What applications do you recommend for new MacBook Pro?
Just converted to a MacBook Pro from a Dell. I’m a web designer so obviously need Adobe CS3, but what other apps would you recommend I download/buy to get started? (ftp, apache, RoR, anything useful etc.). Thanks for the input.
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well, depends on what you want to do, i got myself logic express, highly affordable package really, you could just check out apple’s pro app’s, for the rest it’s just finding out as you go along…
If you like to code I’ve heard that Coda (http://www.panic.com/coda/) is beyond brilliant. All I ever hear from the web developers I speak to who use Macs go on about is Coda haha. It costs about $99 but if you buy it soon it’s only $79. So make your mind up quick!
Textmate, CSS Edit, xScope, Transmit. I couldn’t live without them. A lot of other people like Coda but I can’t stand it (at least, for my usage). It’s trying to be too many things at once. Jack of all trades, master of none.
Stop using Dreamweaver for development, if you are. CSSEdit and Coda completely changed the way I do my work. Realtime, as you type, CSS previewing is the biggest efficiency boost I’ve ever discovered.
Oh, and although Coda ships with an onboard version of this app (they are both made by the same company), there is also the fantastic standalone Transmit. If you’re buying both Transmit and Coda, buy Transmit first because you can enter your serial number at the Coda checkout to get a discount.
You may also want to consider installing ruby, rails, etc. yourself.
iTerm, CocoaMySQL and Integrity can come in handy, too.
And of course, Firefox with wed dev toolbar and firebug.
One thing to note from the starting apache link richardhenry supplied is that since Leopard now uses Apache 2, it’s not in /etc/httpd but instead is in /etc/apache2 and a couple of other things from that article have changed.
A lot of people are saying MySQL but sqlite is already installed and the Ruby on Rails that ships with Mac OS X 10.5 uses it as default. Also if you do any developing in Python then version 2.5, which ships with Mac OS X 10.5, has sqlite3 support.
I use to use MySQL for development along with CocoaMySQL for graphical viewing but honestly I think sqlite is fine for just developing something in Django or Rails.
If you are a visual person then you should check out sqlitebrowser. It’s a bit clunky but it works fine—just don’t try to open a db file that is already in use.
As for me, I use Textmate, CSSEdit, Pixelmator, and Transmit. I’m also big in to version control and use SCPlugin for Subversion viewing in the Finder and also a textmate svn bundle.
Great answers guys, thanks for all the feedback. I got the majority of ones mentioned above and will no doubt get the rest soon.
These apps that you can get for Mac but not PC seem to be pretty useful. I will have fun using them. Cheers
For torrents
Vidalia-route tracker connections to get through firewalls
Transmission-lightweight
Vuze-supports encryption
Cyberduck for FTP
TextWrangler
AppZapper
CS4
Adium-IM
Camino, Firefox, Safari 4
Senuti-for getting music off iPods
Handbrake
VLC
QUICKSILVER- awesome app launcher
MAMP
KisMac
Disk Inventory X
Frostwire
Openoffice
Toast
and more I’m sure
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