[wynn]

Hi List,

I'm picking up a 15" tibook tomorrow (love the 17", but need one now), and was wondering if anyone could offer up some good links for osx tips. I'm mainly interested in poweruser tips - keyboard shortcuts, customization, and speed tweaking.

Thanks much,

Wynn

[wynn]

Also, if anyone can suggest some killer must have 'secondary' apps, that would be great. Here is my core list of apps I'll be installing:

Photoshop 7
Illustrator 10
Iview

Macromedia Suite:
- DW
- FW
- Flash
- Director

Now-Up-Date and Contact
Word
Excel

Mail - I'm going to give the built-in app a try.

Secondary apps that I'll need:
- ftp client
- fast image viewer (if there is one faster than iview)
- mp3 player (itunes?)
- cd/dvdr authoring software (not for dvd movies, but for storage/backup)
- compression - I'm assuming stuffit is the mac standard

Thanks!

[smeger]

I get most of my hardcore mac tip fix from http://www.macosxhints.com/ . There's some damned good stuff there. Macfixit used to be good about 4 years ago, but they seem to have turned into a "let's only talk about old-people apps" site.

Two utilities that I use and love are LaunchBar & DragThing. Both of these make me way more productive, and are probably my favorite OS X apps. Speaking of productivity, turning on the keychain menu is a good way of storing passwords quickly (search this forum for more info).

PathFinder is a nice replacement for the Finder, but I'm addicted to having lots of stuff on my desktop & to my library of desktop images, so I can't use it. If anyone knows a workaround for this, I'd love to hear it, by the way.

BBEdit is pretty vital if you're at all techy. NCFTP is a nice command-line FTP client - GUI alternatives are Transmit & Captain FTP. These are both nice, but I feel like the transfer is waiting for the GUI with both of them. For compression, there's not much need for anything beyond Stuffit & tar/gzip.

GraphicConverter is a fast, cheap, extremely powerful image viewer that includes rudimentary editing capabilities. It drives me nuts that it doesn't support transparent TIFFs, though.

OmniGraffle is way cool if you do any sort of structured drawing - flowcharts, diagrams, whatever. Beautiful program...

Finally, I'm digging pretty hard on Whamb for mp3 playback. I like it because I'm often doing things that use 100% of my CPU, where I'm just sitting around waiting for the task to finish. Whamb uses substantially less CPU than iTunes, so I don't sit around as long.

Oh, and Matlab, Matlab, Matlab, Matlab. But not everyone needs something like that.

That's it from me! Enjoy your new Smacintosh!

[Xeo]

Mail - I'm going to give the built-in app a try.

You'll like it. It's a good e-mail client.

- ftp client

There are quite a few. Check Version Tracker. Transmit is OK. I usually just use the command line client.

- mp3 player (itunes?)

Use iTunes. It takes up a little more CPU than others, but it's a good MP3 player. It's all I use.

- cd/dvdr authoring software (not for dvd movies, but for storage/backup)

There's the built in stuff (Disk Copy, the Finder, iTunes) or Toast. Most everyone at least has a copy of Toast.

- compression - I'm assuming stuffit is the mac standard

Stuffit Deluxe is the standard. SIT is getting less and less used (including the new SITX), but the Stuffit Suite does GZ, both compressing and uncompressing.

Use Version Tracker and/or MacUpdate often. You'll learn about all the new apps, and it's the one (or two) stop shop for all the Mac Software you'll ever need. If it exists, it's on one of those two sites (at least the info you need to purchase it, if it's commercial).

As for websites, you might want to frequent here and Mac OS X Hints. There are some nice books to get you started that can be found at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Search for Mac OS X. There are also online tutorials and such (you can find a good one over at Mac OS X Hints).

[Xeo]

I guess I can go on about apps that I use often that you didn't specifically ask about.

I think I've become a Safari convert.

WordLookup is nice if you have any need for English to and from any of a variety of other languages.

I use iChat for AIM, but Fire is nice as a multi-protocol chat client. I use it for MSN.

As stated above, BBEdit is almost essential if you want to do web coding of any kind.

EscapePod is useful if you get into a GUI jam. It can kill off the frontmost application to get you out of a tight spot. It's not needed often, but it's nice to have around.

If you plan to get into the command line, I suggest Fink. It's the easiest way to compile and install command line utilites under OS X. Along with this, you can install Apple's new X11 software to open up all those Linux GUI apps to your OS X world.

