What should I put on my Mini (first time Mac owner)
I have a stock $499 model coming my way and it will be my first Mac. I own a iPod so I plan on dumping all my music to the Mini and using iTunes to manage all my music, thats a given.
Now how about other software thats out there? I'm real excited about iLife '05, i've been reading up on everything as much as possible. I can't wait to dump some video on iMovie with my MiniDV camera and play around with it, the same goes with iPhoto.
For web browsing I will be using Firefox, I'm used to all the keyboard shortcuts and I have tons of extensions that I live by and hope work with the Mav version (I wouldn't see why not).
I use gmail for my email however I can forward as a pop account. The mail client on Mac looks pretty nice and I think I might set that up. I could use that and when i'm on the road use gmails web interface. It's too bad I couldn't import all my labels and use them within the mail client. So I guess i'm still up in the air about that.
Finances. I use MS Money 2004 right now to manage my checking account and my credit card. I will most likely continue to (I do it all on my laptop, nice and easy) but would like to see my Mac options. My online banking sites both support Quicken and I believe that comes with the Mini, is it a good app?
Now to the basics, FTP client, IRC client, AIM, Network monitors, and eye candy type stuff. I've been browsing Versiontracker and have been seeing some cool stuff.
Are there any freeware apps I should keep a look out for that are "must haves"? Also I might invest in that database app "Delicous Library" or whatever, thats looks incredibly slick and I would love to manage all my DVD's, books and games.
Also I would like to start a Mac bookmark category, with news and what not, what are some good Mac news sites out there?
I'm VERY excited about owning a Mac, I love OS X (we have a Mac in our lab here at school I have used once or twice) so I want to be ready to load it up and have a ball with it.
Now how about other software thats out there? I'm real excited about iLife '05, i've been reading up on everything as much as possible. I can't wait to dump some video on iMovie with my MiniDV camera and play around with it, the same goes with iPhoto.
For web browsing I will be using Firefox, I'm used to all the keyboard shortcuts and I have tons of extensions that I live by and hope work with the Mav version (I wouldn't see why not).
I use gmail for my email however I can forward as a pop account. The mail client on Mac looks pretty nice and I think I might set that up. I could use that and when i'm on the road use gmails web interface. It's too bad I couldn't import all my labels and use them within the mail client. So I guess i'm still up in the air about that.
Finances. I use MS Money 2004 right now to manage my checking account and my credit card. I will most likely continue to (I do it all on my laptop, nice and easy) but would like to see my Mac options. My online banking sites both support Quicken and I believe that comes with the Mini, is it a good app?
Now to the basics, FTP client, IRC client, AIM, Network monitors, and eye candy type stuff. I've been browsing Versiontracker and have been seeing some cool stuff.
Are there any freeware apps I should keep a look out for that are "must haves"? Also I might invest in that database app "Delicous Library" or whatever, thats looks incredibly slick and I would love to manage all my DVD's, books and games.
Also I would like to start a Mac bookmark category, with news and what not, what are some good Mac news sites out there?
I'm VERY excited about owning a Mac, I love OS X (we have a Mac in our lab here at school I have used once or twice) so I want to be ready to load it up and have a ball with it.
Comments
www.omnigroup.com
www.panic.com
http://freshlysqueezedsoftware.com/
They'll get your computer whipped into shape.
Originally posted by mdweezer
For web browsing I will be using Firefox, I'm used to all the keyboard shortcuts and I have tons of extensions that I live by and hope work with the Mav version (I wouldn't see why not).
I use gmail for my email however I can forward as a pop account. The mail client on Mac looks pretty nice and I think I might set that up. I could use that and when i'm on the road use gmails web interface. It's too bad I couldn't import all my labels and use them within the mail client. So I guess i'm still up in the air about that.
Finances. I use MS Money 2004 right now to manage my checking account and my credit card. I will most likely continue to (I do it all on my laptop, nice and easy) but would like to see my Mac options. My online banking sites both support Quicken and I believe that comes with the Mini, is it a good app?
Now to the basics, FTP client, IRC client, AIM, Network monitors, and eye candy type stuff. I've been browsing Versiontracker and have been seeing some cool stuff.
Are there any freeware apps I should keep a look out for that are "must haves"? Also I might invest in that database app "Delicous Library" or whatever, thats looks incredibly slick and I would love to manage all my DVD's, books and games.
