Awesome new MACBOOK

[animenick65]

I'm typing this on a brand new CD black macbook. Got a great deal on a refurbished one at an apple store. $899 for a stock model. Seems to be really good. Thanks for all of your help in making the decision. Im happy to be a part of the mac community. Can anyone recommend any good starting free applications I might like. I'm looking for a good instant messaging app.

 

[QCassidy352]

congrats, that's a great price and you'll love it. Get adium for instant messaging. It's totally customizable and very fun and easy to use.

 

[a9mike]

Adium for chat. Don't be turned off by the duck, it's powerful and theme-able.
Quicksilver, because I can't live without it.

The rest depends on what you do on your Mac. Congrats and cheers for the new book!

 

[Chundles]

Handbrake and iSquint for converting videos for iPod/iTunes.

Senuti for getting songs/playlists from your iPod to your Mac.

VLC and Flip4Mac for playback of nearly any video (apart from stupid new WMVs with the new DRM), use VLC for avi etc.

 

[twistedlegato]

Yes get Adium, its all i use except for Voice/video chatting.

 

[animenick65]

Adium it is! Handbrake is a great tool! Love the simplicity. This little machine is great.

 

[Grakkle]

Download Stuffit ASAP. You'll need it for a lot of things. And it's free for the basic expander.

 

[kinster]

just use meebo.com through the browser

 

[72930]

neo office - Free office suite, like openoffice
flip4mac - Lets you watch wmv files with quicktime
Stuffit - Expands archives
Acqlite - if you're into P2Ping
Transmission - For all your torrenting needs
Seashore - Painting program

 

[operator]

I don't like stating the obvious but,
Firefox for web browsing.

Google Earth is free and awesome. (not mac specific)

Coconut Battery lets you know how your battery is holding up.

 

[Flowbee]

NetNewsWire Lite for RSS feeds.

Also, Versiontracker.com is the place to find your OS X freeware and shareware.

 

[Stadsport]

Congrats, but how'd you get it for $899? The refurb store has them for $999.

Also, they have refurbs in the Apple Stores (real life ones )? That'd be awesome since I plan on getting one soon.

 

[Aniej]

And with all those apps... LittleSnitch but of course Enjoy and that is a great deal.

 

[animenick65]

stadsport...im not sure why this store had the black macbook for $899 but i sure as hell ain't complaining. This thing impresses me so much. I'm coming from using a single core amd 3200+ system and honestly this macbook just blows it away. Handbrake is awesome and the multithreaded support really helps. My only concern is heat. Under full processor load using Hanbrake I get 70c and while I'm tying this and playing a dvd in the background I get about 50c. Is that normal? BTW i am using SMC fan control and have the minimum fan speed set to 3000. Any insights would be helpful!

 

[ravenvii]

To all those recommending StuffIt... why? .sit and .sitx are more or less dead formats, and only old/outdated people use it... like Microsoft with their Windows Media Player, which you don't want to install anyway.

All the other suggestions are good though.

 

[interlaced]

Also, they have refurbs in the Apple Stores (real life ones )? That'd be awesome since I plan on getting one soon.

Yeah! Sometimes you just have to ask cuz they keep them in the back.

 

[Grakkle]

To all those recommending StuffIt... why? .sit and .sitx are more or less dead formats, and only old/outdated people use it... like Microsoft with their Windows Media Player, which you don't want to install anyway.

Yup. But some stuff still requires it - AIM for one. Don't ask me why - it's a nuisance.

 

[animenick65]

I tried aim for mac and it just sucks so bad. Adium is great and is what instant messaging should be.