Forgive me, I have bought a MacBook Pro

ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
edited May 2011 in Hardware
and I really, really like it :(

I feel kind of dirty and like I just cheated on someone. But I have to say, it's ticking all the boxes.

Any fellow Mac fans want to partake some guidance/advice/experience with the transition from Windows to OSX?

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited May 2011
    What sort of guidance are you looking for?

    Not much to really do. I'd suggest firefox over safari. uTorrent for well torrents. Transmission for everything else and torrents if you want. Libreoffice is a great office package unless you want to pony up for microsoft office but it's not worth it in my opinion.

    Get iLife 11 it's awesome.

    But as far as actual change from windows to osx. There's not much to do. Just reserve yourself to the fact that your new mac's strong point isn't gaming but it'll do everything else with aplomb. If you want gaming you can either bootcamp install windows onto it for a stronger gaming experience or if you just want some gaming you can get vmware fusion or parallels and virtually install windows.

    Not much else to say. The rest is common computer stuff. Put as much ram into it as you can and your mac will run faster and faster. Just don't buy the ram from your apple store it will cost you more.

    Now if there are specific questions ask away.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    I have ilife installed. I also grabbed Fusion having already seen it. It's so slick. I am in love with the trackpad usability. Goddamn why can no one make a windows one that works so well? I absolutely do not need a mouse. Mouse seems so counter-intuitive now.

    STUPID REALITY DISTORTION FIELD... FUFUFUFUFUFUFUFU
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Growl
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    It's weird. I have been a staunch Window fan since 3.1 and workgroups. I never saw myself as a MAC convert. To think I am actually liking it, that actually stings a little but the facts are that OSX is really, really intuitive.

    I am starting to wonder if there is anything that will come up to make me want to return it after 14 days.

    I think Fusion is the killer app for me software wise. Can still run putty, winscp and random windows apps when needed.
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Speaking as a staunch anti-apple person, I have nothing against OSX. It's a nice operating system. My problem is the fact that they overcharge for mediocre hardware and are, essentially, a marketing company that happens to sell electronics.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    You see, I believed that as well. The unibody sure is tough. Suddenly I can see where the money goes with the i5 based unit. Here in the UK, a 13" laptop made of plastic with 4GB and an i5 is around £600. £400 is quite an uplift but the damn thing is solid, quiet and extremely fast. The quality far, far exceeds it's competitors (such as the plastic based Sony units as an example). Suddenly, it does actually make sense. The quality is far superior. A big uplift but it is definitely showing it's quality.
  • mondimondi Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Alfred : http://www.alfredapp.com/
    or
    QuickSilver : http://www.blacktree.com/

    I personally use Alfred (QS was unsupported for far too long, although it seems it's back up now)

    Visor : http://visor.binaryage.com/

    Perian : http://perian.org/
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Alfred looks awesome! Time to tinker!
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Shorty wrote:
    Can still run putty, winscp and random windows apps when needed.
    Putty? Drag Terminal onto your dock instead.

    WinSCP? Buy Transmit 4. It rules.

    I must admit Outlook 2011 > Mail & iCal.

    Sequel Pro = must have (and free).

    Kaleidoscope I recently discovered for diffs.

    Knox is sweet for encrypted volumes. I use it to store my company's data securely (I'm reticent to use full-drive encryption).

    Sidestep is a great little utility for automatically connecting to a secure proxy when you're on public wifi.

    // Edit: Firefox's bookmark toolbar gives me conniptions on the Mac (can't right-click a bookmark to edit or delete) so I've switched to Chrome... which conveniently developed it's own damning bug in the same area recently (can't drag into a subfolder). Currently still using Chrome, though I make liberal use of Firefox and Safari on a daily basis.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Thanks Matt.

    I will eventually dump the windows apps for their Mac variants. This just allows an element of adjustment time while I familiarise.

    I have been considering this move for quite some time as no windows laptops are really selling themselves to me. Tough call that was.

    Is transmission as good as rated? I have heard some negatives around it's use of public key (as that is what I use for SCP/SFTP auth).
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Shorty wrote:
    The quality is far superior. A big uplift but it is definitely showing it's quality.
    I catapulted mine into the air and down onto the concrete, corner-first. It has a little ding at the point of impact, nothing else. My previously laptop would've shattered.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    I use Transmit 4 for everything and have never had any issue. Most of my connections are over SFTP, including to Icrontic.

