Buying a Macbook Pro - Help Me Get Started!

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Eric.

Eric.

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I'm going to take advantage of Apple's Back to School special and buy a 13" base MBP with the remote, a 32GB iPod Touch (for $100 after the rebate), and a "free" printer ($1), all at my campus bookstore's Apple Authorized Reseller. I'll be using VirtualBox (as well as bootcamp) to have Windows 7 use for whatever things I need, but I'm not very familiar with Macs to be honest.


So, what are your Must-Have-Apps, tweaks, and other things I should get/do?


Not interested in being told I'm paying too much, should get a PC, etc etc.
 
If they're doing AppleCare at a reduced student price (should be under $100 if it's anything like the UK), buy it. That way you'll have 3 years of guaranteed computing ahead of you - not to mention that replacement Apple bits cost a packet. Mine had a new logic board not that long ago that would have cost £600 or something ridiculous if it wasn't for AppleCare.

Just don't spill anything on it. Or near it. They don't like that.
 
Jondot
Just don't spill anything on it. Or near it. They don't like that.
Click to expand...

This. After spilling a "mixed drink" on my old 15" Alu G4 I have to get by with non-functioning Z, Q, A and Delete keys. Not fun.

In addition I'd do a pixel test on the screen just to make sure you don't have a bunch of dead ones. Although it is really unlikely, better to determine right out of the gate if you're happy with the screens dead pixel characteristics as if you are not it can be a chore trying to fight with Apple over getting a replacement.

I'd guess BlueTooth will be turned on by default. Unless you need BT for some specific reason I'd turn it off to minimize security vulnerabilities.

AppleTalk is a really cool feature that automatically (for the most part) lets you instantly communicate/network with any other AT compatible device. So if you have a buddy/friend/whomever with another PB/MB and you want to trade some song/video/you name it files AT let's you accomplish this w/o the need of a physical or internet connection between the 2 of you. It can be really handy in many situations. Read up on it for specifics.

Back when I bought my '06 laptop Macaroni was a highly recommended system maintenance program. Not certain if it is still as useful, but it's probably worth you looking into.

http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/ can be useful for finding/researching the numerous OSX programs out there.

Edit...

Oh yeah, the OSX widgets are kinda interesting, noticed Win7 mimc'd the idea with its Gadgets. I never really used them much myself but I'm sure there is great potential there. http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/
 
My roommate switched to Mac about a month ago, so here’s a list of third party crap I compiled for him (note that I don’t necessarily use all of this – just stuff that in general people use/recommend):

APPLICATIONS
Adium
Growl
Handbrake
Unarchiver
MenuMeters
Transmission
VLC
Movist
Air Video Server
BashFlash
BetterTouchTool
CapSee
Core Renamer
Name Mangler
Dropbox
Switch
Xslimmer
NetNewsWire
Boxee
Plex
Skype

PREFERENCE PANES
Automatic
AppTrap (I’m personally very against these kinds of uninstallers, but meh)
RCDefault (very overlooked, very highly recommended by me)
Secrets

WIDGETS
TV Forecast
Delivery Status
App Update
iStat
Characterpal


Also, I can’t say this enough (although I don’t think people actually pay attention when I say it): Spend the first few days learning all the ins-and-outs of the System Preferences app. Comb through every single setting. It’s nowhere near as huge and confusing as Windows’ control panel, and it’ll help you get acquainted with a lot of the nuts and bolts of things and also avoid a lot of questions in the future.
 
Ditch the clock and battery status from the menubar. You have no idea how much time you will waste looking at them, instead use a couple of dashboard widgets.

- Clockish
- MiniBatteryStatus

The second can communicate with Growl so a little notification will pop up whenever your running low,power source has changed or fully charged.

smcFanControl is useful for monitoring temperatures and manually overriding the fans, now mine hardly ever goes above 60ºc even when using Flash, which you will notice hard on a Mac.
 
Apps:

iStat Menus
Candybar
Cloud (cl.ly)
Ecoute
Handbrake
Transmission
WebKit (nightly.webkit.org)
Bowtie
PS3 Media Server
Steam
and most importantly... Perian (perian.net)
 
You may like Airfoil if you have an iPod speaker dock, or planning on getting one when you get the Touch. It allows you to stream audio to other PC's running airfoil or an iPod Touch running Airfoil Speakers. Basically, wifi stereo system.
 
icelt
In addition I'd do a pixel test on the screen just to make sure you don't have a bunch of dead ones. Although it is really unlikely, better to determine right out of the gate if you're happy with the screens dead pixel characteristics as if you are not it can be a chore trying to fight with Apple over getting a replacement.
Click to expand...


