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- Aug 11, 2009
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- Your Mac's Specs
- iMac / iPod / iPhone
I just got my first iMac a few weeks ago after being a Windows user for almost 20 years. I'm still keeping my HP laptop because it's in pretty good condition to use for travel and any program I just can't find a Mac equvilant for. My goal though is to use my iMac as my main computer, with the laptop only as a travel computer.
So I need some advice on programs! I'd like to know what you use and why you like it. The more ideas the better I'd also like to know about memory - looking at the list of programs I ask about, you can probably get an idea of how much I use on a typical day. I currently have 2gb of memory - should I upgrade to 4gb?
An HTML editor - On my PC I use Notepad. I don't like programs like Dreamweaver that do it all for you, I just want an extremely simple program that I can type up/ copy+paste html into myself. It needs to support foreign characters (in particular Japanese) so that when I save the file they don't turn into jibberish characters.
A free (or very inexpensive) Photoshop alternative - Unfortunately, I acquired a copy of Photoshop CS3 for my PC through work fairly recently, so I feel like it's a waste right now to go out and buy CS3 or Elements for my Mac. It's rare that I do heavy editing, so I'd like to get something that I can use temporarily to crop, resize, adjust lighting, sharpen, and add outlines (i.e. the stroke feature in PS) to photos/images.
A music player - I've heard lots of praise for using iTunes - any suggestions for your favorite ways to optimize it? If you don't use iTunes, what do you use instead? On my PC I was using Winamp, and I tend to be the type that just listens to random tracks on the fly rather than making elaborate playlists.
An FTP program - Believe it or not, I'm still using WS_FTP from 1995 on my PC. It's just so simple and easy, it works perfect for me! What's the most simple / basic / easy to use FTP for Mac?
Microsoft Office - Do you find this is worth getting? At home I only use Word, and the only problem I've noticed with Pages so far is that, for example, when I opened a resume I had made in Word, it couldn't read some of the fonts and the formatting was off. Do I simply need some plugin?
Directory Printing - There's a utility called TreePrint for Windows that I've never gotten to work properly, so I'm wondering if there's a better one for Mac. I'm looking for something that would provide me with an editable list fo what's in a certain directory - for example, a text document with a list of all the files I store on a particular data disc that I could print out and use as a detailed label so I don't have to put the disc in the computer just to see what exact files are on it.
In addition to the programs above, I also run video conversion programs fairly often on my mac (i.e. mpg to avi, resizing avi, etc.) if that helps with memory recommendations.
If you made it this far in my post, thank you for taking the time to read through all that!
So I need some advice on programs! I'd like to know what you use and why you like it. The more ideas the better I'd also like to know about memory - looking at the list of programs I ask about, you can probably get an idea of how much I use on a typical day. I currently have 2gb of memory - should I upgrade to 4gb?
An HTML editor - On my PC I use Notepad. I don't like programs like Dreamweaver that do it all for you, I just want an extremely simple program that I can type up/ copy+paste html into myself. It needs to support foreign characters (in particular Japanese) so that when I save the file they don't turn into jibberish characters.
A free (or very inexpensive) Photoshop alternative - Unfortunately, I acquired a copy of Photoshop CS3 for my PC through work fairly recently, so I feel like it's a waste right now to go out and buy CS3 or Elements for my Mac. It's rare that I do heavy editing, so I'd like to get something that I can use temporarily to crop, resize, adjust lighting, sharpen, and add outlines (i.e. the stroke feature in PS) to photos/images.
A music player - I've heard lots of praise for using iTunes - any suggestions for your favorite ways to optimize it? If you don't use iTunes, what do you use instead? On my PC I was using Winamp, and I tend to be the type that just listens to random tracks on the fly rather than making elaborate playlists.
An FTP program - Believe it or not, I'm still using WS_FTP from 1995 on my PC. It's just so simple and easy, it works perfect for me! What's the most simple / basic / easy to use FTP for Mac?
Microsoft Office - Do you find this is worth getting? At home I only use Word, and the only problem I've noticed with Pages so far is that, for example, when I opened a resume I had made in Word, it couldn't read some of the fonts and the formatting was off. Do I simply need some plugin?
Directory Printing - There's a utility called TreePrint for Windows that I've never gotten to work properly, so I'm wondering if there's a better one for Mac. I'm looking for something that would provide me with an editable list fo what's in a certain directory - for example, a text document with a list of all the files I store on a particular data disc that I could print out and use as a detailed label so I don't have to put the disc in the computer just to see what exact files are on it.
In addition to the programs above, I also run video conversion programs fairly often on my mac (i.e. mpg to avi, resizing avi, etc.) if that helps with memory recommendations.
If you made it this far in my post, thank you for taking the time to read through all that!