If digital distribution is your thing, check out Steam. It has tons of awesome cheap games and a bunch of demos and free games. I personally like it a lot. About the NFS, I don't know, I have a PC.
Good apps I recommend: Growl (free notifier for use with many apps such as Mail) Perian (you MUST get this if you want to use Quicktime as your main video player) AppCleaner (finds folders and files apps create and removes them when you also remove that app) Art Text 2 (great for fancy text effects) Flip4Mac (for wmv video compatibility) GarageBand (I create my music on it, and also easily create ringtones for the iPhone) Handbrake (great for BACKING UP your dvd's- not illegal in a lot of countries) iMovie (great for quick easy movie making for uploading to YouTube and MobileMe) iPhoto (great organizer and quick editor, which will allow you to use CS4 as an external editor (select CS4 as the editor in the iPhoto preferences!!!) PhotoBooth (great for pulling funny faces) Pixelmator (thoroughly recommend for people who find CS4 too complicated- like me) Safari 4 (love it for it's speed and RSS reader) Glims (great Safari 4 plugin, that allows for multiple search engines and more Safari options- and it's free!) Spotify (great LEGAL way to listen to thousands of albums for free by streaming) The Unarchiver (uncompresses zip/rar files- free and easy) Time Machine (great easy way to back up your local drive) Transmission (easy and light Bit Torrent client- the app itself is legal and there are plenty of legal torrents out there) VLC (for videos Quicktime can't play- which doesn't happen often with the Perian plugin)
Thanks for the list wastedyuthe!! I'm installing Perian, the iMovie and iPhoto stuff comes with my Mac , The Unarchiever. I have AppZapper installed, which does the same as App Cleaner. Art Text, is it free? I see on their site they have a thing called 'Printfolio' to download, with Art Text inside. Is that a trial or free? Safari, I hate Safari. No offense. LOL. Firefox FTW!! Pixelmator......Pixelmator has popped outta nowhere. I find it harder than PS. Odd.
Grab a cheap copy of XP and install it under Boot Camp, then boot into Windows with the stroke of a key. Then, enjoy your life by browsing and DL'ing to your hearts content under OSX, without EVER having to concern yourself with the fear of A) having to constantly update virus protection or, alternatively, B) spending 2 days trying to rip out viscious malware by the roots, only to watch it propigate over and over again. When you feel the need to game, boot into XP and go to town!!
Found an unused copy just laying around But do I need a copy of OSX to set it up. Dunno if I lost or it just didn't come with the MacBook, but wanna know just in case after reading some slightly confusing instructions.
I've been thinking about that. I have a copy of XP somewhere around here. Stupid question: How do I check how much free space is on my HD?
OK so this is my HD: I should delete one DVD of X-Plane scenery me thinks. So how big is XP or Vista?
For XP, you need at least 30GB to have enough room for the OS, some small number of apps, and enough space for VM. Sorry, Im late in making a list. Note that some of these apps are actually paid apps. I generally buy them if I think its useful. I remember the first two paid apps I bought was TextMate and SpeedDownload. Adium Alarm Clock 2 (good for setting up quick alarms) AppZapper Audacity Backdrop (I use this when I want to clean my screen ) Caffeine (I turn this off most of the time, unless Im in a presentation where I need my mac to be on throughout) Chicken of the VNC (To control Windows PCs from my mac) ClamXav (Not very good. I turn this off most of the time. But its there as a precaution) Ejector (Quick access to eject anything mounted) Google Notifier (for notifying new gmail emails) Growl Growl Mail HardwareGrowler iSquint (the free version) LaTeX Equation Editor (I'm a CS student ) Longhand (best calculator Ive used so far) MacVim (Vim has always been my favorite text editor) Name Mangler Quicksilver UnRarX SlidePad SlimBatteryMonitor smcFanControl Speed Download Textmate The Unarchiver Transmit VLC
Well, I deleted two DVD's worth of X-Plane scenery. But it's still not good enough. So guess who is ordering a 320GB HD for my MBP? P.S: Thanks for the list. I'll look at it in a bit.
lol... Yeah... I have a lot of stuff on my mac now as well. I had a 200GB hdd. Used 40GB for XP (to play games -- but so far I have not installed nor played anything). And now I only have 20-30GB free space left Oh, I forgot to put iState Menu, Visor (for terminal) and Multiclutch (you can map arbitrary keyboard shortcuts to gestures) in my list. Anyway, I think if I can choose 1 app thats most useful, itll be Quicksilver. Try to learn how to hook it up with all the other apps / commands in your system. I have quicksilver shortcuts to: Empty trash Spaces Expose Select in command window for current selection in Quicksilver Fast logout Run screensaver Open clipboard history Play/pause iTunes (I can never find that small play button at the top row of my keyboard) The second most useful app would be multiclutch. I use gestures for everything: switching, closing, creating new tabs in FF and some other things in other apps too.
Cool. I'm getting a 320GB . I'm reserving about 50-60 GB for Windows. Still not sure if I'm gonna install XP or Vista on it.
My suggestion is to install it only when you are certain that you need to use software that can only run on Windows (whether its games or software for work). Because otherwise, you'd just be using OSX most of the time and you'd be wasting space. Unless you are like this friend of mine who bought a mac, installed XP and just uses that as his primary OS lol
See which file is largest disk space hog If you wanna know exactly which file or folder takes the prize of biggest disk hog, search and download Disk InventoryX (or something like that). It'll scan your HDD and then visually display all folder sizes, colour-code file types and list the largest files. It worked for my G4 mac mini, dunno if it's intel compatible. There's also another program that does something similar, but integrates into Finder so you can see folder sizes that way. Can't recall the name tho...
Know your way around OSX If you've never seen OSX in action, then I recommend that you have a look at these video tutorials from Apple here http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#tutorial=anatomy Also, if you fancy getting into th whole Apple Fanatic craze, download the podcasts from apple itunes showing th eApple Eventws like WWDC and Macworld. It was that Macworld 2004 that convinced me to finally try OSX and iLife, watching it and thinking "Damn, why couldn't Microsoft do that???" (God I hate this netbook I'm typing on. Acer Aspire One. Keyboard is tricky t ouse. Testing it out before passing it to my dad.) Of course, any questions about how to do xyz, feel free to leave a note here! PS. I also ordered my 24" iMac too! So happy to receive an email from apple saying that delivery will be TODAY!!!! With th efull 1TB HDD too, hahah. BTW, bear in mind that the only think easily upgradable on iMac by user is the RAM. HDD requires removing the glass screen, and I'm sure if I did that, I would have issues with dust etc on the inside of th eglass.... definitely would peeve me off.
Yeah, I listed iMovie and iPhoto because I think anyone with a Mac really ought to use them and not leave these great apps idle. I have now removed App Cleaner as there is a better one out called AppTrap, which adds itself to your preference pane, and comes up with a window asking if you want the apps files to move to the bin when ever you drag an app to the bin itself- no need to run App Cleaner, AppZapper, what ever. Much easier. Art Text 2 is not free. Can't remember how much it was, but it was cheap. I didn't get this 'Printfolio' you mention- just Art Text 2 on its own. Yeah some people like FF, some Safari. Each to his own. How can you find Pixelmator harder to use than PS? I find it infinitely easier, and has all the tools I need. I have PS on my Mac, but can't remember the last time I used it. Add iTunes Alarm to my list. It is a free alarm app that uses iTunes playlists to wake you up in the morning or keep music playing till you drop off to sleep.
