Taken The Plunge - Bought A Mac!

Well, after years of being a PC owner, I've finally caved and bought a Mac! I guess that OS X look is just too powerful a fix I am now the proud owner of a 800MHz iBook, and it puts any laptop I've ever owned to shame. It's a thing of beauty.

But my real problem is I've never owned a Mac and from years of using PCs, I know there is a ton of programs and utilities I'd recommend to any new PC-owning friend to download and install before stepping foot on his Windows journey. I'm not talking about bug-fixes and whatnot but great apps like GetRight, ZoneAlarm, WinAce, DivX, TestPad, FileZilla, OpenOffice.org and the list goes on.

I know it's a bit vague, but what would you recommend downloading and what does it do? What makes your life easier or is simply cool? And, is there a WindowShade app for OS X?! Why did they get rid of what I always felt was one of the best things about the old OS?

Your thoughts would be much appreciated,

Gareth (feeling like a toddler again!)

#39834

excellent! (Y) I have the exact machine as you. I will strongly recommend to max out the RAM. Unix-based systems (particularly OS X) greatly benefit from it.

Here's a thread I started to help switchers settle into OS X: http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/index.php?s...?showtopic=2650

By the way, there is a windowshade app called WindowShadeX...

#39836

Originally posted by GarethRamsay@Jul 12 2003, 11:12 AM

I'm not talking about bug-fixes and whatnot but great apps like GetRight, ZoneAlarm, WinAce, DivX, TestPad, FileZilla, OpenOffice.org and the list goes on.

Forget about zonealarm, the mac osx cant be safer.

welcome to the club mayn. :bow: and congratulations. :rock:

btw, taha's thread about getting to know the mac is amazingly helpful.

#39839

Excellent, I'll have a read and get downloading that WindowsShade app. The machine came with 640Mb - 128Mb just seems unthinkable.

Thanks Taha

#39840

No Firewall needed then? Does it have one built in?

#39841

Originally posted by GarethRamsay@Jul 12 2003, 03:23 PM

No Firewall needed then? Does it have one built in?

Go to the Sharing section in System Preferences.

Under the Firewall tab, you can enable and disable the different firewalls.

Oh, and for watching movies, get VLC and MPlayer.

#39845

great firewall and OS X comes with a server.. *sigh* :cry:

#39849

Yeah, OSX comes with IPtables (the unix firewall). Its the best out there. I suggest you read up on it though, its not very easy to configure (all text based), and the default config sucks. It wont protect you from nutin.

But I bet theres GUI out there for OSX, check versiontracker.

And there is a version of OpenOffice for the Mac. just go to openoffice.org . I believe you need X11 installed, im not sure though.

Goku: You can always grab the Windows port of Apache, for free.

#39863

well, there are various options for the firewall. You can configure it for afp, smb, http, ftp, printer sharing and others. Its very configurable.

#39873

That only makes it less protected. Theres no IP blocking,etc on the OSX GUI.

This is a suppose to be a very good GUI:

http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/9103

#39874

www.unsanity.com <- best mac haxxies, got the windows shade you wanted, also since your on an ibook, maybe try shadow killer or remove the shadows in windowsshade x, helps ALOT!

#39875

wow, that is soooo um.. detailed.

So many options. But its really simple to setup.

Nevertheless, I don't think so much security is required. I mean, personally I don't have ANY firewalls enabled, and I haven't had any problems.

#39876

Yeah, unless you are on a big LAN or have broadband, no need for a firewall.

But if you are one to leave your computer on all the time w/ Broadband (which I guess you wont do on a laptop), then a firewall is really necessary. Especially if you have a static IP.

#39878

well, I have broadband and I leave it on all the time without any firewall, and haven't had any trouble yet.

But I don't have a static IP..

#39892