Former Mac hater: Just made the "switch." Now what?

I tried the whole Mac thing myself and couldn't get into it. The machine was nice enough (I loved the display), but I personally am a PC guy and I don't see that changing. I actually just sold my Mac earlier this week.

In the year and a half I owned a Mac, I could not find a compelling reason to use it instead of my PC. I found the PC software to be better and it was definately easier (and cheaper) for me to use my PC for work and entertainment than it was on the Mac.

As far as the whole Mac OS vs. Windows argument that always seems to rage on, it doesn't really matter. An OS is simply something you need to run your applications. If your applications run the way you need them to, the OS really doesn't matter.

However, this all said, good luck with your Mac. I hope you enjoy it more than I did mine.

P.S. I still have the full commercial (not educational) version of Mac Office 2008 if you or anyone reading this may be interested in. $150 CDN (or the US equivalent).

John

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Anyway, I was wondering -- what are the must-have software for Mac users? I mostly plan to use it for web browsing, development (Java, iPhone), Open Office, and the occasional game.

LaunchBar. Or QuickSilver.

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Original post by borngamer As far as the whole Mac OS vs. Windows argument that always seems to rage on, it doesn't really matter. An OS is simply something you need to run your applications. If your applications run the way you need them to, the OS really doesn't matter.

I agree totally. Before I made the decision to buy a Mac I took a look at the software I already use. I use Eclipse, Firefox (Safari will do), and Open Office. Those are already available, so I didn't see any roadblocks there.

The Mac Vs PC debate is very silly to me. Its like having a debate between a paintbrush and an axe. Which one do you prefer? Its got nothing to do with what you prefer. Its got to do with wether you need to paint a fence or cut down a tree.

If you're doing development, then:
- make friends with Terminal
- install MacPorts and use that to install unixy stuff. (don't use fink)
- Download and install Xcode (I think from here). This install contains lots of required dev tools, not just Xcode.
- TextMate is a popular mac text editor

As jpetrie mentioned, quicksilver is the business. TextMate is a great, very extensible editor, though it's definitely not an IDE, so don't go in figuring it will necessarily replace Xcode as your daily editor.

Also install Tinkertool - it lets you change a bunch of 'hidden' preferences in one handy location to change what you get out of the system. Xcode will install the command line development tools (gcc, make, etc) as a part of its regular install.

A lot of Windows users are put off by the mousing; Promit did a ton of research on how to fix it but I think he ended up getting frustrated and gave up. They might have made changes in Leopard/Snow Leopard.

If you're looking for virtualization I prefer VMWare Fusion to Parallels Desktop, but that's probably because I've given VMWare money in the past and continued to do so on this platform. Check out both, however, and see which you like more.

I should really write a guide on how to switch, but I've never actually switched - I started out on the Mac and I'm still there. [smile] Refurbs (and ADC student developer discounts) are definitely the way to get the lowest-priced Mac, however.

As an aside, it won't hurt to learn AppleScript, and many of the stock Apple applications are almost fully scriptable. You can do some fun stuff with iTunes/Xcode if you know a bit of AppleScript.

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Original post by smr I don't get why everyone wants to provide a glossy screen. I guess the higher-end models have the option for a matte screen, but that to me doesn't make any sense. I remember a time when all laptop screens were matte and it didn't cost any extra. My 20" LCD on my desk at home was less than $200 two years ago and has a matte screen.

The glossy screen gives better contrast. It's good for watching movies, but it's horrible if you're working in a room where there are any lights whatsoever. Personally, I'd take the lower contrast myself...

Other than the latest version of Xcode the only thing you might really need right away is VLC media player to play formats that quicktime cannot.

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Original post by Ravuya A lot of Windows users are put off by the mousing; Promit did a ton of research on how to fix it but I think he ended up getting frustrated and gave up. They might have made changes in Leopard/Snow Leopard.

I don't know of any definitive solution to this either, but I do know that by using an ordinary mouse (a Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000, to be precise) the acceleration curve is identical to the one in Windows (as far as I can tell). Granted, I don't have any customization of the curve itself, so it's not a perfect solution, but I'm lucky in that I'm completely pleased with the motion of the cursor after using this mouse instead of the default Apple one.

