New to the MacBook Pro

Well I am new and still learning.
I have a Macbook pro, 8GB Ram, i7 3720QM, GT 650m. I Received a little earlier this month and ordered it from the Apples website.

Safari: When I right click and choose the option "Search with Google" it opens the page in the same Tab. I would like it to open in a new Tab. How do I go about doing this? I Looked in the preferences section but no go.

Can I use my iPhone 4S as a remote or mouse somehow? As a college student, I am naturally lazy. The amount of effort required for me to get up and manually change songs or hit pause during a movie is getting ridiculous.

I am a bit confused, do they make a current Microsoft office for Mac? is it the same as the Windows version regarding UI etc...?

Software for Windows on a Mac, is it the same in general or are there UI tweaks or does Apple make it more complicated or get rid of features Windows might be know for (Ex, MS Office)?

I am going to Frys today. I believe I got the spec right. Any 8GB DDR3 1600mhz PC3-12800 stick will work right? You guys answered my question in other tread but I read about a voltage difference not sure if this would apply to me. Also some 8GB stick like corsair have huge fins so I am a bit unsure of what to actually get in store.

I am still at loss, Safari seems nice but it's the little things like not being able to open a new tab with the google search function that bug me. I feel Safari may run better as it's a part of the OS> Not sure if this is necessarily true.

What is the reading list function? Same as Bookmarks?

What battery life are you guys getting running on windows or OS X?

When I get a PC I usually get rid of bloatware and turn off off all the unnecessary stuff. How do you do that with a mac? One of the first thing I do in a PC is go to the power options and choose best performance over balanced. I am not sure if Mac has those type of settings.

My temps running Windows 7 fully updated VIA Bootcamp are around 45C 55C idle. Is this normal to runs Windows hotter then OS X. Sometimes Idle near 60C. (On OS X the temps are much much MUCH Cooler as expected) Just curious if it was normal for Windows 7 to run idle at those temp I mentioned getting.

I owned allot of laptops. And the Asus N56VZ had the most impressive audio I have ever heard come out of a laptop I am surprised I can't say the same about the Macbook pro.

Thanks for all your help guys.

 

I'll try and answer the questions I'm able to:

1. I'm not familiar with Safari unfortunately, but if you're used to using a different browser like Firefox or Chrome, they both work quite well in OS X. I would highly recommend you download one of those 2 if you are more at home with those. Only major browser that's not available for Mac is obviously Internet Explorer.

2. There are several free and paid iPhone apps that can control your Macbook in numerous ways. Apple's free Remote app allows you to control iTunes/music playback, etc. while there are paid apps like Air Mouse Pro. What functionality are you specifically looking for?

3. Yes, the latest version of Office for Mac is 2011 (specific to the Mac). It's an ok product (opinions are very divided on this subject), but doesn't look or feel quite like a "Mac application", if that makes sense. But it will suffice if you're used to Office in general. There is the Mac iWorks suite; they work better as Mac applications, but their compatibility opening up Office documents still needs some work in my opinion, but this has drastically improved over the years.

4. I'm not quite sure what you mean; are you asking if the Mac versions of Windows software you're used to behaves the same? Usually they do, but typically they will have Mac UI specific things in place.

5. Typically any laptop memory stick should work, but check for the large ones with fins, etc. as they likely won't fit.

6. As per number 1, there's nothing wrong with running Chrome/Opera/Firefox as your main browser in OS X, they all work quite well to be honest.

7. The reading list allows you to save pages for reading later, even without an internet connection. Basically it's offline reading mode if that makes sense.

8. Battery life in OS X is far superior than Windows. On my current MBP, I get around 7.5 hours in OS X with medium surfing, half brightness and wi-fi. Less obviously with CPU intensive programs. In Windows, I typically get around 5.5 to 6 hours.

9. OS X does not come with any bloatware installed. Typically you shouldn't have to, nor should you really be tweaking anything directly in the system in a clean install. I know we all do in a Windows setting, but you don't really in OS X. In terms of the performance vs. balanced you can set when the display/hard drives spin down, etc. under Energy Saver under System Preferences.

10. That's a fairly normal temperature in Windows bootcamp to be honest.

11. I'd say the audio out of a MBP is middle of the pack. There's definitely many laptops out there that have better speakers, but I find the MBP to be a decent one. One thing I like is that unlike many other laptops out there (even some of the superior sounding ones), the MBP speakers really don't tend to distort at full/near full volumes. Could just be my experience though.

Hope that helps a little.

 

If you have Boot Camp and a copy of Windows Office, it would be more cost effective to buy Parallels or VMWare and run it through the virtual machine. A modern MBP and plenty of RAM will be able to run Office at pretty much native speed.

 

Regarding control of your Mac via your iOS device, logmein (the free version) works great. Is a VNC, works similar to MS RDP to remote into your Mac or PC.

I use it to offer my family members "IT support", remotely connect with 2 of our macs and 5 of our PCs. Didn't even have to open any firewall ports or do any port forwarding on their routers. Can be used from any browser too, not just from the app on your iOS device.

*if you find an answer to your question about the safari "search using google" by opening a NEW tab, I would love to know also. That's always kind of bugged me too.

 

Alright thanks allot guys!
Lots of great help thanks again.

I added 16GB of Patriot ram and a Samsung 830 SSD. I have the recovery partition also.
I was curious, do I need to change any settings on OS X for the SSD?

Thanks again for all your help.

 

The answer is - use Chrome or Firefox.