Switching to Macbook

kzam · Aug 17, 2008

I'm a long time windows user, but now im switching to mac's. ;D
Is there anything I needs to know when making the switch, with regarding to programs.

I know the questions vauge, but please try

matt.coolbrown · Aug 17, 2008

yeah definately

well first off firefox is a essential once you install that i recommed growl and vlc player for videos that come from online. adium instead of ichat cuz i think its better but doesnt matter . OnyX performs maintance for ur mac. no need for java comes with it no need for adobe for pdf since mac has its own and u shuld get FLIP4MAC very important. since some sites require windows media player and macs dont come wit it so that prgrm plays it for u on quicktime very neat and must have. here are all the links to the prgrms i mentioned
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
http://growl.info/
http://www.download.com/VLC-Media-Player/3000-2200_4-10210434.html?tag=lst-1&cdlPid=10864907
http://www.adiumx.com/
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/onyx.html
http://www.flip4mac.com/

and caffeine to prevent the laptop from hiberating during vids and stuff
http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/

kzam · Aug 17, 2008

matt.coolbrown said:
well first off firefox is a essential once you install that i recommed growl and vlc player for videos that come from online. adium instead of ichat cuz i think its better but doesnt matter . OnyX performs maintance for ur mac. no need for java comes with it no need for adobe for pdf since mac has its own and u shuld get FLIP4MAC very important. since some sites require windows media player and macs dont come wit it so that prgrm plays it for u on quicktime very neat and must have. here are all the links to the prgrms i mentioned
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
http://growl.info/
http://www.download.com/VLC-Media-Player/3000-2200_4-10210434.html?tag=lst-1&cdlPid=10864907
http://www.adiumx.com/
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/onyx.html
http://www.flip4mac.com/

and caffeine to prevent the laptop from hiberating during vids and stuff
http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/

will firefox and vlc run natively on the mac or will I have to do install the darwine program

lifeafter2am · Aug 17, 2008

Those are all native programs.

kzam · Aug 17, 2008

lifeafter2am said:
Those are all native programs.

awesome..thxs,

Another important question i had, do programs like winzip and winrar also run native?

lifeafter2am · Aug 17, 2008

No, but you can use programs like Stuffit. The best advice I can give you is that you just need to do a little searching, and asking here, and you can pretty much find any program's equivalent on Macs.

kzam · Aug 17, 2008

lifeafter2am said:
No, but you can use programs like Stuffit. The best advice I can give you is that you just need to do a little searching, and asking here, and you can pretty much find any program's equivalent on Macs.

ok..thxs

matt.coolbrown · Aug 18, 2008

reply

srry bro i wasnt much help anywyas so u got a new macbook me 2 for college whts ur specs?

dalison · Aug 18, 2008

kzam, don't feel like you have to run off and download a bunch of software in order to get the most from your Mac. Out of the box you'll have a full featured OS and the iLife suite of tools. You can use Safari to browse the web, iChat to get on instant messaging and use Mail to access your... uh... mail!

When I switched to Mac I was pleasantly surprised by what the machine was capable of out of the box. Take a little time to see what you need that isn't in there, otherwise you might feel a little overwhelmed at first.

As Matt mentions above, there are a number of cool, free applications that will help your experience but you should adjust to your MacBook a bit before doing that.

Good luck and enjoy the new machine!

kzam · Aug 18, 2008

matt.coolbrown said:
srry bro i wasnt much help anywyas so u got a new macbook me 2 for college whts ur specs?

np man, any info is good info in my book. I got the macbook with the 2.4 GHz processor, 2gb ram the usual stuff. Its alot of fun

.. and I bought it for college too.

dalison said:
kzam, don't feel like you have to run off and download a bunch of software in order to get the most from your Mac. Out of the box you'll have a full featured OS and the iLife suite of tools. You can use Safari to browse the web, iChat to get on instant messaging and use Mail to access your... uh... mail!

When I switched to Mac I was pleasantly surprised by what the machine was capable of out of the box. Take a little time to see what you need that isn't in there, otherwise you might feel a little overwhelmed at first.

As Matt mentions above, there are a number of cool, free applications that will help your experience but you should adjust to your MacBook a bit before doing that.

Good luck and enjoy the new machine!

Thanks man, i appericiate the advice