[Closed] Mac essentials

Opera so you can run off road.

I just use proxy sites anyway, does it offer anything different?

Just feels 'smoother'.
Chrome is still my browser of choice.

Quicksilver and BetterTouchTool are both very useful, I find

Magic mouse. Bluetooth loveliness. Actually works as opposed to my PC equivalent that drops out every 5 minutes.

All of the Call of Duty games in iTunes. I don't use any of these online.

Airport express for printers and music.

MS Office, either new or... acquired from the internet.

If you have an iPad, 'Pages' is a good word processor which sync's using iCloud.

I bought mrs xiphon a MBA 13" in the 'black friday' sale last week.

Nice one, thanks chaps!

If it's a new Mac, all of the iLife and iWorks suite and now free, so get them all 🙂

I find BetterSnapTool quite handy but it's amazing what you can do with the apps already there. The "Preview" app for example is more than just something to preview PDFs; you can use it as a cut-out tool for photos

Graphic converter for doing a bit more than iPhoto can manage. Easydraw for vector graphics. Movist and VLC player for those videos QuickTime can't manage (even with the MS plugin there are some).

Handbrake for converting your DVDs to MP4 format for iTunes (and hence easy sharing to other Apple devices)

Which MBP did you buy.
I'm currently debating whether to go for the 13 inch retina over the standard one.
Will be using Tekla 3d Cad on it with a large monitor plugged in most of the time , but like the idea of the retina screen when I have it standalone on site etc.
But it's £250 more than the standard with another £65 on top for a SuperDrive

If you won't be using the screen as the primary display, get the 'normal' MBP.

Use the budget to upgrade the SSD/RAM or CPU

Batman Arkham Asylum/City both available on the app store and are both excellent. Work with xbox/ps3 controllers too.

any video player. - havent found a video it cant play.

Mac bluetooth keyboard and Mac bluetooth trackpad, when i have to use a mouse on the pc at work (boo-hisss, utterly despicable thing) it feels so unnatural.

External soundcard and active speakers set up up either side of your monitor, thats if you use an external monitor.

Alfred
Tweetbot

JI Touch to add more functions to the track pad.

But it's £250 more than the standard with another £65 on top for a SuperDrive

The screen is worth it, the superdrive is not. You can get a Samsung Blu-Ray writer for less.

What photo editing software?
I just want to paint out a no. Plate if I'm honest

Which MBP did you buy.

15 incher from the refurbished store. Was very happy with it until tonight, as it's forgotten where my iTunes music is located and steadfastly refuses to see it all even though I've shown it where it all is. Perhaps naively, I hoped going mac would rid me of these iTunes issues. I've wasted so many hours of my life getting that infernal software to work on windows (and now mac). Truly ****ed off with it.

Never had a problem with iTunes, perhaps I'm just lucky.

Software ? SketchBook Express I use for marking up maps (jpegs saved from OS Getamap), otherwise not much paid for stuff. Pages and Numbers (free) I use a lot sync'd via iCloud to phone and iPad. I have all my photos in iPhoto, some folk say its unstable but I like it. Easy to create photo books which appear expensive but are very good quality. As above Handbrake (free) and RipIt (paid) are very good but if you don't have a DVD drive then RipIt is irrelevant.

Accessories ? AppleTV, I have magic mouse which is great but you have all that and more on the trackpad.External drive for TimeMachine backup £60 for 1tb, partition it one for TimeMachine and one for Movies ?

There are lots of features which make the mac great but which are not obvious, worth a trip to Apple store for a demo.

MacRumors website and forum

I use pixelmator for painty draw ry stuff. Would also reccomend Superduper! And an external hard drive for creating bootable backups

iTunes makes the love child of windows ME and Vista seem like a sensible proposition for a well thought out, reliable, and resource-light piece of software.

In the interests of balance I must also say that I've used iTunes for years on PC and Mac with only one glitch several years ago when an update rendered all music unplayable. That was fixed by Apple a few days later and had no problems before or since.

(runs off to touch wood)

Ticked for the software links. New mac arrives today 🙂

Install Steam - quite a few games on it for Mac these days.

Big Aperture fan here for photo wrangling. iPhoto is very good too though if needs are more basic.

+1 on pixelmator or recent mac Gimp builds are getting a lot better if you prefer free ( don't require X any more, far more native http://gimp.lisanet.de/Website/Download.html )

Safari for browser preference, works much slicker and lower power use IME (though I'm chrome all the way on my win/nix boxes).

MOBAC if you're after offline mapping etc.

