Comments on: Every tribe has its talismans – on buying a MacBook Pro

By: Roo

Roo — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:37:56 +0000

A big thank you to everyone who provided me with some handy hints on becoming a new MacBook Pro user. Frank’s tip about fixing the Home and End keys using KeyFixer (and KeyFixer for Firefox) has really helped [more...]

By: Naquada

Naquada — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:16:30 +0000

welcome to the clan.. I’m hoping one day to become grand imperial mac poohbar, My collection already contains 2 mac mini’s, a 24 inch imac, a macbook, a dual processor PPC G5, a PPC G3 (which thinks its a G4) a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th gen ipod, an old ipod shuff;le, a new ipod shuffle, an iPhone and a PPC G3.. with all of those, just the feel, usability and ease has convinced me that windows just isnt for me..

The UI is also surprising me with nice twists and tweaks.

I hate going back to the thinkpad or any windows machine with a track pad that doesnt allow me to put two fingers on the trackpad get extra functionality.

laying two fingers on the trackpad and clicking gives you a right click..

sliding two fingers on the trackpad gives you scrolling up and down (or left right)

sliding two fingers on the track pad whilst holding down CNTRL zooms the screen

Apps wise I’d recommend ECTO for blogging, VisualHub for video conversion. Handbrake for DVD extraction, and MacTheRipper for protected DVD’s

.Mac is good if you have many macs that you want to keep in sync with keychanges, bookmarks in safari, address and calender syncing with other macs

AppFresh (as suggested by Andy Piper) is a great application to check all your applications and keep them up to date

AdiumX for instant messaging and SuperDuper or DejaVu for backups, and of course titanium toast for DVD and CD burning (unless you try and run the latest copy on leopard in which case you can call it titanium coaster..)

welcome to the light side :)

By: Roo

Roo — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:23:41 +0000

Thanks everyone. Some great tips and pointers here. I have lots of fiddling to do, and I’ll be sure to share what works for me.

By: hugh

hugh — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 02:49:04 +0000

some other good little aps:
-jumpcut
-grandperspective
-handbrake
-igtd

By: kyb

kyb — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 11:02:50 +0000

“Every tribe has its talismans”. What a great phrase I thought, so I asked google who else has used it. Google couldn’t find any. Good coin.

By: Frank Jania

Frank Jania — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 03:09:15 +0000

Thanks for starting the Mac keyboard navigation thread here ;-) My only addition (I've gotten many take aways) is that there is a way to map the 'home' and 'end' keys to work properly here.

By: cezary

cezary — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:24:53 +0000

[⌥] + [⇥] (and [⌥] + [⇧] + [⇥]) to navigate a webpage with keyboard in Safari
[⌘] + [~] (and [⌘] + [⇧] + [~]) to move between opened instances of one program.
[⌘] + [⇧] + [3] (and [⌘] + [⇧] + [4]) as a “print screen and save to the desktop” function
[⌘] + [H] always to minimize and almost never “+” and “-” characters in the top left corner. Never [⌘] + [M]
[⌘] + [W] (and [⌘] + [Q]) as Window’s [Alt] + [F4]
[↩] on a file as [F2] in Windows – name change
[⌘] + [O] on a file as [↩] in Windows – opening
[⌘] + [L] in any browser goes to the location bar
[⌘] + [T] new tab where applicable and possible
[ctrl] + [⌘] + [D] opens a small dictionary window explaining the word that is under the cursor
TextExpander “to “write for me”. It can be set to subsitute some strings with other ones as you type.

By: John Scott

John Scott — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:37:25 +0000

System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts

^F1 will toggle Full keyboard access allowing you to Tab through options using space to confirm. Return will always select the blue button regardless of tabbing.

In other news, I’ll have to remember to carry a bib around with my MacBook Air when I get it :o)

By: Andy Piper

Andy Piper — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:49:08 +0000

Al turned me on to TextMate, and it does rock, although I recommend that you pick up the box to get the most out of it (and I’ve barely scratched the surface).

As for other useful apps, you may like VisualHub for converting video formats; Adium for cross-IM-platform IMing; AppFresh; ecto for blogging; there’s a Mac Plazer (if you still use Plazes?); iShowU is a nice alternative to SnapzProX; OmniGraffle is a fantastic Visio alternative / diagramming tool; Skitch for screenshots; iScrobbler for Last.FM … and there are various others. We can compare notes next time you’re in the office :-)

By: James McCarthy

James McCarthy — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:27:47 +0000

And despite the macness of Parallels VMware Fusion is pretty essential for those windows / linux emergencies.

Although a little behind realtime Twitterific just nestles there keeping you in the loop. Adium does a lovely job of merging all your IM and Colloquy gets you IRC.

For xAMP try MAMP!

Cheers,
James