I Took the Plunge – Mac Friends Don’t Fail Me Now …

For sure take a look at Growl--very useful app that posts notifications from a variety of Mac programs.

I also like the Chax plugin for iChat.

Finally, I just downloaded and started to use a great program called Butler. It offers lots of useful hotkey and menu bar customization features. Very useful.

Jason

1) Post PhotoBooth pictures to flickr ;)

2) Download:

- Quicksilver
- Adium (IM Client)
- Flock (Kewl browser)
- DeerPark (Intel-Optimized version of FireFox)
- Cyberduck (FTP Client)
- CoreDuoTemp (to keep from frying your lap)
- Ecto (for blog postings)
- Growl
- iStumlber (for finding open Wi-Fi access points)
- Soundflower & soundflowerbed (for podcast recording)
- TextWrangler (free text editor)
- BlogTorrent (BitTorrent client)
- Combine PDFs (does what it says)
- Ejector (unmounts disk volumes from the menu bar)
- OS X versions of Skype, Gizmo, etc.
- GimpShop (for occassional image editing)
- iBackup (for iBacking up...)
- Handbrake and Handbrake Lite (for backing up DVD's to your hard drive or video iPod)
- VideoLan Client
- ProcessWizard (for monitoring and killing system processes easily)
- ClamXav (GUI for CLAM anti-virus)
- Nvu (for wysiwyg HTML editing)

3) Buy:

- iWork '06 (for Keynote)
- Toast 7
- Audio HiJack Pro (for podcast recording)
- Microsoft Office (duh)
- ffmpegx (for converting and transcoding video, cheap)

If I think of anything else, I'll post again.

-jf.

I find Transmit is a better FTP program. I hope you'll enjoy your MacBook Pro!!

Welcome to the club, from one "switcher" to another. Federico came pretty close to nailing it, though I prefer Transmit for FTP. Funny, John and I seem to use mostly the same apps. Definately try Quicksilver, an amazingly powerful and useful utility that is difficult to explain and impossible to live without once you've gotten used to it. Also, don't forget Macsaber - you can impress your friends and neighbors.

Paul,

My suggestions:

AppZapper [cool application uninstaller]
http://appzapper.com/

MP3 Trimmer [edit mp3 files and save without re-encoding]
http://www.deepniner.net/mp3trimmer/

NewsMac Pro [best Mac RSS client in my opinion]
http://www.thinkmac.co.uk/newsmacpro/

Omni Outliner Pro [must have outliner]
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutli...

SnapZ Pro [screen captures, stills or RT video of applications in action]
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/

Yummy Ftp [Cool FTP client]
http://www.yummysoftware.com/

Feeder [create proprietary RSS Feeds]
http://reinventedsoftware.com/feeder/

Mac NotePad [I have this running all day long - use it to log and save notes]
http://www.apimac.com/notepad/

In case you need some audio apps. and utilities:

Bias Peak Pro 5 [edit and record professionally]
http://www.bias-inc.com/products/peakPro5/

SoundConverter [audio file format converter]
http://www.dekorte.com/projects/shareware/Sound...

AudioLeak [monitor audio RMS values]
http://www.channld.com/dwnldpg.html

-ptfigg. ny.

Wire Tap Pro (Record any audio including skype)
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wiretap/

Welcome to the club. Membership dues are $20 a year. Feel free to make the check out to James Harris.

All the best.

- James

Congrats on your purchase Paul!

Head on over to www.screencastsonline.com and subscribe to get a weekly mac based video tutorial podcast via iTunes. I cover all sorts of mac related subject matter including apps and utilities.

Heck, if you're feeling flush you could even take out a ScreenCastsOnline Extra membership for $25 for 6 months and get each weeks episode in HD. They'll play really nice on your macbook pro!

Don
ScreenCastsOnline