Making the Switch + Doin’ the (RED) Thing
Over the weekend, I contacted the Apple Hotline Japan, and ordered myself a Mac Mini. The lovely English Language support guy was so kind to me on the telephone. It was an absolutely pleasant shopping experience.
- 2.0 GHz SuperDrive Mac Mini
- 2 Gb RAM + 160 Gb Hard Drive
- TV Video Adapter
- Wireless JIS Keyboard and Wireless Mighty Mouse
- 3 years of AppleCare (as something is bound to happen)
I was unsure about purchasing the Educational Release of MicroSoft Office for Mac or iWork, so I passed on it for the time being. Since many of my fellow Bactroidians are Apple users, I figured that I would place the following question on the table: which programs do you find most useful for your productivity and organizational needs?
I’ve checked out the downloads page at Apple.com and was floored by the assortment of freeware/shareware available. However, as a novice to Apple (the last time I seriously used a Mac, I was eleven years old and the screens just graduated from black and green to gray and black), I have no idea where to start. Any useful or recommended Mac user groups/online forums would also be appreciated. Hopefully, they will be gentle to me.
(PRODUCT) RED
I also decided it was high time to graduate from my G3 touch wheel 40 Gb iPod. I don’t use 4/5ths of the music that I have store on it (or my original iPod Shuffle). Though I have a very large music library, I need to start paring down, backing up and taking off music. Any suggestions on how to efficiently do it without burning a million CDs.
As much as I wanted to drop the money on the iTouch, I opted for the 8 Gb (PRODUCT) RED iPod Nano. I did this in part to my purse being heavy enough withmy wallet, mobile phone, electronic dictionary, Lumix digital camera, and Nintendo DS Lite taking up space. I swear, I carry more hardware in my purse than I do makeup.
Recently, my students finished up a lesson on World Peace, and what they can do to help change the world. Had I discovered (PRODUCT) RED sooner, I would have included it in my presentation. Naturally, U2’s Bono has a hand in this fantastic fundaraiser to help AIDs in Africa, and I really want to do my part. I really wish the closest GAP in Japan wasn’t in Kobe. I really want to get my hands on following the women’s items (all size M):
- Long sleeved INSPI(RED) T-shirt
- Short sleeved (2 WEEKS) T-shirt
- DESI(RED) Long sleeved T-shirt
- ENAMO(RED)/ADMI(RED) & INSPI(RED)/DESI(RED) Teeny Bikini Sets
Perhaps that’s what I should ask for Christmas, gifts that keep on giving. Not that I need more clothes, but some of my t-shirts are looking a little ragged after five years (or more) or wear and tear. Perhaps, I’ll drop Santa a letter…
November 27th, 2007 at 6:47 am
Here’s a bunch of stuff I can’t live without. Some is pretty self-evident, but I figured what the hell.
iTunes. I couldn’t live without smart playlists and podcasts. Both have affected my life way positively.
Safari. I go back and forth between Safari and Firefox as the new releases leapfrog each other. Right now, Safari is faster. However, Firefox 3.0 clears up a lot of memory bugs, so it may somehow beat Safari. Either one is a decent browser though.
Mail. Be sure to use Apple’s Mail program (or a web-based client like GMail). Programs like Firefox or Microsoft Entourage keep all of your mail in one big file. Now, normally this isn’t that big of a deal, but OS X causes two decent sized problems with such files. First, you can’t use Spotlight to search out individual messages this way. Second, with Time Machine automatic backups, you’ll end up backing up that whole big file every time you get a new email. This will cause your backup drive to fill up too fast.
Adium X. iChat works fine, but Adium allows me to sign in to every single one of my accounts — Yahoo, Google Talk, AOL IM, MSN — at the same time. It’s no longer important to me what service someone is contacting me from since they all show up in the same window.
Handbrake. Want to rip your DVDs so that you can watch episodes of your favorite shows on your video iPod (or in my case, PSP)? This program makes is simple. Just put in the DVD, select your DVD drive, and pick a preset for the device you want to use. It will spit out a video file that will play on it. This is how I watch Smallville.
Weatherpop. This cool little program does one simple thing very well. It displays the weather in your menu bar up by the clock. It does either metric or Fahrenheit, and it has most world cities. I loved it so much that I actually sent them a few bucks to unlock the full version even though the shareware version did everything I need.
You should be able to find all of these with a Google search. If I think of anything else, I’ll email you. A lot of my favorite programs became sort of irrelevant when I switched to Leopard.
November 27th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Haskewl, you rock! Thank you so much for your fast and informative feedback. Do you still use Open Office in lieu of MS Office or do you now use iWork? I was planning on using mail and continue using my G-mail account.
Mmm… Smallville. I love me some Clark Kent and Sexy Lex Luthor (I am so torn. I’ve only seen through season 2 as they aren’t coming out in Japan fast enough, and I’m trying to resist dropping the money to buy seasons 3-6 (since I have enough junk in my apartment as it is).
I’m really excited about the whole Spaces concept, since I often multi-task and it can be quite a strain on my desktop organization.
I was considering (if its possible) creating separate user IDs for work and play stuff. Perhaps its the neat freak in me… I don’t know.
p.s. How is the PSP? They’ve just released a pastel series and I am desperately trying to avoid caving to the pressure of the sexy Sony hardware.