Recently won a 13" MD761X/A Macbook Air...

[MI21]

...and haven't used an Apple computer since college (5 years ago)

I want to keep it because the form factor, SSD and battery is amazing and I'm doing a lot of travelling over the next 12-18 months so it will be great for that. It seems very snappy with the Gen4 i5 as well.

Can someone give me some tips on any programs/apps I should be using?

Do I still use VLC for all media requirements, Chrome for browsing? Is Word best to get or is there a better or free office suite? What are some of the cool things I may not be realising after using Windows most of my life (still will be).

I'm thinking ElNono might be of help here!

[leemajors]

VLC works great on OSX, so does Chrome. iWork is free for Mavericks so you may want to check it out, but Office is still the best.

[ElNono]

leemajors is spot on.

Another alternative to Office is LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org/) (free) for Mac. Not quite the real thing, but if you don't do a lot of advanced stuff, it works well and will open and save office-compatible documents.

After that, make sure to check out the built-in App store. There's a lot of free apps there, depending on what you need to do.

Other than that, a lot of the stuff is built in. To get your email/facebook/twitter within the OS, just head to System Preferences -> Internet Accounts and set everything up there.

Photo Boot is also pretty cool to toy with if you're going to be doing pictures/videos. If you have an iPhone too, you can link up your iTunes account in the iCloud preferences, and you then can send/receive iMessages from the Macbook.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[MI21]

Thank you sir.

Any other bits and pieces you can recommend? I have scoured the internet, but there is just to much information, I would rather take recommendations from the fkn wnkers on Spurstalk, tbh.

[MI21]

leemajors is spot on.

Another alternative to Office is LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org/) (free) for Mac. Not quite the real thing, but if you don't do a lot of advanced stuff, it works well and will open and save office-compatible documents.

After that, make sure to check out the built-in App store. There's a lot of free apps there, depending on what you need to do.

Other than that, a lot of the stuff is built in. To get your email/facebook/twitter within the OS, just head to System Preferences -> Internet Accounts and set everything up there.

Photo Boot is also pretty cool to toy with if you're going to be doing pictures/videos. If you have an iPhone too, you can link up your iTunes account in the iCloud preferences, and you then can send/receive iMessages from the Macbook.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks mate.

I think I just feel a bit foreign until I learn all the keyboard shortcuts and get used to the different (lack of) task bar along the bottom of the screen. I find it hard not having little preview tabs of what is open and what not. I quite like the machine tbh, just growing pains I think :cry

[MI21]

leemajors ElNono

Best program for extracting? Ideally with a queueing feature?

[ElNono]

Thanks mate.

I think I just feel a bit foreign until I learn all the keyboard shortcuts and get used to the different (lack of) task bar along the bottom of the screen. I find it hard not having little preview tabs of what is open and what not. I quite like the machine tbh, just growing pains I think :cry

You can have the Dock at the bottom always enabled (System Preferences->Dock, uncheck "Automatically Hide the Dock"). You can also right-click on the icon of a open app in the dock, and you'll get a list of open windows (with their title, so you can just select it).

But better yet, hit F9 to bring up Exposé. That shows you all your open windows everywhere, and you can select the one you want.


leemajors ElNono

Best program for extracting? Ideally with a queueing feature?

You mean to extract archives? I use "The Unarchiver", free from the App Store.

[MI21]

You can have the Dock at the bottom always enabled (System Preferences->Dock, uncheck "Automatically Hide the Dock"). You can also right-click on the icon of a open app in the dock, and you'll get a list of open windows (with their title, so you can just select it).

But better yet, hit F9 to bring up Exposé. That shows you all your open windows everywhere, and you can select the one you want.



You mean to extract archives? I use "The Unarchiver", free from the App Store.

Ah, yes, f3 brought up Expose.. that helps, I remember that now from years ago. Yep, for extracting all legally downloaded materials, I'll try that one.

Thanks mate.

[ElNono]

BTW, seeing you have a Macbook Air, take a bit of time learning the trackpad gestures. They're a major time saver once you're used to them:

http://www.danrodney.com/mac/multitouch.html

[MI21]

Great, will check it out.

[leemajors]

My only mac atm is my work machine, so I keep it pretty vanilla - I wfh and my PC is right next to it.. I may scoop up an air in the next year or two tho so I'll save this thread.

[DarrinS]

I'm jealous -- very nice laptop. You won't be disappointed.

[vy65]

leemajors is spot on.

Another alternative to Office is LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org/) (free) for Mac. Not quite the real thing, but if you don't do a lot of advanced stuff, it works well and will open and save office-compatible documents.

Does LibreOffice save word files as either .doc or .docx? Apologies if that's answered on their website, but I couldn't find anything.

[DarrinS]

Does LibreOffice save word files as either .doc or .docx? Apologies if that's answered on their website, but I couldn't find anything.

IIRC, you can. I'll check when I get home.

[MI21]

Quite enjoying the laptop, has now become my around the house laptop that I use for little bit of everything allowing me to leave my very expensive Asus laptop as a makeshift desktop, tbh.

[ElNono]

Does LibreOffice save word files as either .doc or .docx? Apologies if that's answered on their website, but I couldn't find anything.

Yes on both...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice#Supported_file_formats