[AlanY]

Quote:

Originally Posted by downingp What is the best program to use to backup to an external drive?

This guy did an exhaustive test of all the various backup apps:
http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/...tware-harmful/
Basically, SuperDuper! is the best. It gets absolutely everything, can produce bootable backups, and is easy to use. It's also free in its base version, which is great, though there is a fee if you want the version with advanced features. (Surprisingly, the expensive commercial software package EMC / Dantz Retrospect didn't do very well.)

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlanY This guy did an exhaustive test of all the various backup apps: http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/...tware-harmful/ Basically, SuperDuper! is the best. It gets absolutely everything, can produce bootable backups, and is easy to use. It's also free in its base version, which is great, though there is a fee if you want the version with advanced features. (Surprisingly, the expensive commercial software package EMC / Dantz Retrospect didn't do very well.)

For imaging, acronis true image is what you want.

 

[majid]

Quote:

Originally Posted by downingp What is the best program to use to backup to an external drive?

I use LaCie's freeware SilverKeeper for incremental backups.

 

[JaGWiRE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by majid I use LaCie's freeware SilverKeeper for incremental backups.

Does acronist rue image work for mac os x is what I want to know.

 

[sisenor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lando Two more essential applications: Butler, an excellent application launcher. Windows Media Components for Quicktime, which allow Quicktime to play most videos that have been foolishly encoded in windows media format. If you need anything else, look here first.

Nice ( WMV in quicktime)..now I can say I have no microsoft %&^* on my computer!

downingp: Good choice! I've had my 12" PowerBook for 2.5 years and I'm still in love with it. Here's a couple of my favs:

-mailappetizer http://www.bronsonbeta.com/mailappetizer/
Any incoming mail (if you use Apple's mail app which is pretty dank by the way, pop) is displayed on a transparent window on top of whatever you're doing.

-check off http://www.carpeaqua.com/software/checkoff/
It's like a to-do checkoff list in your menu bar..very handy

Have fun

 

[downingp]

Will most of the programs listed work with the new intel chips?

 

[kugino]

nice purchase! good luck with it.

AlanY has given a lot of good tips/suggestions for software...i'll throw in a few as well...i'm particular to freeware/open source stuff, so most of my recommendations will be free stuff, although a few shareware items will be listed...

- OmniOutliner comes bundled with your mac so be sure to use it...
- OmniGraffle may be the best mac software, period (and i'm not prone to hyperbole)...
- Handbrake for converting DVDs to h.264 or mpeg4 files...
- iSquint for converting many video file types to mp4
- Vienna for RSS/Atom viewing
- DropCopy for easy transferring of files between networked macs...
- MenuMeters for monitoring your computer's memory/CPU/network usage
- Fugu for SFTP
- VLC, which plays most video formats out there. you will need this to play any WMV files since flip4mac is not a universal binary yet.
- TinkerTool and Onyx to customize many of your mac's settings
- Transmission for torrents
- Quicksilver, my most-used app. JUST GET IT...YOU'LL NEED IT!

for backing up, i use two older apps which still run perfectly fine on the intel macs. Carbon Copy Cloner and PSyncX...both can make bootable clones of your hard drive...

apps that don't yet run on intel macs, but which i'm waiting for:

- alsoft's Diskwarrior - the best disk utility for the mac
- flip4mac - they really need to get this out already

use either Versiontracker or Macupdate to get all of the above apps. and good luck! i hope you maxed out your RAM, because that's the single most important thing to get your mac running its best...

 

[Uncle Erik]

Welcome to the Cult.

After your iMac makes contact with the Mother Ship, a Cult Member will come by to teach you the secret handshake and give you a black turtleneck and a pair of jeans.

I joined the Cult about 18 years ago and am still in the fold. Well, some penguins dragged me off to another cult about four years back, but the two co-exist nicely.

Now that you have a Mac, understand that it is a lifelong bond and that you are probably not going to get rid of it. Eventually, it will become a second system. Later, it will be stored out of your fondness for it. This will result in a collection of Macs. Do not worry. This is normal. It is perfectly OK to have more than one Mac.

Also, there was a time before OS X. Those were good years. If you want to join the ranks of the hardcore, go get yourself a SE/30 and run System 6.0.8 on it. The System 6 True Believer is a special subset of the Cult. I keep System 6 alive on both a SE/30 and a Mac IIfx. I am of the strong opinion that all Cult Members should own at least one all-in-one Mac.

