New MacBook Pro

Penguin_Otaku

I finally got a new laptop and it's a Mac. Huzzah. But now I'm curious what kind of cool shit I can do with it? I bought a bundle so I have most of Adobe's stuff and MS Office (can't fucking figure out Entourage.)

But I'm sure there are other things I can do with this awesome piece of equipment. FinalCut Pro will be a purchase in the near future because that's what I plan to do with this. The connectors from my MBP to my TV... how are they? TEXA$?

Any other accessories I should consider? Apps? games?

Thanks guys

Evil_Reaver

Entourage is a piece of shit; don't even bother with that abortion of an application.

RUNN1NGMAN

Yeah, Entourage is horrible, 99% of people are better off using Apple Mail and iCal, which are wonderful programs. Coming from the Windows world, you may automatically assume that the freeware that comes with a new computer is crapware, but with a Mac that couldn't be further from the truth. Each of the iLife applications and the built-in OS X applications like Mail and iCal are among the top applications for what they do. For instance, I very much prefer Preview to Adobe Reader. If you absolutely need Outlook for some strange reason, it's coming in the next version of Office for Mac.

For instance, I very much prefer Preview to Adobe Reader.

The only exception to this is iWork, which is a fine program but still can't completely replace MS Office for people who need the functionality of Word or Excel. Yes, you can convert a Pages document to .doc format, but it will change some types of formating so if someone need a document in an MS Word compatible format it's still just easier to do it in Word.

You should definitely download Perian and Flip4Mac. They're basically required if you want to watch web multimedia in certain formats.

I just started using Circus Ponies NoteBook and it's fantastic. If you're using your Mac for school (or work even) you should check it out.

EggyToast

I've found it's more fun to just kind of use your computer like you normally do, and then when the desire to try something comes up, do a search for, say, "video conversion mac" -- the mac usually returns OS X stuff for you.

Since it seems like you have some interest in video, you'll probably want to check out ffmpegx. It's a transcoding tool that's very useful when working in multiple formats. Also, assuming you have Snow Leopard, Quicktime X has all the features of the "old" Quicktime Pro, and some other gubbins, so you'll probably want to familiarize yourself with that as well. It's much more than just a playback application.