Hello, Im new to Mac

[aaron]

Hello everyone, Im new to mac after vista i will never buy another windows product again!!!!

So far I like the mac, working very well for me but i do have some questions.
As you know windows runs like 10000000x programs to keep people out.

What software do you use for firewalls, and do you really need to?

What kind of widgets do you use / have. what utilities do you use to keep your mac clean an fresh..

an any other tips you may have are welcome!

 

[cwa107]

Hello everyone, Im new to mac after vista i will never buy another windows product again!!!!

So far I like the mac, working very well for me but i do have some questions.
As you know windows runs like 10000000x programs to keep people out.

What software do you use for firewalls, and do you really need to?

The built-in firewall should be fine, providing that you have put it into stealth mode (under the advanced options in the Firewall tab of the Security System Preferences).

If you would like to halt outbound traffic as well, check out Little Snitch. Generally speaking, that really isn't necessary.

What kind of widgets do you use / have. what utilities do you use to keep your mac clean an fresh..

an any other tips you may have are welcome!

I don't really use many 3rd party widgets, aside from AirPort Radar, which is helpful in identifying nearby wi-fi signals.

For maintenance, try Onyx - although the Mac does a good job of maintaining itself. Typically I don't force maintenance unless I'm actually having a specific problem.

Welcome to the forums!

 

[Zoolook]

Welcome welcome.

Macs generally need less maintenance than Windows - the hdd re-indexes every now and again on its own, and scripts are run to keep thing clean and perky.

A nice tip is to run these yourself manually (especially if you have a laptop that spends most of its time sleeping).

Go to the terminal and launch it. Type

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

It will prompt you for your password, then execute. You can just do these one at a time. Daily is the dailycleanup, weekly is the weekly etc - so no need to run all 3 every day!

 

[shahvikram123]

Go to http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/ for all of the widgets available for dashboard, there's loads…

As mentioned before your mac doesn't need that much maintenance. check out an app called mainmenu if you find your mac running a bit weird then you can run some of the scripts on their and it should fix it…

your default mac os x firewall should be fine for general use

 

[aaron]

Thanks ill check that out..

 

[PapaNoHair]

Welcome! I second dashboard - I think you will love it.