugin that allows you to stream any wmv's you come across on the web (you can actually save them as qt files too, which is neat.

    Zipping is handled by OSX and I dont even think about it these days, and unrarx handles the rest.

    Image editing, I ether use iPhoto - or even the standard viewer is great for resizing files for emailing. Honorable mention also goes to the picassa plugin for iphoto, allowing me to share photos for free on the web

    Movies. I had never done this before. I got given a Camera by my ladyfriend. 3 days later I had figured out iMovie (fantastic basic app) and then it even helped me "share" my work and create a DVD, complete with interactive menus. The whole iLife suit is great. Nothing too heavy, but they all interact so sweetly that I was so impressed. Photo slideshows on a DVD to my own music, video clips on an iweb website. neato.

    I have a MBP - so I'll refrain from any guesses about performance.

    I also have a home network, with PC's included - no problems.

    I think you'll enjoy the experience. I did. I use PC's mostly at work... Just having a different platform for home use is nice.

    A lot of the stuff I used on a PC was available for OSX - google earth and the gmail notifier, adobe reader etc.


    Hmmm, messy post, but I hope it helps. The main point is that for me, this was a surprisingly painless process.

    Fallingman on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • AntishowAntishow Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Mr_Grinch wrote: »
    On a day to day basis:

    *stuff*, writing (so an office style suite), *more stuff*

    Can't go wrong with NeoOffice. It's a little slower than I'd like, but you can't argue with that price!
    Mr_Grinch wrote: »
    On a frequent basis:

    Image editing

    You could give The Gimp a shot, I haven't really used it in years, so I can't speak for the quality... but it's definitely an editor!
    Mr_Grinch wrote: »
    On an infrequent basis:

    Play the odd game. Anyone know what I'll be able to throw at it what with the relatively weak 64mb (rising to 256mb) intel onboard graphics?

    How are you upgrading that? I've been looking for a way to do that for some time now, and haven't been able to find anything.

    Also, Cave Story ftw

    Antishow on
  • maximumzeromaximumzero I...wait, what? New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
    edited February 2007
    I have to ask.... what "Windows Things" do you need to do? Chances are you don't need to install Windows at all, and it's best if you did not.

    maximumzero on
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  • TerrorbyteTerrorbyte __BANNED USERS regular
    edited February 2007
    Browsing the Internet, posting on forums

    Safari with essential plug-ins, Camino, Firefox. I like having all three around, though Safari is my primary browser.
    chatting on various IM's

    Adium.
    Occasional IRC usage

    Colloquy.
    watching various media (divx, xvid, h264, .ts, mov)

    VLC or the Perian component pack for Quicktime.
    writing (so an office style suite)

    TextEdit is fine for the basics, but you'll eventually need Microsoft Office at some point. For school or business work, I find Mellel to be quite good.
    probably "un-raring" or "un-zipping" files.

    The Unarchiver. Eventually, though, you may be forced to use StuffIt. Hopefully not.
    It shall be connected to a small network of pcs and an xbox.

    Networking between Macs and PCs is pretty seamless.
    Image editing (by image editing I mean touching up the odd picture, cropping, resizing, my artistic talents extend no further)

    Photos in iPhoto, pixel art in Pixen and ImageWell for quick picture edits.
    Video editing (just a bit of footage, parties etc, it's a small hobby). Currently I use Premiere and Ulead Media Studio depending on how the mood takes me and what I need to do (something quick and simple, Ulead normally does the job).

    iMovie. If you need something more robust, bump yourself up to Final Cut Express.
    Play the odd game. Anyone know what I'll be able to throw at it what with the relatively weak 64mb (rising to 256mb) intel onboard graphics?

    I find that just about everything up to and including Half-Life 2 (on medium detail) works pretty well. For demos and junk, check out MacGameFiles.

    Terrorbyte on
  • Brodo FagginsBrodo Faggins Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    I can't believe none of you mentioned Adium. Shame on you. It is easily the best instant messaging app ever made, and can handle pretty much every protocol out there, including, I think, Google Speak.

    As a quick tutorial for someone who went through the same thing, I'm going to give you a quick rundown of program installation and uninstallation.