Also I would like to start a Mac bookmark category, with news and what not, what are some good Mac news sites out there?
I'm VERY excited about owning a Mac, I love OS X (we have a Mac in our lab here at school I have used once or twice) so I want to be ready to load it up and have a ball with it.
Get Microsoft Office 2004 if you can get it cheap (you can buy retail education version for $150, nobody actually ever checks, and anyways the terms are pretty loose, if you have a kid in school you are eligible, or if your school has a site license, cost of media, usually < $20)
Web - also check out Camino, it's also a Mozilla based browser, I prefer it because it looks and acts much more Mac-like than Firefox. Make sure you get the schubertIT.com PDF plugin (free, http://www.schubertit.com) and the Java Embedding Plugin (http://javaplugin.sourceforge.net, lets you run Java 1.4 apps in browsers other than Safari)
Internet utilities
FTP - Transmit (http://www.panic.com, costs money)
USENET News - Unison (http://www.panic.com, costs money), I also used Thoth but it's now been EOL'd :-(
Chat - Adium (http://www.adiumx.com, free, works w/ AIM, Yahoo!, MSN)
IRC - Conversation (free)
RSS - PulpFiction (http://www.freshlysqueezedsoftware.com, costs money, but Lite version is free)
BitTorrent - Azureus
Multimedia Utilities
3ivx (better than DiVX 5.2, apparently)
D-Vision 3
Handbrake (both DVD transcoding tools)
MacTheRipper (make backups of DVDs)
MPlayer OS X 2
VLC (both are media players, can play some formats QuickTime, even with 3ivx, cannot play)
RealPlayer (yeah, I know, but sometimes ya gotta use it, much less intrusive than PC version)
JView (free, best pr0n, er, picture viewer for Mac OS X)
System/general Utilities
Toast ($99, CD/DVD burning package, like Nero, you may not need it)
AJoiner (http://dcs.digicow.net/ajoiner/, lets you join files generated by MasterSplitter, useful if you know about USENET)
MacPAR deLuxe (free, processes par and par2 files, extracts RARs, again useful if you know about USENET)
DiskWarrior ($, expensive, may save your ass, like Norton Disk Doctor, only it works and doesn't suck)
TinkerTool
Onyx
Panther Cache Cleaner (these are all general utilities, do various things, free or shareware)
See http://www.macupdate.com for more info, I like it more than VersionTracker. HTH.
I'm actually a college student, I have Office 2003 for XP, I might be eligible for a free copy for OS X if the school has it part of their program. Office would be great to have but I can live without it for now. Especially for the extra cost.
I got the base model, i'm eventually going to up the RAM and add the airport extreme card depending on how much it'll cost to be installed at a Apple store.
I'll be sure to check out those apps for sure and i'll have pictures and what not i'm sure when I get the Mini.
Only thing i'm missing is a USB keyboard, I sort of want a Apple keyboard so I can use the USB port on it for my mouse so I can leave open a USB port on the Mini for my iPod Shuffle.
Hoping to pick up a cheap one off ebay, for now though I think I have a buddy who I can borrow a keyboard from.
I've got a nice USB mouse and a 17" monitor, plus a nice speaker setup, just need to drop the Mini in place and i'll be cruisin'!
http://www.synthetik.com/
$379.
It is a Mac only graphics program that does all kind of wild stuff. Check out their site. Download the demo.
Also, check out CreativeMac:
http://www.creativemac.com/
They have been running some tutorials on how to rotoscope with studio artist. Great fun for playing with photos or videos.
Weatherpop
Menu Calender
Gmail Status
DVD, Movies & Book collection:
Collection, http://www.intellisw.com/collection/gallery/movies.html
If you have a large library this is the way to go.
Links: Every 6 months or so Lowendmac.com does a survey on mac sites. http://www.lowendmac.com/links.shtml
This is a good place to see which ones you might like.
Other items that I constantly use outside of iLife:
BBedit
Toast
Fetch
Photoshop
reg
Originally posted by nguyenhm16
Internet utilities
FTP - Transmit (http://www.panic.com, costs money)
Cyberduck is a very nice, free ftp client if you don't feel like paying for Transmit.
edit...
oops, sorry, don't want to hijack the thread and turn it into another one about FTP clients. You'll find a good discussion in "the best ftp client" sticky thread.
Also, you may want to take OmniWeb 5.1 for a spin... it's quite slow but has amazing features.