New to mac, just got Macbook pro 13" retina

So I just got my macbook pro 13" retina yesterday. I am wondering if there is anything that I should know (any tips & tricks), and I was wondering if I should upgrade to Yosemite.

Also is there anything I can do to make my mac more secure. Maybe any add-ons I should know about, or anything to just generally improve my mac.

Thanks

 

I have seen comments about bugs in Yosemite still, so you may want to wait a little for those to get fixed before upgrading. You could also make a backup of your install and upgrade, that way, you can easily revert back if needed.

Anti-virus/malware may not be a bad idea, I know they exist for mac, but I'm not familiar with the recommended ones these days. Most threats are of the social engineering nature, but being careful can't hurt.

Other than that, use the system as intended, no need to go tweak the heck out of everything for the sake of tweaking. Install your browser of choice, chrome and co. have mac versions, so pick whichever is your favorite and enjoy your mac.

 

look into getting cinch or better touch tool. Similar to the auto snap feature that was included with windows 7 and up.

 

Window Magnet ($.99) and Spectacle (free) are better Windows 7-style window managers than Cinch. I know Spectacle works in Yosemite, not sure if Window Magnet has been updated.

As far as upgrading to Yosemite, I would wait until it its version 10.10.2. It still has a few bugs in it.

 

What bugs are you guys seeing? I'm on Yosemite and don't see any.

If you want secure then use FileVault2 to encrypt the laptop.

-Sent from my Galaxy Note 4 using Tapatalk

 

get GFXcardstatus it's a greet ap, or does the 13 inch only have one gpu?

 

13 inch has been Intel iGPU only since 2011.

The biggest bug for my use of Yosemite is that I can't access my NAS unless I have WiFi on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

What about the ultra slow boot up

 

No such issues here. Startups and shutdowns are super fast with my 840 EVO SSD.

 

I have the apple ssd and it takes a good 12+ sec to desktop using Yosemite

 

Resolution

TBH I don't care how gorgeous it is. This is 2015 and I'm not using a 1280x800 desktop! Hit Apple Icon->System Preferences->Display and check out your scaled options. Apple doesn't allow for you to set it to the max without third party apps but you might like a larger resolution and they still keep the machine looking gorgeous. I run 1680x1050 and it looks great.

Browser

I don't dislike Safari but in terms of security, it isn't very safe. It's probably worse than IE, it just doesn't have the reputation IE does. Get yourself Firefox or Chrome right away and get some Adblock Plus all up in there. That combined with safe browsing practices will keep 99% of the bad stuff off your system.

Yosemite

What can I say? Warts and all I love it. Handoff was a huge draw for me because I own a lot of different devices and being able to move all my work between them easily was big. It also finally got me to go full Apple (well, except for my phone...I'll wait until my contract date for that)

Trackpad

Apple Icon->System Preferences->Trackpad to fix the crappy default options. In general System Preferences is a good place to root around in your first few days to find and change any settings you might want to. One thing I like about the Trackpad and Mouse panes is that they actually include visual tutorials on all the different taps and clicks that work! Nifty!

Enjoy your new computer. Some stuff is laid out differently but it isn't that much different from Windows. It just looks better and still has my precious file menus instead of the ribbon!

 

another snap tool that I like (and has alot of other features I just don't use but are nice).... BetterTouchTool

Is free but they gladly accept donations


regarding yosemite... I've been on it since day one of it's release and no complaints. There may be bugs in it here or there but they don't affect anything I do and I'm oblivious to them.

 

Get aquatinted with touchpad gestures, mission control etc. The touchpad on MacBooks is amazing.