Getting started with a mac

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>My macbook pro is coming in today. What are some things I should do, or essential applications I should install?</p>

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<p>For</a> college student mac users</p>

<p>one of my personal favs is ADIUM, much better than the included iChat</p>

<p>For</a> general mac users</p>

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<p>Firefox: Firefox</a> web browser | International versions: Get Firefox in your language
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/%5DAdium"&gt;http://www.adiumx.com/]Adium&lt;/a> - Download](<a href="http://www.blacktree.com/%5DBlacktree%5B/url"&gt;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
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/%5DTransmission%5B/url"&gt;http://www.transmissionbt.com/]Transmission[/url&lt;/a&gt;]
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/%5DAzureus"&gt;http://azureus.sourceforge.net/]Azureus&lt;/a> : Java BitTorrent Client](<a href="http://handbrake.fr/%5DHandBrake%5B/url"&gt;http://handbrake.fr/) ).</p>

<p>Skype: Download</a> the latest version of Skype
Makes free VOIP calls (you can also pay to call a real phone).</p>

<p>NeoOffice: NeoOffice</a> Downloads
If you don't want to pay for Microsoft Office or iWork, this is the way to go.</p>

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<p>thanks,</p>

<p>does mac have a builtin app to unrar files? or do I have to dl something</p>

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<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</p>

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<p>Just want to say thanks, this thread is helpful because I'm considering Apple laptops.</p>

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<p>Thank you skatj for posting this! :) (I'm getting a Mac soon.)</p>

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<p>^
yea.. mine's suppose to be coming in this week..</p>

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<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>

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<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>

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<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>

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<p>I definitely recommend Adium as well.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
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?)

[/quote]

Uses less CPU, has a ton of extensions, and is better supported by websites.</p>

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<p>what program would you recommend for instant messaging with people on AIM?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
what program would you recommend for instant messaging with people on AIM?

[/quote]

Learn to read the previous posts :P
Look at my post above, it covers every piece of software the average person needs.</p>

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<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>

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<p>
[quote]
Safari showed consistent additional memory consumption in the test - meaning that it has memory leaks.

[/quote]

And I expect nothing better from Apple ;/</p>

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<p>it also showed opera is faster than both firefox and safari</p>

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<p>But Opera doesn't render websites as well as Firefox ;)</p>

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<p>
[quote]
But Opera doesn't render websites as well as Firefox

[/quote]
</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/%5DAcid3%5B/url"&gt;http://acid3.acidtests.org/]Acid3[/url&lt;/a&gt;] 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>