    For instance, www.adiumx.com . Go there, download adium. It'll be in a .dmg file. Typically, most Mac programs you download will be in a .zip or .dmg. Double click, and it'll show up as a disc on your desktop. Inside, you'll find one of two things: an .app file or a .pkg (or .mpkg) file. If it's a .app file, you drag it to your Applications folder, and you're done. You then eject the mounted disc, and delete the .dmg file.

    If it's a .pkg file, run it as if it were a Windows installer. Then you eject the mounted disc.

    Other programs I would recommend:
    -Quicksilver (It's too elaborate to discuss in this post, but trust me, it's amazing)
    -Onyx (maintenance tool)
    -Appzapper (not free, but I'd say it's worth it)
    -Spark (universal keystroke customizer. I use it to control iTunes without having it be the active program)
    -For Adium skins: adiumxtras.com

    Other tips: make yourself familiar with the System Preferences pane.

    Brodo Faggins on
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  • TerrorbyteTerrorbyte __BANNED USERS regular
    edited February 2007
    If it's a .pkg file, run it as if it were a Windows installer.

    Which reminds me of The Pacifist - it's a handy utility if you need to pull a file or two from a large .pkg install. I rarely use it, but it's extremely handy at times.
    Other programs I would recommend:
    -Quicksilver (It's too elaborate to discuss in this post, but trust me, it's amazing)
    -Onyx (maintenance tool)
    -Appzapper (not free, but I'd say it's worth it)
    -Spark (universal keystroke customizer. I use it to control iTunes without having it be the active program)
    -For Adium skins: adiumxtras.com

    Oh, hells yeah. Every app in that list is strongly seconded.

    Terrorbyte on
  • PatboyXPatboyX Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    VLC rules. im using it on my macbook and an old g4...it makes the g4 able to actually watch high quality videos on a crappy old machine. even quicktime cant handle quicktime files.

    i installed quicksilver on suggestions from this board...but i still dont even know what i would use it for. not sure of its uses but everyone seems to agree its amazing.

    PatboyX on
    "lenny bruce is not afraid..."
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  • Google Image SearchGoogle Image Search Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    If you need a more robust word processor, I'd get Pages in the iWork bundle. It's pretty cheap, especially if you can get it at your college bookstore, works with .doc just fine, and is way less expensive than the latest MS Office suite.

    As for other apps, I love Safari, but if you want Firefox I'd get Bon Echo, an optimized version for various macs.

    AppDelete is a free alternative to AppZapper
    TrimtheFat will save you some harddrive space, removing the PPC code from Universal apps. Safe to use on the iLife apps.
    Quicksilver is amazing
    Growl is handy
    Google Notifier is also awesome, but disable the built-in notifications and use it with GMail+Growl
    The Unarchiver handles everything that OS X can't, I haven't had to use StuffIt since
    iPhoto and iMovie should handle those needs just fine
    Media Fork for ripping and encoding DVDs
    Quinn is an awesome Tetris game
    Simon Extreme for playing Simon
    Solitaire XL for Solitaire...
    Edgies is an amazing stickies program, not free but worth it!

    As for HD playback, 720p and 1080p work just fine.

    PatboyX wrote: »
    i installed quicksilver on suggestions from this board...but i still dont even know what i would use it for. not sure of its uses but everyone seems to agree its amazing.
    You hit ctrl+Space, then the little window pops up. You type in a file you want to find (faster than spotlight) or an app you want to launch (faster than going to the dock or cmd+shift+A to get to your apps folder) then hit enter, and boom, there it is.

    Google Image Search on
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  • DondumsDondums Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    I don't have a Mac but I have a friend with one and as a Windows user, I have to say I'm very jealous that I don't have Adium, because it seems like an amazing piece of software. Trilliant never jived with me so I'm forced to run MSN Messenger and AIM simultaneously.

    Dondums on
    internet
  • TerrorbyteTerrorbyte __BANNED USERS regular
    edited February 2007
    and is way less expensive than the latest MS Office suite.

    Eh, noy by much. It should be even less through a school or with an educational discount, assuming the OP is either in school, will be in school or has been in school somewhat recently.

