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

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

#11

Post by hashtag »

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

I tried them in the past and the custom key bindings never worked. This was a dealbreaker for me. Did they ever fix this?

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

#13

Post by shawnreilly »

Lately I've become a fan of isolating multiple environments. This way I can run different IDE environments on the same machine without conflicts or dependency problems. There are quite a few ways you could do this, ranging from entire VM's (something like virtualbox), to VM containers (something like docker), to language specific isolated environments (something like virtualenv for python or rvm for ruby), to prebuilt environments (something like bitnami). Each one has different pro's and con's (too heavy, too complex, etc) but the general idea is the same; Having the ability to build multiple isolated environments makes it easier for me to maintain those environments. It also gives me the flexibility to test different environment variables with some sort of fallback if something goes wrong. So it's something I would recommend, but YMMV. Another recommendation I would make (not software, but still a must IMO) is to install an SSD and max out the RAM. Feels like a whole new machine! Good luck and have fun.

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

#15

Post by saddestcatever »

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

I second Divvy. I felt silly spending $14 on something that should be packaged into OSX, but it's a feature you need regardless

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

#16

Post by hansy »

For the people who use Alfred (http://www.alfredapp.com/), I'm curious to know Alfred's advantages over the native Spotlight (which IMO works fairly well) or other similar apps like Found (https://www.foundapp.com/) or Quicksilver (http://qsapp.com/download.php)?

Oh and to add my two cents to the OP's question:

HyperDock (http://hyperdock.bahoom.com/): Windows 7 functionality to preview individual windows

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

#18

Post by BillyParadise »

Lets see... I recently went Mac for the first time, and what do I have on there?

For "serious" work-related things, I have Sublime Edit and MacPorts. That's everything. I picked up Omnigraffle but it's just not all that useful to me with a small screen. I'll look at using it again when I replace my desktop with a mac (or when I get an external monitor for the MBA)

Oh, and I have MSDN access, so I put Office on there. But honestly, I never use it.

(Disclaimer, I'm an old school "only have 1 page of apps on my iPhone" kind of guy)

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

#19

Post by marmarlade »

Some great submissions here already (second/third the usual suspects Divvy, Alfred, VLC, Sublime Text et al.)

Depending on what you use for productivity, you might find a Pomodoro Timer useful. There are loads, and I quite like this one: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/pomodoro-timer-focus-on-your... (or just use the Chrome app http://tomato-timer.com/)

And for writing creatively, I can highly recommend OmmWriter. http://www.ommwriter.com/

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