I'm pretty into the combo of notational velocity + simplenote account + various phones.

+1 on superduper for keeping a bootable backup (in addition to timemachine).

iTunes is fine.

TBH quicktime plays most stuff I want to. VLC for when it doesn't.

Look at how you use full screen apps and spaces (4 finger swipe between them). Miss this a lot on other OS when working on just a laptop screen.

How do you create a bootable backup then?

Running Mavericks so I have no installation disc.

@peteimpreza - go to MacRumors and search forum. You can make a bootable USB stick. Also if you restart the machine hold cmd-R (need to check that) it boots into a "safe mode" also there's another key combination which allows you to pick which drive to boot from, you can use this one to boot from a USB or external disk. Also there is an option to boot/download OS from web so you can get away without a copy of the operating system, it's the data you really need. I learnt about this stuff when I switched my hard drive and created a backup/clone and a bootable external drive then setup the new one inside the machine.

@wrecker (and others) there have been some problems between Mail app on Macs and Gmail (not synching properly) but these are getting fixed. Biggest one I am aware of and have experienced is that you cannot send Pages and Numbers docs with gmail, either mail app or web based gmail.

Re: Pages and Numbers these have replaced Office for my personal use. They work very well with the iCloud and you can use them even on a windows pc via iCloud.com - all docs created can be edited on phone/pad. Pages can save to word or PDF format for sharing.

@peteimprezza - backups - also you can use SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner (CCC) to make bootable backups. I used SuperDuper when I did my disk migration.

+1 For handbrake.

Indispensable if you don't want to spend a fortune putting films you already own onto your iPad.

@ all those pushing Handbrake.

Is it better these days?

Previously, 2 or so years ago, I have found it very slow and the movies stopped working a few months later.

Also what are the options for ripping Blurays?

VLC is a must.

Handbrake is also very good.

I've subscribed to iTunes match and think it's fantastic, Iv'e got all 1665 albums in my library at home to choose form at work.

peteimpreza : Never had a problem with Handbrake been using it for years. It's definitely faster on the new machines.

As for BR discs you'll need a BR Drive. Here's a good how to [url= http://mac.appstorm.net/how-to/video-how-to/how-to-rip-blu-rays-on-a-mac-a-complete-guide/ ]guide[/url]

Lil Snitch is a useful app, tells you what your applications are up to and you can stop them 'dialing home'.

I've been using Handbrake for a few years and have never had a problem of movies stopping working. I have found it doesn't rip DVDs so well which is why I use RipIt. I then run Handbrake, you can do batch runs overnight if you wish, to compress files. A DVD rip is 8gb, typical mp4 from Handbrake is 500-750mb. Handbrake has quite a lot of options for including things like sub title tracks which I use a lot. Neither program is rapid.

BlueRay specifically I haven't done, I know others do. I think the output files are pretty big as thread I saw on MacRumors discussing it where to do with large capacity media servers.

Don't feed it coffee. My daughter fed my 3 week old one coffee yesterday. It does not like it. This was an insurance replacement to replace the one that she spilt water in, in July. They don't like water either. I did learn a lesson the first time but she thought she would use it without my permission anyway.

I've never had a problem with a Handbrake rip.

For Blu Rays, I use a USB Samsung Blu Ray writer (Amazon for about $60), and MakeMKV. You have to pay for the BluRay functionality after a while I think, but I'm not there yet.

A DVD rip is 8gb, typical mp4 from Handbrake is 500-750mb.

You can change format/encoding settings and get an MKV which will be more like 7-8Gb for a movie. Beautiful quality.

[url= http://www.alfredapp.com ]Alfred[/url] — great application launcher, clipboard history, iTunes controller, file explorer, and just about anything else you can dream up if you get the power pack thanks to the workflows.

[url= https://agilebits.com/onepassword ]1Password[/url] — Not sure how I ever survived without this. Far more secure than anything built into a browser. Syncs via dropbox/WiFi/USB across platform including iOS. Truly brilliant.

[url= http://bywordapp.com ]ByWord[/url] — Only if you write with MarkDown at all. Best editor I've found.

If the Mac is new, you are unlikely to need 1Password - it's pretty much all built into OS X now...

Thanks for the tips everyone.

Will check them out over the weekend.

it's pretty much all built into OS X now

That all depends if you really want to put wall your apples in one basket, so to speak (excuse the pun)

I don't know what your iTunes problems are.
When I moved to mac, I followed this
http://www.macworld.com/article/1146958/move_itunes_windows_mac.html
Also this looks useful
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527

Magic mouse

Looks good, works bad. The perfect mouse if you only have two fingers.