    Terrorbyte on
  • SquashuaSquashua __BANNED USERS regular
    edited February 2007
    Is this thread for listing all of the Macs and all of the software that runs on them?

    Because the library is so small, you could do such a thing.

    Zing!

    I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

    Squashua on
  • TerrorbyteTerrorbyte __BANNED USERS regular
    edited February 2007
    Squashua wrote: »
    Is this thread for listing all of the Macs and all of the software that runs on them?

    No, it's delineating particularly good or interesting apps for a new Mac user.
    Because the library is so small, you could do such a thing.

    I was just going to make a crack about BonzaiBuddy, until I read TUAW and saw that we now have a Mac version.
    Zing!

    I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

    Your jokes are almost as bad as your comic book reviews.

    Terrorbyte on
  • ben0207ben0207 Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Ooh, burn.

    ben0207 on
  • SquashuaSquashua __BANNED USERS regular
    edited February 2007
    Terrorbyte wrote: »
    Your jokes are almost as bad as your comic book reviews.

    Good to know someone reads them.

    Squashua on
  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Go here.

    Each time you click on an app, it gives you five more random ones at the bottom. Just click through a few and you're bound to find a couple you like. Pretty much any popular freeware apps should be listed there.

    In my dock (aside from bundled stuff): Firefox, Thunderbird, MPlayerOSX, SurplusMeter (measured bandwidth usage, my school caps me), VLC, Remote Buddy (lets me use my Wii remote with my PowerBook), and FFmpegX (video conversion).

    Other apps I'm fond of: LaTeX Equation Editor (for laying out equations and exporting as PDF, or to clipboard), Disk Inventory X (graphical representation of hard drive space usage...handy for figuring out where the hell your space went and finding shit to delete), MacTheRipper, NeoOfficeJ, and Sloth (easy-to-search list of what applications are using what files). For graphics, I generally use the GIMP.

    There are also a bunch of handy linux apps that have been ported for use in OSX. Check out Fink and/or DarwinPorts. Fink comes with a nice GUI for installation (FinkCommander).

    mcdermott on
  • InkoateInkoate Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Also, for more intense image editing than iPhoto will give you, but without having to jump through the X Windows hoops that the GIMP requires, check out Seashore, a aquafied version of GIMP.

    Inkoate on
    The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
  • PatboyXPatboyX Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    PatboyX wrote: »
    i installed quicksilver on suggestions from this board...but i still dont even know what i would use it for. not sure of its uses but everyone seems to agree its amazing.
    You hit ctrl+Space, then the little window pops up. You type in a file you want to find (faster than spotlight) or an app you want to launch (faster than going to the dock or cmd+shift+A to get to your apps folder) then hit enter, and boom, there it is.

    yeah, i did all that. ill try it again for a week or two. i just dont see it at being much faster or more convenient. im not sure if i just type slow as shit or move my mouse too damn fast for it to be useful.

    PatboyX on
    "lenny bruce is not afraid..."
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  • maximumzeromaximumzero I...wait, what? New Orleans, LARegistered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Terrorbyte wrote: »
    probably "un-raring" or "un-zipping" files.

    The Unarchiver. Eventually, though, you may be forced to use StuffIt. Hopefully not.

    Is there some issue with Stuffit Expander that I don't know of? I find it does a damn good job.

    maximumzero on
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    Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
  • eobeteobet 8-bit childhood SwedenRegistered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Terrorbyte wrote: »
    probably "un-raring" or "un-zipping" files.

    The Unarchiver. Eventually, though, you may be forced to use StuffIt. Hopefully not.

    Is there some issue with Stuffit Expander that I don't know of? I find it does a damn good job.

    It's bloated and slow as hell.

    eobet on
    Heard the proposition that RIAA and MPAA should join forces and form "Music And Film Industry Association"?
  • KarfKarf The Past Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    As a new Mac owner, I shall have some fun with this thread.

    Oh yes.

    Karf on
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  • TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    3 in Three is awesome.

    Also The Fool's Errand

    www.thefoolandhismoney.com

    Sequel comes out in April... WOO!

    Taramoor on
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