switching to a Mac...

[kisstheviolets]

After years of saying I was going to do it, today I bought my first Mac computer :)
It is a 17" MacBook Pro, whom I've named Space Dog

Comments

[vaysha]

we don't use a virus program we just run our disk utility which repairs permissions after every update. itunes for listening to music, we just use stuff it expander for expanding/opening files which comes with the computer for and VLC opens just about every movie we have ever download and I like the sound quality best. We use transmission as well and there is another program my husband likes called frostwire.

Enjoy!
We love our macs.

[foxgloved]

Hooray for macs! I am sure you'll love it. Macs are so easy & pleasing to the eye, and they work soooo much better than any windows computer.

I have a macbook pro, and I use all the same programs as the above commenter. I don't have a virus scan - viruses for macs are not really a big problem, nor is spyware or adware. I've never heard of a mac being infected by a virus - no one's really bothered with writing mac viruses yet, and it helps that macs ask for your password before installing anything, which protects against things getting installed without your knowing.

I use transmission for downloading torrents, stuffit for unzipping, whatever DVD program is already there. The only software I bought was pages, the mac version of MS Word. I had MS Office on my old mac, but for my purposes (writing papers) pages is just as useful and a lot cheaper. You can use pages to save files as .doc, which allows you to open them on any computer.

[megancrewe]

Yay Macs! :D

Fortunately many of the free programs that come with the Mac OS are great. I've never needed to use any music player other than iTunes (which is also great for ripping CDs and converting files between certain formats), and Preview is my default pdf viewer. The Mail program is also quite good. I use MS Office, VLC, and Toast regularly, so good choices there. My preferred browser on the Mac is Firefox, though my husband prefers Chrome, so you might give both a try. For torrents, we both use Vuze. The best unzipping/compressing program for Mac is StuffIt, which can handle pretty much everything.

Enjoy your new computer!

[megancrewe]

Oh, and I agree with the above commenters that you don't need any anti-virus software. I've been using Macs (via my dad, and then my own) for 25 years and have never seen one get a virus. One of the benefits!

[kisstheviolets]

Thankyou so much! Which version of Stuffit do you use - just the free Expander version?

[megancrewe]

Expander is all you need for uncompressing things--if I recall correctly you need the full version to compress your own files.

[briarspell]

I <3 My Mac desperately so I'm glad you got one! My favorite site for software is - http://opensourcemac.org - they list the best of the best of everything and have never steered me wrong. It's also really pretty and well organized you can quickly see what you need! They get an A+ from me :). iTunes is definitely the best for music, I can't even remember what I did without it. Also, I don't have an anti-virus program, I've never *knock on wood* needed one. I recommend just running the disk utility feature every so often and that should do the trick. Have fun with your new computer!!

[robertlyon]

If you want to run certain windows programs while still in mac and not booting from a hard drive partition, get Parallels Desktop.