Getting a MacBook Pro very soon. Need advice.

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Hi there

I've just ordered my MacBook Pro - will get it by the end of this month if Apple keeps to its shipping date =]

I will be using it for:

Designing - Photoshop & Illustrator & After Effects
Writing - Short stories and completing university assignments
Internet - Regularly downloading software/media & pictures.

I was wondering if any of you could recommend helpful applications I could download and use in order to get the most out of my MacBook?

I've searched myself but there is just so many, I can't actually decide/figure out which would be the best for me =[

I'm looking for:

Image viewing software/photo albums sorting software
Software to manage my downloads, I often download movies and videos and would like something that would download them and possibly extract them at the same time?
Software that would clean my cookies, history and etc whenever I want.

And anything else really that a beginner Maccy should need =]

Could you please let me know what I would need in order to successfully get my Mac Up and running =]
 
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Congratulations! You will love your new Mac. It will be good to go right out of the box. But you will probably want to do these things right away:
1. Check your mouse for a right click. If its not there, go to /System Preferences/Mouse and active the Secondary (Right Click) function;
2. Download and install Flip4Mac which you will need for playing Windows Movie (.wmv) files. I recommend you start using Mac OS X Software Updates and Mac OS X Downloads - VersionTracker for getting downloads. It's safe and dependable.
3. Give yourself a head start on understanding the Mac by going to http://manuals.makeuseof.com.s3.amazonaws.com/the-mac-manual.pdf and reading the great little manual.

That's it. Have fun!
 
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Some good stuff here and a bit more techy here. And yes - enjoy.
 
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Most of the popular Windows software will have the same applications available for Mac so it won't be too hard of a switch for those things. For other things it's probably easier to ask about them specifically as you go because there are a lot of software out there to name them all. ;D

Here are a few tutorials from Apple's website for new users: switch101 & mac101

Image viewing software/photo albums sorting software
Adobe Bridge which comes free with Photoshop and I believe other Adobe products should do that for you. If you don't like using Bridge then Apple's free included iPhoto can also do it for.

Software that would clean my cookies, history and etc whenever I want.
I'm assuming you are taking about cookies, history, etc from web browsers? If so just about all web browsers have the feature to delete these pieces of data within in the application themselves. Firefox will allow you to set it to automatically delete these things when you close it.
 
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Ahh
Will I need any Codecs/Software in order to play MKV files and FLAC (Lossless Audio) files?

I've checked out all the links you've sent me and shall be researching them immediately =]
 
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Howdy. For general writing software, the free OpenOffice 3.2 (release candidate, but official later this month) will give you most everything that MS Office (writing, spreadsheet, draw, database, presentation).

For a better writing experience, consider Nisus Writer Pro. For longer term writing projects consider using Scrivener for organizing and initial writing, then finish in NWP.

 
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Oh another thing, I have 2 external hard drives, one which is NTFS and the other is FAT32

Will I be able to use both of them to read & write or will I need to install some sort of software?
 

CrimsonRequiem


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MBP 2.3 Ghz 4GB RAM 860 GB SSD, iMac 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 32GB RAM, Fusion Drive 1TB
You will need this if you are planning on writing to NTFS HDD.
 
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Ahh
Will I need any Codecs/Software in order to play MKV files and FLAC (Lossless Audio) files?
VideoLan will play most video and audio formats. There are other players but I like VideoLan. It's available for both Mac and Windows. A lot of third party media players will have codecs already installed on the players themselves so there is no need to installed them onto your computer unless you have to.

Windows Media Player and Apple's Quicktime player don't have these codecs pre-installed probably for legal reasons but if you use a third party player like VideoLan then you should be good.

Oh another thing, I have 2 external hard drives, one which is NTFS and the other is FAT32

Will I be able to use both of them to read & write or will I need to install some sort of software?
Are you going to still be using them for Windows also or can you erase them? If you can then just format the two hard drives in Mac's Disk Utility application so that they are Mac formats. That would be the best way if you want full compatibility with Mac.

Hard drives are not solely made for either Mac or Windows. You just have to format them if you want to use them on either system but like I said you will lose all the data you already have on them if you format them. If you want to use the hard drives for both Mac and Windows then that's a different issue especially if you want to use NTFS.
 
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On the subject of media players, VLC is a good one to have on hand. I spend a lot of time with it. I especially like the Shoutcast Radio listings.
 
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VideoLan will play most video and audio formats. There are other players but I like VideoLan. It's available for both Mac and Windows. A lot of third party media players will have codecs already installed on the players themselves so there is no need to installed them onto your computer unless you have to.

Windows Media Player and Apple's Quicktime player don't have these codecs pre-installed probably for legal reasons but if you use a third party player like VideoLan then you should be good.


Are you going to still be using them for Windows also or can you erase them? If you can then just format the two hard drives in Mac's Disk Utility application so that they are Mac formats. That would be the best way if you want full compatibility with Mac.

Hard drives are not solely made for either Mac or Windows. You just have to format them if you want to use them on either system but like I said you will lose all the data you already have on them if you format them. If you want to use the hard drives for both Mac and Windows then that's a different issue especially if you want to use NTFS.

Ahhhhh! =[

I want to use my external hard drive WITH Mac and Windows.... How would I go about doing that?

I already use VLC on my windows Laptop, glad I can still use it on my Mac when it arrives =]
 
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I want to use my external hard drive WITH Mac and Windows.... How would I go about doing that?
What you can do is format your external HD into FAT format and it should work on both Mac and Windows. Just use Disk Utilities in Mac to do it. Once again you will lose all current data on your hard drive if you format so make sure to backup the data if it's important to you.

I personally would rather use two external HDs so that I would have one for Mac and one for Windows but I understand why some people want to use it for both.
 
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Continuing on from above...

If you want to back up said drive on Time machine, it'll need to be in mac format, not NTFS or Fat.
 
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Problem is, fat only allows files smaller than 4.3gig...

I have a lot of HD movies and etv that are nearly 10gig!
Is there a way for Mac's to recognise NTFS format?
 
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If you just want to transfer the large movies from your Windows machine to your new Mac then the only thing I can suggest is to try networking the two computers. You are going to have to research how to do that on the internet because I don't have much experience in a mixed Windows and Mac network, but I know it's possible. Maybe someone else might have other ideas.
 
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I've tried using MacFuse and also NTFS Mounter but neither of them work!
They simply won't let me read or write on my Western Digital external hard drive =[

If I format my Hard-Drive to a 'Mac' Format will it be able to keep large files (10gig) on it? I know FAT doesn't, hence why I use NTFS =]
 

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