So are you suggesting I have them open it up and turn it on in the store, or just to do this immediately after I take it home?


Re: Applecare - Haven't decided if I'm going to get it or not. I think I remember it being about $130.



Re: Everyone else, thanks for the lists of apps, I'll look into them when I get a little more time with the machine.


One other question, who is using VMware/Parallels/VirtualBox to run Windows 7 or its apps? Looking for experience on multiple programs, my friend swears by VirtualBox and its the free option. I haven't kept up with Mac stuff in a while so I don't know if any of them are particularly better than the other for anything?
 
Eric.
So are you suggesting I have them open it up and turn it on in the store, or just to do this immediately after I take it home?
Click to expand...

Good question. I've always bought mine online so I didn't even really consider the store angle. I suppose just ask them what there policy is and if you can check it out before taking ownership. They'll probably tell you once you open it you own it, but never hurts to ask.

Also it is possible that the DP issue is just not the same mfr'ing issue that it was a few years ago. Probably worth researching a little on the web if you have the time.
 
The only screen I've ever had that has had dead pixels was my 42" Sharp Aquos, which I noticed within the the 30 return period. I returned the thing because one of 2,073,600 pixels was stuck. And in doing so upgraded to a 46"...

I'll check their return policy when I'm there. I'd rather not make a huge deal of opening it and stuff, it is the campus bookstore and so its a pretty busy place, especially with it just being the second week of class.
 
Got the MBP on Friday. Loving it so far, though it is taking some time to get used to OS X's differences.
 
Eric.
I'm going to take advantage of Apple's Back to School special and buy a 13" base MBP with the remote, a 32GB iPod Touch (for $100 after the rebate), and a "free" printer ($1), all at my campus bookstore's Apple Authorized Reseller. I'll be using VirtualBox (as well as bootcamp) to have Windows 7 use for whatever things I need, but I'm not very familiar with Macs to be honest.


So, what are your Must-Have-Apps, tweaks, and other things I should get/do?


Not interested in being told I'm paying too much, should get a PC, etc etc.
Click to expand...

I know you said not to be told to get a PC, but. I have 2 macs, an Imac, and a macbook. They seem very, very nice at first, but neither works very well at all now. The Imac sets in a corner and never, ever gets used, and we had to buy a windows PC, becuase we didn't want to spend 200$ to get office for the macbook so my wife could write papers for school, and do other projects.

Macs look really cool and all, but the software support is just not there. The disk drive has broken on my macbook twice, and it's also broke on my Imac. The battery is also bad on the macbook so it has to be plugged in at all times to use it. I loved them at first but after seeing what a 250$ windows laptop is like, it's really just not worth the money to go to a mac, unless you, like me just want to see what all the difference is in the 2 platforms.

I know that mac fans are going to hate this post, but I have given macs about 3 years. I bought the missing manual for my imac so I know everything I want to know about it. It really isn't worth the effort to get one, unless your a tech head and want to spend alot of time trying to get everything you need to run all the programs you want. The first thing the guy at the store told me was that my new mac would do everything I wanted it to, then when I was leaving he gave me a huge list of programs I needed to download when I got home to get it to run everything I wanted. He couldn't do the downloading at the mac store because none of the programs were apple programs.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. I really would suggest getting the missing manual. It really will help making the transition to mac much easier. It's very easy to read, and explains everything very well, so that almost anyone can understand it.
 
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So instead of buying Office for Mac you bought a whole new PC? Also you know that all laptop batteries wear down over time, right?
 
bevo
*Misinformation overload*
Click to expand...

Can't even begin to tackle that mountain of just... no, but I think you may be the only person in the world who has managed to justify a new laptop under the premise that 'I need a copy of Microsoft Office'. Particularly as laptops don't generally come bundled with it in the first place, meaning it's more than likely that you've had to shell out for a copy of it for that anyway...

Mmm. What you've done there is bought a new car because the old one is out of petrol.
 
Floats
Also you know that all laptop batteries wear down over time, right?
Click to expand...

Depends on how you treat your battery, really. Keeping the battery in the laptop while keeping it plugged in at the same time while destroy your battery in a very short time. The ideal usage is to use it until your laptop shuts itself off and then fully charge it. (First time usage) Afterwards you just take out the battery if you're going to have it plugged in. That's how I do it; While my ASUS rests on my desk it's plugged in with the battery removed, while when I take it to uni I place the battery in it and put it on battery saving mode which makes the battery will last up to 5 hours. (Which isn't bad for a notebook with a 16" screen and a HD5730 card)

I never did this with my Dell and the battery on it would refuse to last longer than 1 hour at the most.
 
