Kitting up a Mac

Kitting out a Mac for a high school student:

The basic kit that comes with the Mac is fine, but to go finer, here’s what I’m adding:

Quicksilver: best for quick keyboard access to everything. If that didn’t work so well, Alfred but the productivity pack is a payer.

Finder is pretty good for everyday work, but to really lift the hood on the file system: Pathfinder.

Evernote, but with Alternote/Simplenote/ Notational Velocity as a front end…not sure which yet.

Itsycal: a calendar on the menu bar or Day-O/Fantastical

ihomework to keep track of the dredded

Kindle for Mac: for all those books you don’t want to carry

Dropbox: for files, along with a google account for

Google Docs

We’ll still need a quick local word job: Bean

For serious writing either Scrivener or Ulysses. I’m familiar with Scrivener, having it both on Mac and Windows machines, but Ulysses does look nice.

Skype, Adium, Chrome for communicating/web.

aText for text expansion
While we're on 'text', how about a plain 'ol text editor: Textwranger. There are others, but this is my favourite. 

Skim for PDF annotation, although watch out for the SourceForge malware/crapware.

VLC and Handbreak for media

EagleFiler for storing random stuff, DevonthinkPro Office for organized storing of stuff

Back up system: Crashplan has been well reviewed, but I’ll also look at: Backblaze, Carbonite…

The great void in the Mac world is for a cheap simple relational database system…not essential, but can be useful for collection and analysis of structured data…candidates are idatabase by Apimac, Kexi (an open source offering) or MySQL, but that’s complicated. Tap Forms? iList Data? Firebird?

GraphicConverter to convert graphics

Image editing. I’d like open source, but I can’t get past Photoshop Elements and Premier for hitting the price-performance sweet spot, but as it bloats, I may look elsewhere.

Audacity for sound processing (also Audio Hijack and Fission)

I’ve played around with a few search tools, as Spotlight is rather a blunt instrument; current favourite is Flashlight, but I used to use HoudaSpot, which was pretty good.

Hocus Focus to manage a screen full of windows.

Dictionary extension: Terminology

Stats package: Wizard standard, by Evan Miller

General maths; Mathematica (of course), student edition

Lastly, some hardware: a wireless scanner: Iriscan Book 3 Executive is just the ticket.

Ideally I’d like to have a tiny camera: lens linked by USB to the laptop. Useful for snapping the blackboard/whiteboard (if not smartboard).

Of course, some Bible software would be great too.

The new laptop

I've been hunting for a new laptop for some time now; I mean months (seriously, you could say years if you include 'vague aspiration' in 'hunting').

One stimulus to actually get one was my wife also looking; for a Macbook. She uses an iMac for her work and wants to also have a Macbook so she can work away from the office...or so she says. I think she just wants another piece of crisp Apple machinery.

So, I want to be more mobile too, and am tired of my limping old ex-office laptop, so old that it had a Y2K sticker on it. It is still reliable, but the batteries get tired easily, its too small (screen, RAM and HDD) and seems to have a faulty memory location, which always makes loading the media player (it runs XP) a non-starter.

That's the background.

So, I've been checking out JBL Hi-Fi, Dick Smith and Officeworks for the machine, with the occasional dip into other shops, and thought I'd started to get a handle on just what to look for.

When I got to buy-time, I saw in Dick Smith a Toshiba Satellite for a good price, ah, but they wanted  me to PIN on my debit card. No way. Officeworks doesn't have that inconvenient rule (no steal-able PIN for me) and they had, for, admittedly, a higher price, a demo machine with right RAM, right HDD, built in TV tuner (OK, but not essential, I'd have preferred built in DAB+ radio) and also a Toshiba Satellite. My experience with Toshiba, from laptops to giant power generators has been a good one.

That was the simple part. I noticed that the machine came with Windows 7 Home Premium; should be OK, I thought, as I didn't need the facilities that I'd imagine attached to the Professional version. Silly, me, coming from the world of Mac!!

One thing I'd wanted to run on my new commodious HDD was the good 'ol software I'd loved in the past (loved software! well, you know, familiar, nice functionality, and earned my living). Here's where it started getting fruuustraating.

My old software, so old, would probably require XPmode. Good, free download. Hop onto the superfast internet at work after hours and head to Microsoft. Problem 1. It all has to be downloaded to the target machine, not to a file then applied, which I had planned. Next problem, virtualisation didn't work on Home Premium. Rats. Now I've got to upgrade. And, of course another vendor has a similar machine on sale for a lower price, with Professional! Bigger Rats.

So, buy the anytime upgrade, and that kills the whole cost advantage exercise, and I'm starting to get really peaved at the user-viciousness of this game.

Anyway, that done, a close look at a few sites to learn about XPmode and virtualisation. Oh another hiccup. Does my machine provide hardware support for virtualisation?

I don't know!

Check the downloaded PDF manual from Toshiba. No help. Check the support website. It ain't an FAQ. So I can e-mail or phone. E-mail might do it. But no, I've got to supply serial number and model number in precise detail. Well, that's not convenient either. Machine is locked away in my office for the night, and I don't really want to haul it out and have busy-bodies drop in to see what's on. No, I'll phone. Hey, what a surprise, a computerised menu, just the thing to take the shine of the call.

Well, I won't bore you with the slight irrationality of a basically OK navigation system, but I ended up still needing to supply serial number and model number for a very simple "does it have hardware support for virtualisation?" and I'd have to pay! Ye gods, what is this world coming to? Manufacturers can't give you all the details of their gear, so you've got to pay to get it. Try that with your fridge..."how do I open the door"..."that'll be $5."

Now, all this is by far simpler in the world of Mac. Gee, maybe I should return the computer as not fit for purpose (fitness limitations not displayed at shop) and follow my wife to the Apple Shop (yes, I know they say 'store', but I don't).

But, no. I'll tell you why-Windows in another post.