Magic mouse
Looks good, works bad. The perfect mouse if you only have two fingers.

I have all my digits and it works brilliantly, but my fingers are quite long and thin.

Don't feed it coffee

Good advice, and i might add they don't do too well with a bottle of Merlot across the keypad either, i don't know about Whites but i suspect they may have the same effect.

Bloody macbooks, you think they'd be able to handle a drink or two.

Chose to run an iMac to avoid billy gates software, so personally don't use office but open office, which in the main is completely compatible as long as you don't want to do complicated things with macros.

I've been using alfred for a few weeks now to open apps, files and do basic sys commands.

What else can I use it for? Is the power pack good vfm? What could i use it for?

Its one of those apps I didn't realise I needed...

I don't know what your iTunes problems are.

Where to start:

1) It's fat and resource hungry
2) No native FLAC support
3) "Oh, it's just a windows thing, it's much better on the mac" - No, it's not.
4) An ability to lose music from its library for no apparent reason
5) An equal ability to generate duplicates
6) An ability to completely corrupt the library on your iPhone

4) An ability to lose music from its library for no apparent reason

@wrecker - is it a format issue on the underlying music file ?

@wrecker

itunes no longer supports wav files - well, it plays them but won't import them. Total PITA.

All MP3 stored on an external drive/NAS (as the MBPs don't have big hard drives). Took me hours to transfer them all, and they all worked previously. Now has an asterisk against all the songs and "cannot locate" message comes up. Happened loads of times on the old PC. Thought a mac would be better.

Can I add to the I don't like iTunes part. Use to like the simplicity of the original iTunes but really hate the constant updates and dislike the current version of iTunes.

@wrecker - would suggest you try and reformat some of them as an experiment. I've converted all of my mp3's, rightly or wrongly I see it as quite a dated format, could be someday it's unsupported.

OK, so I have used Ripit to rip a dvd.

Handbrake to convert the file to MP4.

How do I get in to iTunes?

Drag and drop has not worked or the add to library option.

could be someday it's unsupported by stupid proprietary software, but I'd expect no issues with the wealth of other media players out there.

FTFY

worked it out.

They are in iTunes.

Just under home movies not movies.

Sweet!!

Here is a good guide if you have an old Airport Express you want to include in a Mavericks based network.

http://coreyjmahler.com/2013/10/24/airport-utility-5-6-1-on-os-x-10-9-mavericks/

Downloaded this today and followed the instructions. Works a treat.

Thanks for that. Was going to bin mine!

You are very welcome.

You will be able to set it up and it will work as part of your network.

You will not be able to edit it with the Airport Utilities App although it will be visible. You will have to go back to this fix to change any settings in the future.

I have an airport express, and really don't know what it's capable of. It's currently plugged into a stereo for music streaming but I seem to have to use a wifi meaning that I can't connect to internetz when I'm streaming.
Can anyone recommend a guide for numpties please?

@Wrecker, I assume the HiFi is in a different room to the Mac?

@Wrecker - sounds like you've got it set up to provide a new wifi network, rather than extending an existing wifi one....? If so, head into Airport Utility and set it to extend your 'internet' wifi, then you should be able to send Airtunes to it whilst using just the one network.

@wrecker - I think you've set it up wrong (possibly as per @mattstreet above). You should be able to stream to AirPort Express as well as browse that there internet on your computer. The Airport should be setup to receive the house wifi, i.e. just with wifi network name and password, then your computer just sees it as another device, basically it's like being able to print wirelessly and browse the web

@Wrecker, I assume the HiFi is in a different room to the Mac?

@Wrecker - sounds like you've got it set up to provide a new wifi network, rather than extending an existing wifi one....? If so, head into Airport Utility and set it to extend your 'internet' wifi, then you should be able to send Airtunes to it whilst using just the one network.

Plex is worth adding, to house your library of err.. non iTunes movie files that you can't be bothered to convert. Streams to a Roku nicely too - the Sky Now box for 9.99 is a Roku, but I don't know if they've crippled it to stop you adding a Plex channel - could be a cheap way to add streaming to your house.

@wrecker - if you are bold you should do a reset (instructions on apple website, use a paper clip etc), start again from scratch with Airport Utility. "Plug it in" I believe there is no way to connect AirPort Express with a wire to your computer, it's all done via wireless. BTW I assume you have plugged the Airport into the mains 8)