Bram Turismo
Depends on how you treat your battery, really.
Click to expand...

Sure you can make it last as long as possible but over time it will happen. This isn't a drawback of a Mac which he is claiming, it's a drawback of any laptop. With the Macbooks inbuilt batteries it's more inconvenient to replace the worn out battery but with such long lifespans (guaranteed to hold a minimum 80% of it's 10 hour charge for 1000 cycles) the actual computer will be old tech by the time you need to have it plugged in constantly.
 
Jondot
Can't even begin to tackle that mountain of just... no, but I think you may be the only person in the world who has managed to justify a new laptop under the premise that 'I need a copy of Microsoft Office'. Particularly as laptops don't generally come bundled with it in the first place, meaning it's more than likely that you've had to shell out for a copy of it for that anyway...

Mmm. What you've done there is bought a new car because the old one is out of petrol.
Click to expand...

My 250$ laptop came with office. I bought it used from a friend. I had a 1800$ macbook that didn't and it needed a new battery (135$) way to soon. I bet it didn't have 500 recharge cycles on it when it died, plus the disk drive is broke again after 2 repairs. I just didn't want to put anymore money into it. Apples customer service though is great, if you buy the 150$(more or less can't remember the exact price) apple care plan. And really it's not to bad if you don't. They spent a good hour on the phone with me one night trying to help me fix my Imac. In the end though the wanted me to make an appointment with my local apple store and take it in.

I'm not saying macs are junk. I've just had bad luck with both of them I have. I am glad I bought them though. I always wanted to know what the other side was like. Some parts were really cool, but some were not. It was very user friendly, if you want to just do basic things. pictures and movies are great with it. I just had bad luck with disk drives, a battery, and a few updates ruined my airport extreme on the Imac. It was a super pain to get running again, and this last time it happened I haven't been able to figure out how to fix it, and pretty much gave up on it. Not really because it's a mac, just because it's a desktop, and we will probably never use it again anyway.

As for being misinformed. I own 2 macs and ran only macs for 3-4 years until I bought this cheap windows laptop. I am just giving an unbiased opinion, and my experience with them. It's kind of like the ps3 vs xbox debate. I like them both, but I gave up on the 360 becasue my 5th one died a couple weeks ago. I'm not going to keep putting money into something that keeps breaking on me. No airport extreme, and no diskdrives, means no more money from me.
 
Bram Turismo
Depends on how you treat your battery, really. Keeping the battery in the laptop while keeping it plugged in at the same time while destroy your battery in a very short time. The ideal usage is to use it until your laptop shuts itself off and then fully charge it. (First time usage) Afterwards you just take out the battery if you're going to have it plugged in. That's how I do it; While my ASUS rests on my desk it's plugged in with the battery removed, while when I take it to uni I place the battery in it and put it on battery saving mode which makes the battery will last up to 5 hours. (Which isn't bad for a notebook with a 16" screen and a HD5730 card)

I never did this with my Dell and the battery on it would refuse to last longer than 1 hour at the most.
Click to expand...

To be fair, I treated the battery in my last MacBook Pro horribly and it lasted 2 and a half years and some ridiculous number of power cycles before it started misbehaving. That said, there's about 11 million other people who've treated theirs beautifully only to have them go, so...

bevo
My 250$ laptop came with office. I bought it used from a friend.
Click to expand...

Then it's not a $250 laptop, is it? It's a laptop that was sold on to you for $250, and someone gave you Office as part of the deal. So it's not really fair to have a pop at Apple for not including the software that wouldn't have come with a Windows laptop originally anyway. Oui?
 
Jondot
To be fair, I treated the battery in my last MacBook Pro horribly and it lasted 2 and a half years and some ridiculous number of power cycles before it started misbehaving. That said, there's about 11 million other people who've treated theirs beautifully only to have them go, so...



Then it's not a $250 laptop, is it? It's a laptop that was sold on to you for $250, and someone gave you Office as part of the deal. So it's not really fair to have a pop at Apple for not including the software that wouldn't have come with a Windows laptop originally anyway. Oui?
Click to expand...

It actually is a 250$ laptop. My friend bought it at a close out sale from compaq for 250$ just because he thought someone might want it. I think he had it for 4 or 5 days before I got it. And in all honesty he may have gotten it cheaper then that, and made a few bucks.

