<p>My macbook pro is coming in today. What are some things I should do, or essential applications I should install?</p>
<p>[For</a> college student mac users](<a href=“http://web.mac.com/willie.morris/iWeb/Willie./Blog/CEAA00CB-F8EC-45F8-8733-168A736FBFC5.html]For”>http://web.mac.com/willie.morris/iWeb/Willie./Blog/CEAA00CB-F8EC-45F8-8733-168A736FBFC5.html)</p>
<p>one of my personal favs is ADIUM, much better than the included iChat</p>
<p>[For</a> general mac users](<a href=“http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2008/01/top-100-essential-mac-applications.html]For”>http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2008/01/top-100-essential-mac-applications.html)</p>
<p>Firefox: [Firefox</a> web browser | International versions: Get Firefox in your language](<a href=“http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-rc.html]Firefox”>Download Firefox in English (US) and more than 90 other languages)
Much better than Safari, especially Firefox 3. The version I linked is Firefox 3 RC1, which is good enough (in my experience) for regular usage. The final version of Firefox 3 will be out sometime in June, and it will automatically update to that version when it’s out.</p>
<p>Quicksilver: [Blacktree[/url</a>]
It lets you set up keyboard shortcuts to launch/run all kinds of applications and scripts.</p>
<p>Adium: [url=<a href=“http://www.adiumx.com/]Adium”>http://www.adiumx.com/]Adium</a> - Download](<a href=“http://www.blacktree.com/]Blacktree[/url”>http://www.blacktree.com/)
Multiprotocol (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, etc.) IM client, much better than iChat.</p>
<p>VLC Media Player: [VLC</a> media player - Overview](<a href=“http://www.videolan.org/vlc/]VLC”>Official download of VLC media player, the best Open Source player - VideoLAN)
Plays videos of almost any format, and lets you play videos in fullscreen without paying extra, like QuickTime makes you do, IIRC.</p>
<p>HandBrake: [HandBrake[/url</a>]
Easily rips and compresses DVDs, so you can play them on an iPhone or iPod, or just store them on your hard drive.</p>
<p>Transmission: [url=<a href=“http://www.transmissionbt.com/]Transmission[/url”>http://www.transmissionbt.com/]Transmission[/url</a>]
Best native BitTorrent client for OS X. However, if you need more features and don’t care about high resource usage, Azureus is the way to go ( [url=<a href=“http://azureus.sourceforge.net/]Azureus”>http://azureus.sourceforge.net/]Azureus</a> : Java BitTorrent Client](<a href=“http://handbrake.fr/]HandBrake[/url”>http://handbrake.fr/) ).</p>
<p>Skype: [Download</a> the latest version of Skype](<a href=“Join conversation”>Join conversation)
Makes free VOIP calls (you can also pay to call a real phone).</p>
<p>NeoOffice: [NeoOffice</a> Downloads](<a href=“NeoOffice - Office suite for Mac”>NeoOffice - Office suite for Mac)
If you don’t want to pay for Microsoft Office or iWork, this is the way to go.</p>
<p>thanks,</p>
<p>does mac have a builtin app to unrar files? or do I have to dl something</p>
<p>No, the embedded one only does .zip. I use UnrarX to extract .7z and .rar. It also does tar.gz and tar.bz2 etc…
[SourceForge.net:</a> UnRarX](<a href=“http://sourceforge.net/projects/unrarx/]SourceForge.net:”>UnRarX download | SourceForge.net)</p>
<p>Just want to say thanks, this thread is helpful because I’m considering Apple laptops.</p>
<p>Thank you skatj for posting this! 
(I’m getting a Mac soon.)</p>
<p>^
yea.. mine’s suppose to be coming in this week..</p>
<p>I would definitely get Microsoft Office '08 for Mac. It is a crucial investment that you will be using almost everyday (the standard Home & Student edition is fine).</p>
<p>What’s with the firefox hype? In what ways is it better than safari? (translation: I really have no problems with safari, so why bother?)</p>
<p>I find that Safari works extremely well for me. It’s only crashed on my Mac Mini once in my four months of having it so far.</p>
<p>I definitely recommend Adium as well.</p>
<p>
Uses less CPU, has a ton of extensions, and is better supported by websites.</p>
<p>what program would you recommend for instant messaging with people on AIM?</p>
<p>
Learn to read the previous posts 
Look at my post above, it covers every piece of software the average person needs.</p>
<p>Firefox uses less memory. A recent study of the memory consumption of the top browsers shows Firefox as the best. Safari showed consistent additional memory consumption in the test - meaning that it has memory leaks.</p>
<p>
And I expect nothing better from Apple ;/</p>
<p>it also showed opera is faster than both firefox and safari</p>
<p>But Opera doesn’t render websites as well as Firefox ;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s not really true. Opera supports the newest web standards better than Firefox, such as the [url=<a href=“http://acid3.acidtests.org/]Acid3[/url”>http://acid3.acidtests.org/]Acid3[/url</a>] test. However, Firefox’s market share just (usually) ensures that web pages will work with it. That is, if a page works with Opera, it’s almost definitely going to work with Firefox.</p>