New to Apple with just a few questions!

Hi all,
Well I finally gave in and got me a spanking new MacBook Pro 15" laptop and it does look great. I am totally clueless with OS-X so this is going to be a learning curve for me but I don't mind. There doesn't seem to be any word processing or spread sheet program that comes preloaded so please let me know which is the best to use. Are there any other apps I should be getting? and are there any free downloads I should be installing. I am also curious about battery life while web surfing and word processor use. BTW I never thought I would find a laptop with a better keyboard than my trusted Thinkpad but I think this one may be the one (jury is still out).

 

Apple's iWork suite should be preinstalled. It's the full version but on a limited trial time.
In the interim you can hit the space bar on any Word, Excel. PPT or PDF's and they will open automatically for viewing without any installed software. You can purchase Apple's iWork suite after the trial or Microsoft Office 2008 or you can get Neo Office for free on their website.

For media you can download VLC, Perian and Flip4Mac to play those lovely Microshaft Windows media codecs. You can find those on www.versiontracker.com

The learning curve is quite low, you just have to drop your Windows centric habits and you'll be fine.

 

Thanks for your quick answer. If iWork is preinstalled I can't find it so please point me in the right direction. As far as Windows go I only use at work so I am quite open (and eagerly willing) to learn this new os.

 

Sorry, my bad, iWork is no longer preinstalled. You can download the trial here. It's a very nice suite and compatible with MS Office. There are times when there's a compatibility issue but that's why you should try it out first. Keynote (Apple's presentation app) is second to none. It beats Powerpoint any day of the week. http://www.apple.com/iwork/trial/

 

Thanks again I will try it.

 

Terminal -> vim

 

woaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

Neo Office is a good Mac free Office type suite.

 

I used NewOffice for a full semester and I just plain hated the thing.

I then bought the full version of iWork; while Pages and Keynote are pretty nice, Numbers is horribly slow. Just resizing a graph would bring the dreaded beach ball on my 2.2 MBP for a good 5-10 seconds.

I finally got MS Office 2008 (Student & Home version) and I have been very happy with it. Fast, stable, no compatibility issues.

+1

 

I also just moved from Windows (have been an expert user for far too many years) to Macbook Pro 17" and OS X. Several suggestions:

- Buy these 2 books (Amazon.com offers a great discount):

Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition (Missing Manual) by David Pogue

Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

- For business reasons, many still need to use occasionally use Windows (this includes me). I installed Parallels 3.0, Windows XP SP2 retail version (don't install SP3), and Office 2003. Works perfectly.

- iWork '08: great program; highly recommended

- Data Backup 3: very good program to create bootable hard disk clones (Time Machine cannot do it yet). If you use Intel based Mac, the partition scheme on the target bootable drive must be GUID (not APM). This is a common problem.

- NetBarrier X5: very good 3rd party firewall. It supports different location profiles. Depending on your needs, Apple's own firewall may be enough.

- Clipboard management programs: on Windows XP, I use ClipMate from www.thornsoft.com. It's excellent. PTHPasteboard seems to be a reasonable Mac OS X alternative ( http://pth.com/products/pthpasteboard)

- If you use Quicken for Windows, Quicken for Mac 2007 does not offer seamless import capabilities (unfortunately).

 

you can try open office

 

I am on a Mac,

1. Don't use iWork. The compatibility is moderate at best, plus it's all very unlike MS Office. I would use OpenOffice Acqua, it is fast now on mac, and despite being in beta it is usable and much faster than NeoOffice.

I personally use MS Office 2008 for mac, but I have to say the Windows version of the office suite is just better.

 

Thank you all. I just got MS Office installed and it seems quite nice. I do need to still use IE7 for work (on the rare occassion I have to work from home) and I would rather not install a virtual machine if I didn't have to so any suggestions are appreciated. BTW what kind of battery life can I expect web surfing and using word and excel?
Thanks

 

I think that in the interview with Guy Kawasaki, Steve Balmer mentioned there were no plans to introduce IE for Mac.

He said it's not a big enough market. But then they did introduce Office for Mac. I guess the browser competition for Mac is just too strong to justify porting IE.

Battery wise I'd say 3-4 hours. I get around 2.5-3 (never really measured) while using Eclipse, which is 90% of the time, on my MBP (90% battery life).

 

Well, not like IE is a good browser anyway, in my opinion; the breaking of internet standards and stuff, yuck.