    //edit: Also, there's a free 30-day trial I believe, as with all Panic products.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Oh, and I use SteerMouse to enable all the extra buttons on my mouse. I love the trackpad for mobile but I still plugin a G5 at home and the office (hand gets tired, and more efficient to me). Been a bit crashy lately though; quite annoying, but at least it auto-restarts itself.
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    WinSCP? FileZilla.

    FTFY.
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Oh, and of course... Adium
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    ardichoke wrote:
    WinSCP? FileZilla.

    FTFY.
    Filezilla is a twat with public keys. WinScp isn't.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Filezilla has engineer UI syndrome. Really don't like it at all.

    I use Adium, but I want to break its little wing so it never waves at me again.
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    define what you mean by being a twat with public keys. I use it to do sftp all the time and never have any problems.
  • BasilBasil Nubcaek England Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Shorty wrote:
    Forgive me, I have bought a MacBook Pro

    That depends, did you buy it from John Lewis?

    If you didn't and thus missed out on a 2 year standard warranty and a free 500GB buffalo HDD at the same price you dun goof'd.
  • MAGICMAGIC Doot Doot Furniture City, Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    I find it humorous that people get outraged at the fact that Apple is good at what they do.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    I think it's more a matter of being outraged at <i>which</i> things they are good at doing.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Basil wrote:
    That depends, did you buy it from John Lewis?

    If you didn't and thus missed out on a 2 year standard warranty and a free 500GB buffalo HDD at the same price you dun goof'd.

    Nah. Airport tax free as I am in Sunny Spain this week for work. Cheapest deal.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Grab BetterTouchTool and enjoy the hell out of that trackpad. Multitouch swipe gestures to minimize windows globally, open new Finder windows, close/switch/reopen tabs in Chrome, remap the play/forward/back media buttons to specific areas of the touchpad, etc. Very configurable.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    my next laptop will be a MBP tri-booting OSX|Win7|Ubuntu

    now who needs a kidney? ;)
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Make sure you have enough left to buy a chicken to sacrifice. I hear that's the only way to get tri-booting working :P
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    ardichoke wrote:
    Make sure you have enough left to buy a chicken to sacrifice. I hear that's the only way to get tri-booting working :P

    http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/triplebootmbp/

    this doesn't work anymore :wtf:
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Little Snitch is a must have...
    http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

    Main Menu is a must as well (Like CCleaner)
    http://mainmenuapp.com/

    Applejack for Emergency Troubleshooting
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/applejack/

    IPSec VPN Connections
    http://www.lobotomo.com/products/IPSecuritas/

    Chicken of the VNC (Now just Chicken) VNC Client
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/chicken/

    Visor from above for sure (Quake style terminal) :)

    Welcome to the glorious world of NO spyware, malware or anti-virus programs.
    I am not saying there are NO Viruses for the Mac... I have personally seen one on System 7...
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Welcome to the glorious world of NO spyware, malware or anti-virus programs.
    I am not saying there are NO Viruses for the Mac...

    ... says the master of contradiction. :p
  • swithdrawnswithdrawn Savannah, GA
    edited May 2011
    Shorty wrote:
    I am in love with the trackpad usability. Goddamn why can no one make a windows one that works so well?

    Even on my Hackintosh Lenovo, the trackpad under OSX is infinitely more usable than on Windows 7, which behaves sluggishly (or sometimes not at all!). The drivers/software under Windows is horrendous, if I have to do any kind of gestures in Windows I end up irate. Apple just nails some things, that is definitely one of them.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Been a few weeks now and I can say that I am converted. Still getting to grips with the differences but it's becoming very natural. I almost find myself doing MAC gestures in Windows. I can also see how good Windows 7 is in comparison to XP & Vista. There are quite the similiarities between the two OS at this point. Just never noticed it before!

    I changed fusion to parallels. Fusion was a real hog where as parallels is far more resource stingy. It also parks the whole image if it's not running any foreground apps. Worth the few quid that is.

    Still love my Windows though :)
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