Mac Book Pro Must-Haves

by algorithmist, posted in General

Haven’t decided whether it’s December or January, but there is a new Mac Book Pro in my immediate future.  Beyond the obvious Adobe packages I plan to install, not sure what other things I should consider, so I’m taking time to ask those exsiting MBP owners that work in this industry (programmers, that is) – what are the software packages you consider ‘must haves’ for this machine?

Thanks for your time and comments.

Advertisement

12 thoughts on “Mac Book Pro Must-Haves”

  1. For hardware, get a Logitech Bluetooth mouse — great battery life, and no extra dongle or USB adapter required. Also get the Apple DVI to Video adapter if you could see hooking your MBP up to a TV set (think presentation or impromptu DJing from your iTunes. :))

    Some software goodies include Lingon for managing system services and Smultron if you want a quick and dirty text editor that won’t save things as RTF behind your back.

    For communications, I use Colloquy (IRC), Adium (multi-service IM) and Twhirl (Twitter).

    There is also a rabid following for Quicksilver (google it, you’ll see what I mean) but that hasn’t clicked for me.

  2. Hey. I’m just a lowly MB (sans P) user, but for what it’s worth, here are my must-haves:

    Commercial:

    Little Snitch
    Charles Proxy
    Typinator

    Free:

    Eclipse
    MAMP
    MySQL GUI Tools
    iStat Pro
    Cyberduck
    Adium
    Fluid
    Handbrake
    iChm
    VLC

  3. FTP = Fetch
    Instant Messaging = Adium (iChat is still good, but I like Adium more)
    Subversion = Versions
    HTTP Traffic = Charles
    Alternative Web Browser = Firefox
    Twitter = Twhirl (or TweetDeck)

    …now, I cannot live without BeyondCompare for diffing code, so, you can either use CrossOver + BeyondCompare 2 or just install it under Windows for Parallels.

  7. My must have list includes

    PathFinder (Finder replacement)
    Adium (IM)
    Tweetdeck (Twitter client built on AIR)
    LittleSnitch (Application level Firewall)
    NetNewsWire (RSS Reader)
    TextMate (Ultimate text and coding app)
    FireFox (Who doesn’t need that 🙂 )
    1Password (Ultimate password manager and auto-filler)
    BetterZip (Great compression application)
    Cocktail (System maintenance and tweaker)
    CSSEdit (Best CSS application ever)
    DevonThink Pro (project, data, everything else dumper)
    OmniFocus (GTD at it’s finest)
    MarsEdit ( For blog posting)
    SuperDuper! (Disk clone application for when things go bad)

    Hope this helps,
    Peter.

  8. * Quicksilver : Must-have launcher
    * TextMate : Text editor
    * Eclipse : Hardcore code editor
    * NetNewsWire : RSS reader
    * Adium : The only IM client you need
    * Transmission : Bittorrent client
    * Cocktail : System maintenance utility
    * The Unarchiver : Archive unpacker program
    * MacPorts : All for your packages needs
    * Transmit : Regular FTP goodness
    * Perian : Open source quicktime component supporting AVI, DivX, FLV etc.

  10. Invest a little time in learning to use the terminal to manage files, subversion ssh and FTP, once you get your head around it the command line will empower you far beyond most other add-on apps. As a programmer it’s a beautiful feeling quickly performing complex tasks on a large number of files.

  11. LittleSnitch (always my first install)
    smcFanControl
    NewsFire
    TextMate
    WebKit
    MineField/Shiretoko
    xTorrent
    DropBox
    Google Notifier
    MenuCalendarClock
    Onyx
    Quicksilver
    Perian
    VisualHub
    Snippely

Comments are closed.