Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install?

#1

Post by tronium » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 3:57 AM UTC

I just got a late 2011, 15-inch MacBook Pro from my older brother. I enjoy programming/developing a lot, so what apps should I get/install on the new system for developing and productivity?

Re: Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install?

#2

Post by jevinskie » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 4:02 AM UTC

Divvy lets you easily resize windows to a grid pattern. There may be similar free utilities but I found that it was worth the $14.

https://mizage.com/divvy/

If you are interested in binary objects/executables, check out MachOView. Think of it as an excellent GUI version of nm/readelf (for MachO, obviously) with search.

https://github.com/gdbinit/MachOView

Re: Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install?

#3

Post by karangoeluw » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 4:14 AM UTC

Some apps I use every day:

--------------------------

Homebrew - http://brew.sh/

Growl - http://growl.info/

Alfred - http://www.alfredapp.com/

Sublime Text - https://www.sublimetext.com

Transmission - http://www.transmissionbt.com/

Transmit - http://panic.com/transmit/

Evernote - http://www.evernote.com/

BetterTouchTool - http://blog.boastr.net/?page_id=1722

Dash - http://kapeli.com/dash

F.lux- https://justgetflux.com/

Re: Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install?

#4

Post by xauronx » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 4:18 AM UTC

I'm a fan of Sip, it lets you grab colors off the screen and generates code for you.

Re: Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install?

#5

Post by vincentbarr » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 4:20 AM UTC

These are my 'must-haves', or very close to it, and most of them are free or offer a free version.

Alfred 2 (search and a lot more)

aText (text expansion)

Adium (Chat)

Adapter (audio/video filetype conversion)

Caffeine (prevent display from dimming or sleeping)

Chrome (browser)

Colloquy (IRC client)

Dash (documentation and snippet browser)

Dashlane (password management)

Doubleplane (window resizing)

Dropbox (cloud storage)

Evernote (notes, bulky)

Firefox (browser)

F.lux (smart display brightness)

Handbrake (video transcoder)

Hazel (file/folder automation)

iTerm (terminal replacement)

Jumpcut (store and recall clipboard history)

MailMate (email)

Mou (markdown editor with live preview) Readkit (RSS reader)

Screenmailer (free, easy screencast creation and sharing)

Simplenote (notes, lean) Skype (calls)

Spark (hotkey)

Sublime Text Editor 3 (text editor)

TicToc (time tracking)

VLC (media player)

Re: Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install?

#6

Post by kibibu » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 5:15 AM UTC

jevinskie wrote: post #2

Divvy lets you easily resize windows to a grid pattern. There may be similar free utilities but I found that it was worth the $14. https://mizage.com/divvy/ If you are interested in binary objects/executables, check out MachOView. Think of it as an excellent GUI version of nm/readelf (for MachO, obviously) with search. https://github.com/gdbinit/MachOView

For window management, BetterTouchTool lets you do Win7 style window snapping.

Re: Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install?

#7

Post by Croaky » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 5:51 AM UTC

https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop will install Homebrew, Tmux, Silver Searcher, Postgres, Redis, a few programming languages, and other items.

https://github.com/thoughtbot/dotfiles sets up a bunch of slick aliases and plugins for Vim and ZSH to make development productive.

Re: Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install?

#8

Post by rgawdzik » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 6:03 AM UTC

The other recommendations are awesome.

For me, I like using a lot of desktop window management, however the Mission Control transitions are too slow for me, with the fact that are bulky and uncustomizable.

There is TotalSpaces2, which basically is similar to Ubuntu/etc spaces, but you can customize the transitions, hotkeys, locations, etc. Even though I don't have any transitions (so my switching is instant), you can have cube transitions, etc, very similar to Gnome. Downside to the program: $18, with a trial. If you miss proper desktop management, do it. Combined with Spectacle (A tiling window manager), I have functionality similar to XMonad, so I can use my mac effectively.

Re: Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install?

#9

Post by jmagnusson » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 6:57 AM UTC

Alfred App is an absolute essential in my book (especially custom web searches) http://www.sequelpro.com/

Sublime Text. Makes u feel like a magician. http://www.sublimetext.com/

Sequel Pro. Best db manager out there. Wish they just supported more than MySQL. http://www.sequelpro.com/

iTerm2. The built in terminal in OS X kind of sucks. http://www.iterm2.com/

Homebrew. The missing package manager for OS X. http://brew.sh/

Re: Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install?

#10

Post by surreal » Wed, Jun 11, 2014, 7:13 AM UTC

jmagnusson wrote: post #9

Alfred App is an absolute essential in my book (especially custom web searches) http://www.sequelpro.com/ Sublime Text. Makes u feel like a magician. http://www.sublimetext.com/ Sequel Pro. Best db manager out there. Wish they just supported more than MySQL. http://www.sequelpro.com/ iTerm2. The built in terminal in OS X kind of sucks. http://www.iterm2.com/ Homebrew. The missing package manager for OS X. http://brew…

( Typo, Sequel Pro's URL has been put for Alfred App. For convenience it's http://www.alfredapp.com )