Just switched,,,could use some advice.

[lsuperguy]

Hey all, I just ordered my new iBook, hopefully I should have it soon. Anyway, I was wondering if I could get some advice on some good apps to get going on my new venture into Apple and OS X / unix.

I am a "power user" or at least was one in the world of wintel. So I would really like some advice to get going on unix and such. I already know about openOffice, and macstumbler...but I was wondering of some other ones that I don't know about.

Thanks all.

 

[MacAddikt]

Welcome to Mac-Forums!

OS X comes with a pre loaded software. Many of which are iApps (iChat, iMovie, iPhoto, etc.) as well as other ones like Safari and Mail. These should be plenty useful for your standard computing needs (email, pictures, video editing, browser, etc.).

For "power users", the same apps that are available for windows are also available for the mac os. Adobe creative suite, Macromedias creative suite, MS Office. If you can setup Open Office i would recommend it. Takes a bit more than standard installations, but its much more stable than MS Office. Plus it supports the open source community software, which I highly back.

Other software like games are usually available for both platforms. The big ones at least, Blizzard, Aspyr, etc. you can find a lot of third party apps and games at:

macupdate
versiontracker
mac game files

I'm sure you'll grow to love you mac like everyone else here! ...
"its an inevitability"
-Agent Smith

 

[shadov]

Just an idea: write your own firewall script!

It probably won't give you any short term advantage security wise, but chances are you'll learn something about how firewalls, shell scripts and *nix init systems work. It's not difficult if you understand basics of TCP/IP. Google for "ipfw tutorial".

 

[GwiDan]

I saw "Wintel" in the original post. I know it's what IBM compatible PCs are now called, but what is the word short for?

 

[MacAddikt]

wintel = windows on an intel machine

oddly enough ive never heard anyone use the word Lintel though

 

[GwiDan]

wintel = windows on an intel machine

oddly enough ive never heard anyone use the word Lintel though

Is there a name for PCs running AMD chipsets? Probably not because they're so far behind Intel...

 

[shadov]

AMD are not that far behind Intel. Actually they were way ahead Intel in price/performance ratio a year or two ago when P4 and Athlon XP came out. Intel has catched up since then. But then again AMD seems to be getting better start with 64 bit chips.

I think word wintel can be used of any x86 system running Windows.

 

[mdscouter]

Question on OpenOffice. Someone recommended that for my new powerbook (for PC user) but when I was downloading it they mentioned that it was "not ready for prime time" and I don't want to mess up my new machine. Is it okay to download? If so which file?

P.S. as my old PCs die I am replacing them with macs they blow pcs away.

 

[shadov]

OpenOffice 1.0.3 doesn't look or feel as polished and ready product as MS Office or StarOffice. 1.1.0 is better but hasn't been ported to OS X yet. I haven't tried OOo in OS X, only in Linux.

 

[StarManta]

I have installed nearly everything under the sun and not put a dent in OSX.... if you're a power user it'll be pretty obvious when something could cause harm to the OS

 

[StarManta]

Oh, I was going to give some nice programs to have... Let's go across my dock....Office, MPlayer, Safari, Mozilla (which I use for mail), XChat (IRC), iChat AV, AIM, Yahoo IM, SNES9x, Boom!, Stepmania (Dance Dance Revolution), Photoshop, iSwipe (Kazaa-like app), VNCViewer, and iPulse (awesome system resources monitor). Oh, and iKey for macros.