Be sure to put the Apple sticker that comes with the iMac on your car. It will help Cult members identify you.

Again, welcome.

 

[AlanY]

Some people get cultish, but you don't have to be that way. Operating systems are a means to an end.

I'm pretty platform neutral (my desktop is a Mac mini and my laptop is still a Windows machine, but I plan to get a Macbook eventually) but I generally feel more productive on a Mac for specific reasons that have little to do with emotion or technology politics or any of that. Some of the specific reasons why I find Macs productive are:
- OmniOutliner
- iLife
- OmniGraffle
- Spotlight integrated searching
- consistent user interfaces across applications
- applications work together
- sense that the system has an overall coherent design, is well thought out
- ability to switch entire display to greyscale
- clipping services
- virtual desktops with polish and tangible transitions
- superior text rendering on CRTs
- PDF workflow, PDF speed
- sense of physicality (Expose, Finder)
- multiple ways to automate tasks, friendly and consistent app scripting
- helpful community
- very active developer base
- occasionally, availability of Unix software (e.g. I use mmv)
- Cron
- stability, lack of need to mess with system maintenance tools
- speed.

And last, there's an intangible fun factor with Macs. Maybe fun is the wrong word, but it's the same type of feeling you get when you use a fine pen or wear a tailored suit. I would never bash Bic pens or Wal-Mart suits (trust me, I'm a penny pincher), but it's nice to use a product that seems to be purposefully thought out, have sense of design behind it, and feel like it was put together with a bit of care. IBM ThinkPads are the same way, physically, but the OS lacks an equivalent level of polish.

 

[MN Ham Phones]

The Dock.
You will either hate it or love it.
I'm in the former class and use other means to communicate with my Mac.

You may want to install Fruit Menu so you can have an old fashioned Apple menu to launch things from. It's old school.

 

[kugino]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik Welcome to the Cult. After your iMac makes contact with the Mother Ship, a Cult Member will come by to teach you the secret handshake and give you a black turtleneck and a pair of jeans. I joined the Cult about 18 years ago and am still in the fold. Well, some penguins dragged me off to another cult about four years back, but the two co-exist nicely. Now that you have a Mac, understand that it is a lifelong bond and that you are probably not going to get rid of it. Eventually, it will become a second system. Later, it will be stored out of your fondness for it. This will result in a collection of Macs. Do not worry. This is normal. It is perfectly OK to have more than one Mac. Also, there was a time before OS X. Those were good years. If you want to join the ranks of the hardcore, go get yourself a SE/30 and run System 6.0.8 on it. The System 6 True Believer is a special subset of the Cult. I keep System 6 alive on both a SE/30 and a Mac IIfx. I am of the strong opinion that all Cult Members should own at least one all-in-one Mac. Be sure to put the Apple sticker that comes with the iMac on your car. It will help Cult members identify you. Again, welcome.

well put, uncle erik...and it's true about the macs starting to pile up. my wife and i have three macs in our home for the two of us and we've sold a couple the last few years as well. my parents have an se/30 stored away somewhere in one of their closets, so i'll try and dig it out and see what i can do with it...

 

[kugino]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MN Ham Phones The Dock. You will either hate it or love it. I'm in the latter class and use other means to communicate with my Mac. You may want to install Fruit Menu so you can have an old fashioned Apple menu to launch things from. It's old school.

i think the dock is fun to use at first...but then it becomes a hindrance. i remove everything in the dock and hide it, only using it to see what apps are open. i also moved it to the top, so it appears only when the cursor is right below the menu bar...

Quicksilver is a wonderful application launcher (among its many uses)...and the relatively new Piquant Menu looks interesting...

 

[Traumamc]

Congrats and welcome to the family. Once you step into the light you never go back

 

[MN Ham Phones]

I've been using Drop Drawers for years, since OS 8.
It's a pallet style launcher.
Slam the cursor to one edge to get clickable list of open apps.
Keep bottom edge full of pallets sorted by type of function. Folders, apps, utilities, etc. Click mouse wheel to hide/show these pallets. I also use QuicKeys and keyboard with programmable buttons in addition to standard Fx function keys.

It works for me, so I've never seriously tried Quicksilver. But Quicksilver has many rabid fans.

 

[Aman]

Actually, flip4mac CAN be used on QuickTime if you choose to run QuickTime under rosetta. There are lots of tutorials to do this with a simple google search. It's not a tricky process at all.

VLC currently doesn't play WMV3 video, but I use it for everything else. It's definitely the optimal video program for OSX.