New switcher in Afghanistan

Greetings, just purchased a macbook pro i5 (15.4). Still waiting for it, mail takes a while to get here. I am tethering for most of my internet needs here and the connection is slow (less than dial up). This is my first Mac, I've been reading this forum a lot about suggestions and what to do and shortcuts etc. I've been a windows user for a very long time and I just purchased office for the mac (have to do a lot of reports). I download most of the drivers I need to make the mac functional with a wacom intuos, I also purchased sketchbook pro, are there any other programs out there that are good with the mac when it comes to drawing and such? Also I hooked up my HD to my friends macbook and I couldn't see some video files that I have. Does hiding folders on windows make the folders hidden when you switch to a mac? I tried to unhide the folders in the HD but I still could not see them on my friends macbook.

Greetings, glad you made the switch.

So many questions, but I will answer a couple

As for drawing apps, I think you should be OK with Sketchbook pro, there are others and you will no doubt het lots of opinions on this one

AS for Video, OSX uses Quicktime as the central audio/video component. Quicktime pay not support all of your video codecs out of the box. You can download the open source Perian, which basically extends Quicktime's codec support.
Perian - The swiss-army knife of QuickTime components

Thanks for the reply. I will look into that. I have to limit my dl under 200mb a month so I am trying to balance what I need. Also would you happen to know the typical size of a Mac os update is? I probably won't update itunes or anything like that cause it would take 4 hours lol. Again thank you.

Pixelmator and Seashore are good apps for doing fun graphic art layering.

Basic drawing app? PaintBrush. Can't go wrong with it.

As for Sketchbook, I think you're good.

Pixelmator and seashore? Hmm definitely gotta check those out. I use corel painter but I think ill wait when I get back to the states to purchase that for the mac. Does anyone know the typical size for an update on a Mac, minus non-essential stuff ofcourse.

Battle_chaser9 said:

Does anyone know the typical size for an update on a Mac, minus non-essential stuff ofcourse.

Click to expand...

Most of them are various sizes.

Usually, they don't take up a whole lot of room.

With 200mb a month, i think that will be the 1st reason as to not worry about the updates atm....

Look for productivity apps that will benefit you as that way you a least get a 'result' out of the 200mb.

Is there nowhere near you that you can occasionally hook up to a faster connection? Yeah, I know -- "what part of 'Afghanistan' are you having trouble with" -- but hopefully you occasionally get to be somewhere that has decent speed and can do you updates then. Mac OS updates aren't as "essential" or "critical" as Win updates, so really the only ones you ought to pay serious attention to are security ones which are fairly rare (five this year).

Apple OS updates *do* tend to run large, but as I say mostly you can ignore them till you get to a better connection.

Good luck out there!

Thanks for the responses guys. Yeah I'm limited to 200mb, that's the international blackberry rule when your out of the US. I try to keep my dl at a minimum and I usually save it on my phone then access it through the laptop. I had to keep updating my anti virus here since a lot of soldiers are horrible at keeping their systems clean and we share usb sticks that get used everywhere even afghan cpus that are loaded with viruses. And there are no places here to access a good internet, I can't just walk in to a internet shop with all my weapons and body armor and say hi, lol, that would be pretty funny.

As far as viruses go, your mac itself cannot be infected, but at least your mac will detect windows viruses and prevent other windows users getting infected.

Are there any other Mac users in your unit or location.

Many Mac updates can be downloaded separately, rather than using Software update. If there are other Macheads, you could come to an agreement about which updates are downloaded by whom, and then share the resulting downloaded DMG files.

For example, the latest Security update can be downloaded here as a dmg file
Apple - Support - Downloads

So that's a download that one Mac user can download and share with other Mac users, rather than each individual using up 80 meg through Software update

Or if the post gets to you in a reasonable time, I am sure some people on this forum would simply put the updates on a disk and post them to you

Louishen thanks that's a real good idea. We have atleast 3 macheads here but one don't really count, he has an ipad, which is useless unless he has a wireless access. Unfortunately I'm the only real techy here so I will probably do most of the dl. I can check the link on my own thanks for providing the direction to go for a standalone dl.

Battle_chaser9, being in Afghanistan right now as well, I can give you a little tip that has worked for me. When a large update for OSX comes down, I usually try to find it on the Apple.com download section and download it on my work computer and then burn it to disk, then just install from the disk. I really wish I could do the same thing for iPhone and iPad updates, but that doesn't work that way since they all come through iTunes. I'll agree that the internet sucks here and is really expensive for what you get. Luckily, I've only got a few more months left of my "sentence"

Later,
Shawn

Doctor Tattoo, lol, I'll give that a shot, problem is we are on a very small jcob and we have limited computers. It wont be fair for the rest of the guys if I pull rank and hog the cpu. That is a good idea though and will take it in consideration. I got about 5-6 months left also, hopefully it goes by fast. Stay safe bro.

Just a quick update, I finally received my macbook today and I'm loving it! Thanks for the tips and suggestions gentlemen.