I'd like to introduce myself. Convert as of 2 weeks ago.

[Madrone]

Spanking new 17" MacBook Pro. LOVE IT. The FreeBSD geek in me is feeling at home.

Any tips, resources, must have software, etc. that you long timers would like to share would be appreciated!

:hi:

[reprobate]

1. I was told when I switched 16 mths ago, the most important thing

when switching from windows is to FORGET EVERYTHING!

As far as maintenance is concerned, if you leave your 'book on charge overnight and don't let it sleep, except for the screen, OS X will do all the routines necessary in the wee hours - like 3AM to 5am. If you prefer the hands on approach I've found MainMenu and Onyx to be great little tools, and I think they're both still freeware.

Software: One of my favorites under Windoze was a doc management package called Paperport which came with my scanner. All sorts of things got scanned in, like receipts, and other docs that should be kept but the paper just wound up cluttering up the office. Now I use Snailfile and it's just as useful and a lot cheaper at $14.95.

Other than that, I'm sure you'll find your own favorites as you use that 'book, and others will recommend theirs.

As a little personal aside, the happiest in my house about the switch is my dog. She no longer has to run and hide under the bed as I scream at the windblose machine that has once more lost my work, or presented me with the BSOD.

Happy Apple 'puting.

[realisticphish]

2. hmm, let's see

Well, most of it you'll develop preferences for as you go. For one thing, I would advise finding a browser other than Safari, like Camino, Firefox, or Shiira. But again, that's personal preference.

One important thing: don't think thet you're immune to security problems now. It's true that we are a million times less vulnerable than windows users, but there ARE viruses, and hackers. Don't lose all your internet security savvy just because you switched.

Good luck, and happy Macing :hi:

[reprobate]

3. Madrone, Realisticphish is right. Don't forget security.

Although we are almost immune now, there may come a time when there are wild viruses for Mac.

So, just to be sure, many of us us ClamXav. I find an occasional scan is sufficient to feel secure.

[alfredo]

4. Some URL's

http://www.macupdate.com/ easier navigation than versiontracker.

http://osx.hyperjeff.net/ Sometimes an anti fascism message appears on his site. Good guy it appears.

http://osx.freshmeat.net/ geeky enough for on old BSD man.

http://www.macnn.com/ good forums.

http://www.macaddict.com/ Mac magazine with attitude.

Gimpshop (or GIMP.app is very good. Graphic Converter is excellent. It's shareware. NeoOffice is the name of the OpenOffice suite. terminator.app is a good terminal, but the one supplied is good enough.


BTW, any document can be saved as a PDF. hit print/PDF/save as PDF. That simple. Preview and TextEdit are very nice.

Desktop Manager is a very good pager. but not Intel yet. Virtue is built on Desktop Manager and is Intel. I can't live without it.
http://virtuedesktops.info/ It has a link to Desktop Manager.

"View" in finder window is your friend. Set it to "as columns." In safari go to Safari/preferences and look for tabs Check to see if tabbed browsing is on. If not, check it.

Option (alt) key for special characters. © ø

X11 is fun too. I'm sure you have found it.

Look for Shiira, a nice light weight browser. It's fast.

MacJanitor for those things you need to do on a laptop because you don't leave it on all night like a desktop. http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html



What will you be using your Mac for so I can see if I can recommend any titles to you.


Enjoy

[drdtroit]

5. "X11 is fun too. I'm sure you have found it."

what is x11?

[alfredo]

6. Apple's version of Xfree86.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/x11/

That's my Avatar

[drdtroit]

7. Thank you. n/t

[alfredo]

8. Welcomed.

Open up your System preferences and take a look around.  Also
go into Applications/Utilities and take a look around.  

Check out AppleScript.  in the applications folder

Copy this and paste it into the Script Editor

tell application "RealPlayer"
	run
	open location
"http://play.rbn.com/?url=cspan/g2cspan/live/cspan1db.rm&proto=rtsp"
end tell

Hit run.  

another good one:

tell application "RealPlayer"
	run
	open location
"http://play.rbn.com/?url=airam/airam/live/live.rm&proto=rtsp"
end tell

You can save them as a script, an application or other type of
file.  



One more:

property target_URL :
"http://www.avo.alaska.edu/webcam/augustine2.php"

open location target_URL


You can do a lot other things with applescript. 

[politicat]

9. Library Barcoder

Uses the isight as a scanner (or any other webcam) and grabs ISBN info from Amazon. Made cataloging my 3K books an afternoon's task instead of a month's.