I'm not meaning to take a pop at apple, I'm just saying what my problems with apple have been, and why I switched back to windows. In all honesty, I liked the ease of Mac os better, but it just wasn't 1500$ better, and the reliability I had with them just wasn't good enough.

If I hadn't had the battery dump so quick, the dvd drives break so often, and my problems with airport extreme( I actually haven't had to many with leapord) I might have gotten another one someday. I did, and still do like the Macs, I just can't justify the price of them for what I got.

I really didn't mean to start something with my post. I should have known better. I'll leave the rest of the posts for Apple love.
 
Eric.
Re: Applecare - Haven't decided if I'm going to get it or not. I think I remember it being about $130.[/B]
Click to expand...

You should definitely get AppleCare. You have a year from the computer's date of purchase to buy it, and it's definitely worth the 150 or whatever dollars to buy it. It will definitely be worth it. Jondot is right, out of warranty repair on computers are ridiculously expensive.

Also, consider downloading:
Alarm Clock
ClamXAV
Fugu
iAlertU (Really cool, especially if you have a remote)
LineIn
OnyX
Pacifist
Quicksilver
Steam (if you play Steam games)
uApp
uTorrent
Snatch Server and the corresponding SnatchTest on the iPod Touch. It lets you use your iPod Touch as a trackpad to control the computer.
 
Crash852
You should definitely get AppleCare. You have a year from the computer's date of purchase to buy it, and it's definitely worth the 150 or whatever dollars to buy it. It will definitely be worth it. Jondot is right, out of warranty repair on computers are ridiculously expensive.

Also, consider downloading:
Alarm Clock
ClamXAV
Fugu
iAlertU (Really cool, especially if you have a remote)
LineIn
OnyX
Pacifist
Quicksilver
Steam (if you play Steam games)
uApp
uTorrent
Snatch Server and the corresponding SnatchTest on the iPod Touch. It lets you use your iPod Touch as a trackpad to control the computer.
Click to expand...

Just like he said, Apple care is a really good service. It not only covers pretty much anything that happens to your mac, but they will go out of their way to help you with any questions you have. Before I bought the missing manual for it, they helped me with alot of things I either couldn't or didn't want to take the time to figure out on my own.
 
I've just realised that nobody has touched on Safari Extensions, anyway here are my favourites:

AdBlock
FacebookBlocker
A Cleaner Youtube
Awesome Screenshot

All of those can be found on Apple's extension gallery site.

EDIT: I've taken Safari Currency Converter off the list, it crashes Safari every time I try to use google images.
 
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Floats
I've just realised that nobody has touched on Safari Extensions, anyway here are my favourites:

AdBlock
FacebookBlocker
A Cleaner Youtube
Awesome Screenshot
Safari Currency Converter

All of those can be found on Apple's extension gallery site.
Click to expand...
Don't forget HelveticaTheWorld! I also use Facebook Improved, rather than FacebookBlocker.
 
Jackington
I also use Facebook Improved, rather than FacebookBlocker.
Click to expand...

They do different things, FacebookBlocker removes Facebook content from other websites, you know those times when you see a comment box and you WTF because you Facebook profile picture is there. Maybe I'm paranoid but I'd rather not have those.
 
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I, um, have a lot of extensions (although a couple of these are disabled):

NoMoreiTunes
Optimize Legibility
Share to Google Reader
Facebook Photo Zoom
Ultimate Status Bar
ClickToPlugin
autocomplete
A Cleaner YouTube
Sessions
Flickr Original
Google Reader Snow Leopard
InvisibleHand
JavaScript Blacklist
Make It Short
SMRT
Gilded Age
Google Maps Scroll Zoom
ShowPass
Simplify GR
Old Google Image Search
GoMBoX
 
If you have Safari, ClickToPlugin does the same but a lot better. :) (And in my experience less crashy.)

Oh, and, just recently discovered ZumoCast – it can stream your music, docs, and videos from your Mac to your iPhone, iPod touch, or any browser. It’s pretty damn mind-blowing.
 
I highly recommend installing windows 7 via boot camp.

I'm not a windows fan, but I did anyway, and boy the games are fast.
Steam in OS X is less well coded than the windows version.
My wimpy base model macbook pro (the one that you are getting) can run Portal with everything on the highest settings, including 16x AA and 60 frames per second. Just Cause 2 is almost just as good, and they're both a blast to play on this machine.

EDIT: Just re-read the first post. That said, I'd use boot camp instead of VB. Speed is of the essence, my friend.
 

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