I'd recommend tinkering around with Automator. I've used it on a few occasions to extend OS X, and it's a pretty nice tool.

I didn't like TextEdit, so I quickly downloaded Bean, a very lightweight but more useful and modern text editor (it's for rich text editing, not programming). As has been mentioned, TextMate is an outstanding and almost must-have text editor if you work with a lot of languages; unfortunately it's not free, but I do believe it's worth the price.

App Cleaner is a fairly nice utility to remove applications that don't exist in a single folder.

I like the CalcBoard widget and use it as a light-weight calculator. It's so much more useful than the default calculator application, and I can call it up by simply launching Dashboard.

QuickSilver has also been mentioned at least twice in this thread already, but I'll just say that I really recommend trying to dive in and learn its commands from the beginning because it really has the potential to drastically improve your ability to operate efficiently and flexibly. Using QuickSilver, Expose, and Spaces, I essentially don't even use the dock ever. The lack of this triple-wammy combination is the first thing I notice whenever I use another OS.

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Original post by daviangel Other than the latest version of Xcode the only thing you might really need right away is VLC media player to play formats that quicktime cannot.

I only use VLC for streaming over the network; there are QuickTime plugins that cover a lot of formats. Perian supports most common formats except wmv which is taken care of by Flip4Mac. Installing these is highly recommended — QuickTime is much more than just the QuickTime Player application.

Another tip; there are a bunch of really neat apps bundled with OS X! Two of my favorites:
* Grapher — plots graphs in 2D/3D, solves equations, does matrices, etc. It even knows how to export formulae as LaTeX.
* OpenGL Profiler (comes with Xcode) — trace OpenGL calls, statistics, inspect state, breakpoints, ...

Open Source Mac will help some other gaps for applications.

have fun with your mac. i personally won't dig into them as they don't deliver what i need from them, as they have a very limited range of options to chose from, none of them targeted to me. but they are hw with sw, and so, if the hw fits you, and the sw, too, then all is fine. i dislike them for the way the company acts, and the way their fanboys act. the rest is okay. not worth any cent, but okay.. :)

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Original post by davepermen have fun with your mac. i personally won't dig into them as they don't deliver what i need from them, as they have a very limited range of options to chose from, none of them targeted to me. but they are hw with sw, and so, if the hw fits you, and the sw, too, then all is fine. i dislike them for the way the company acts, and the way their fanboys act. the rest is okay. not worth any cent, but okay.. :)

I was just waiting for you... [smile]

The worst thing of being a Mac user is the constant bashing from other techies. It's definitely getting better though.

[Edited by - pointer on September 16, 2009 8:35:12 AM]

i'm that well known here?

i haven't bashed him at all btw. just said it's nothing to me and i don't see reason to spend money on it, as i normally see other solutions having more use for less money.

but obviously, if one want to develop for an iphone, there isn't much choice :) but having an xperia, i don't have this issue.

but one can't say anything bad about the hw or sw itself. then again, what's the os good for? we start apps with it, manage files, switch running apps, and want to get internet access. so it's not really a huge thing to be on mac osx or on windows or on linux, as most of the time, we work in applications, not the os directly.

2nd TextMate - I use it for all my Django / Web development - and quick text editing. Lot's of themes and macros.

For mounting filesystems over SSH use:

MacFuse

with

Macfusion


I use this with a local VMware install of ubuntu for web development. I have a 1:1 replica of my production server locally. And it beats installing stuff into OSX. Use VirtualBox for a free virtualization alternative.

Potentially useful (and free):

Perian adds support for various codecs to quicktime (include VLC anyway).
HandBrake converts DVDs.
Aquamacs a Cocoa, Mac-friendly Emacs. (If you are an Emacs guy.)
Adium chat.

Thanks a lot guys! These are all really good suggestions!

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Original post by Ravuya A lot of Windows users are put off by the mousing

I was able to adjust the mouse pointer acceleration so that it fits the one in Windows very closely, by installing USB Overdrive. It's not 100% perfect, though, and doesn't work for me in the login screen - only after I've logged in. But hey, it's a start.

My Mac sits on top of my PC. The only "switch" I ever did was which keyboard I was typing on at any given moment.