There are various other hacks and tweeks around to add functionality to OS X. Unsanity makes quite a few nice ones that add much of the old OS 9 features to OS X. They also make APE which many other people use to make enhancers to OS X software. My newest favorite is FullScreenSafari which takes care of cascading and window positioning bugs in Safari.

[Diggory Laycock]

Mac OS X Hints - It's the site that is most useful.

you can even search its hints from Sherlock.

click here to add a sherlock Mac OS X hints "Channel"

sherlock://sherlock.clan-mac.com/channels/macosxhints/SherlockChannel.xml?action=add


hey - are these smileys new?

[iamnotmad]

LaunchBar

[wynn]

hey list,

thanks for the (very) fast replies. i'm happy to report that i'm typing this on my tibook 15" 1ghz. so far, the experience has been great.

smeger, if you wrote a montly column, i'd read it

the speed of chimera makes me feel like i'm browsing on my pc. everything is very responsive.

thanks to all that recommended macosxhints and verstiontracker. i visit both sites several times a day.

launchbar, in the first two days, has been extremely useful. i have yet to try dragthing.

bbedit - forgot to add this to my initial post.

next on the list is installing fink and x11.

one quick question about the default mail program. does it have a spam filter that is on by default?

thanks again,

wynn

[wynn]

i'm loving the macosxhint on adding a shortcut to searching google!

here's how i have it setup:

cmd-l to highlight address bar in chimera
'g' + 'search term'

[pliny]

Originally posted by wynn:


one quick question about the default mail program. does it have a spam filter that is on by default?

wynn [/B]

yes and it learns form your email, if there's one thing about mail.app that makes me use it, it's this.

[wynn]

great, thanks for the reply.

i'm about to search the apple forums, but thought i'd ask here.

i have a question about checking multiple email accounts using Mail.

only two out of my four accounts are being checked automatically. if i manually check the account that wasn't checked, the mail works fine.

in the preferences, i have set each mail account to be "included when checking for new mail".

any help would be great. thanks!

[edddeduck]

For a IM application I would recommend Proteus. This supports all major protocols including .Mac

The latest version can be downloaded by clicking on the hyperlink above.

Cheers and welcome

Edwin

[[APi]TheMan]

the speed of chimera makes me feel like i'm browsing on my pc. everything is very responsive.

Whew, you should try Safari then. Chimera was all I used until Safari came out. But make sure you get the Safari Enhancer so you can enable the Debug menu (which allows you to edit security and user-agent options).

thanks to all that recommended macosxhints and verstiontracker. i visit both sites several times a day.

Man, you lucked out learning about VersionTracker... VersionTracker is my homepage, it along with MacNN forums are the ONLY two sites I visit...

bbedit - forgot to add this to my initial post.

next on the list is installing fink and x11.

I guess you do mean business, BBEdit is good stuff

Man, you sure are a power user if you're installing X11 and Fink. Way to go, you can get some serious stuff done (especially on a Ti 1ghz ) with those two. Make sure to install APPLE'S X11 (here), it's a lot quicker than the current Xfree86 release.

[moki]

http://www.MacOSXHints.com/ -- power user hints

http://www.versiontracker.com/ -- software

http://forums.macnn.com/ -- hints, banter, and bitchin'

http://www.macslash.com/ -- Mac OS news, /. style

http://www.macsurfer.com/ -- compendium of Mac news from around the web

http://forums.appleinsider.com/ -- rampant rumour mongering

http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/ -- games & utilities (obligatory plug )

[krove]

Originally posted by moki:
http://forums.macnn.com/ -- hints, banter, and bitchin'

True that!

[TheIceMan]

wynn: I'm not a power user, but I love sharewares that help to make my life/web surfing/ or work more productive.

Try these also:
1] WeatherPop
2] Snard
3] Deskshade Plus
4] Path Finder

These are the apps that I use and love. Try them out and see if you like them.

*WeatherPop is very nice. You'll never have to watch weather on TV again.
*Snard is a contextual menu (you can add apps & folders and in just 2-clicks, you'll have them).
*DeskShade Plus is wonderful for me because it covers up or hides the mess on your desktop in 1-click. It also has a "Lock Desktop" mode which locks the computer and prevents access. It can even keep a log of what passcodes intruders try to use.
*PathFinder. You might soon discover that OSX's finder is not adequate and PathFinder can serve as a great supplement to it or as its replacement.

Oh, here's your Keyboard Shortcuts

Good Luck and WELCOME!