finnally got it!

ahhhh after months of debating and looking around i finally ordered my MBP.
so excited!
any ways. since i'm fairly new to the mac world i want to know if there's any thing i should know or get (software/accesory wise) now that i got it!
p.h.

p.s. thanks for all the users who helped me with my previous questions.

 

Congrats vindex!

Well, the first thing is office suites...as usual Microsoft Office is the standard but Office 2008 (which will be released in 2007) is going to be released later this year so I'd advise you not to buy Office 2004 (the current edition of Office for Mac), and wait for Office 2008.

While you're waiting for Office 2008 I'd suggest you use NeoOffice (Mac equivalent of OpenOffice, totally free) for now. Or maybe you will just use NeoOffice and not even buy Office 2008. NeoOffice is not as powerful as Microsoft Office but its free after all.

And there's also iWork, from Apple. Its much cheaper than Office, but it only has a word processor and Powerpoint-like "Keynote". And also I'd say wait a bit for that too, as the current version is iWork '06 and Apple should be updating it soon.

 

Congrats. I'm a recent convert too!

My suggestions for software to get would be:

QuickSilver - Quickly bring up any application by using ctrl+spacebar(brings up QS window) and then typing the application name. Sounds cumbersome, but is quicker than looking through your applications folder, and a lot better than have eleventy-billion things in your dock.

Amnesia - a very sleek monitor. It only watches memory usage and pc usage, but it's small enough to fit in the dock where you can view it at a glance and see how your machine is doing.

Temperature Monitor - Does exactly that. Macbooks can get pretty hot, so it's nice to be able to watch your heat. Shows up in the dock and the menu bar.

iStatPro - Another monitoring program. This one goes in the dashboard and combines the previous two.

Gas widget - Shows the best gas prices in your area. Can be found on the apple site.

appDelete - Use this for unistalling applications that don't have an unistall option.

VLC - plays all the video types in a very minimalist interface.

Parallels - you should know this one by now

SuperDuper! - make a bootable disk or image of your machine, incase you need to reinstall. Then you wont lose all your data/apps

Transmission - A very low resource bit torrent client.

Those are my suggestions, aside from the basic stuff(Firefox, office, stuffit). Good luck with your mac!

 

Congrats!

10 char

 

How dare you suggest piracy!

*cough* link deleted *cough*

 

This is not recommended on this site. I DO NOT advise you to download anything illegally. In fact, I beg you not to, because it makes things worse for the rest of us who wish to abide by the law. As long as people keep illegally downloading these things, the more the software and media companies will continue to drive DRM and bloated prices down our throats.

 

lol thanks for the info.

 

I agree, to an extant. I think of software downloads like music downloads. All of the stuff I download illegally, if I like it I buy it. I've spent about $250 on software in the past few weeks, all of which I wouldn't have gotten if not for downloading "illegally". I'm the same way with music. I just recently bough several albums by Nonpoint and Grip Inc. Both of whom I wouldn't have known about if not for internet radio, and "illegal" downloading.

So in short, try stuff out. Try everything, then buy the best one.(if it's not freeware, which will often be the case).

 

I have no sympathy for software companies getting screwed on piracy, they kept their prices inflated and now they are paying the price. Even though i dont download pirated software, i just dont feel bad for the companies.

 

now that this thread is a full blown piracy topic I thought i'd throw out my 2 cents worth.... software prices are NOT inflated...we have no right to cheap software... we live in a capitalist society which drives prices.... if no one thought microsoft office was worth $400 no one would buy it but they sure do sell a lot of copies....its real simple, if a piece of software is not worth its asking price the market will reflect that and an adjustment will be made... just because you think its too much doesn't mean its not worth it or "overpriced"... there is always a cheaper (or even sometimes free) alternative....i use a $10k software license everyday at work and it is worth every penny....we switched from $2k software package and it paid for itself in 6 months....to me thats a pretty good investment, i know we'd pay double if thats what it cost....

 

i thought piracy was forbidden on this site. at least, it was when my thread got deleted due to talk of piracy.

 

Your very mistaken if you think we live in a true capitalist and free market society. What kind of choice do I have when my university requires the students to have Microsoft Office? Software like Microsoft Office and Microsoft OS's have an inelastic demand because those goods are necessities for most people, espeically students and people in the business world. If MS Office was raised to $700 i would still have to buy it for my university. If you want to get into an economic debate about this take my bait and we can start. Microsoft is not in a pure competition market, thats when prices are more efficient.

 

I agree with you that software prices are high, but there are other factors you should consider as you "support" piracy.

The software developers who made the programs, like Office and Adobe's suite and so much more, spent years in university, spent so much to attain the job they got. Their salary, their living, their jobs depend on the sales of the products they created.

So while the vendor in that little shop over there is making a few bucks off selling you a pirated Adobe Photoshop, it could be that instant that someone who sacrificed so much money-wise and time-wise to create a product so much of us use lost their job right there.

Where's their gain in spending so many hours just to get the position, and then to spend so many more hours developing the programs, just to lose their job because some of us just had to buy a pirated version of Photoshop for $10?

 

Personally I think the software engineers that make those things deserve it, but the thing is, when an engineer develops photoshop or something, the copyright is under ADOBE's name, not the engineers' names. So technically the salesmen are making more off the product than the engineer. Anyway office is simply not worth $200 for me. I'm buying something else. Welcome to the free market, microsoft.

 

Wow this has nothing to do with the original topic! Everyone, please do not suggest that piracy to a user asking what software to get for their new computer and don't link to pirate sites in the future.

For the OP, check out the stickies at the top of the forum. If you are still curious about which software to get start a new thread.

This is closed!