PC guy took the plunge -recommend apps

[thornguy]

Just bought my first official Mac. I was looking at BB but wasn't expecting them to have the new models, was a bit of an impulse buy when I found out they did.
So I picked up the MBA 13" 128g.

Looking for recommendations for web dev apps.
CSS, html, php editing. CSSedit?
Photoshop alternatives for simple image editing. -Don't want to drop $$ for the mac version right now.
SSH apps for command line and file management.

Any other must have apps for a new convert.

Loving this thing!

 

[srxtr]

Same here.

Only have Xcode, Twitter, and Facebook installed so far, also looking for recommendations

 

[vty]

My must have apps are;

BetterTouchTool (MUST HAVE)
Things (task manager that helps me keep my life structured)
Omnigraffle (visio-like diagrammer)
Scrivener (for story authoring)
Adium (instant messaging, way better than ichat)
Textmate (best notepad I've ever used, think notepad++)
Quicksilver (like launchy for windows)
Transmit (killer ftp software)

Nvu is a super popular web dev tool

 

[reputationZed]

nVALT - free markdown editor for Simple Notes

BBedit - TextMates rival in the Mac Text Editor holy war. TextMates developers have been promising v2 for four or five years now. BBEdits dev, Barebones software, updates on a regular basis.

OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner

Coda - nice HTML/CSS IDE, but to be honest for most of my web stuff lately I just use Squarespace.

1PassWord

TextExpander

Launch bar

 

[seepel]

SSH apps for command line and file management.
Loving this thing!

Your on BSD now, don't need an ssh app. Just open a terminal and do it up!

 

[vegtro]

If you already have applications for Windows, install bootcamp or purchase VMware/Parallels and use the applications from Windows. IMO, Web dev apps on Windows are better than Mac.

 

[mikekey]

I made the switch from Windows to Mac last June. And just purchased my MacBook Air recently.

I second Coda and Transmit. On Windows I used Dreamweaver, Notepad++ and FireZilla.

FireZilla on a Mac makes you realize how ****** it is. It's still the shame, just ******.

But then I discovered Coda and Transmit.

Coda is freaking amazing. Let me tell me, especially if you get into all the plugins of this beautiful piece of software for web development. BTW, I'm a web developer/designer.

I've got a roundup here of tips, plugins addons just for coda, so you can get an idea: http://www.macstories.net/roundups/...ippets-and-tuts-for-designers-and-developers/

You'll eventually start to love you Mac. I was a diehard Windows guy from Windows 3.1 could never get me to switch, Apple = POS in my mind.

But when my new HP felt like crap when I picked it up by the corner and cracked, Apple's hardware design ie the exterior drew me in. And OS X and the beautifully simply and well designed apps won me over for life.

I actually develop 10x faster on a Mac than I did on a PC. Sad but true and I thought I was a Pro.

The other thing you'll discover, you won't curse at your computer anymore.

I haven't gotten mad at my computer in over a year since I switched.

 

[h00ligan]

If you already have applications for Windows, install bootcamp or purchase VMware/Parallels and use the applications from Windows. IMO, Web dev apps on Windows are better than Mac.

Or get VirtualBox free.

 

[mkelly]

Don't forget Perian!

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Perian yet (or maybe they have, and I just missed it).

Anyhow, Perian is a plugin for Quicktime that enables it to play back a ton of video formats.

http://www.perian.org/

 

[seepel]

The other thing you'll discover, you won't curse at your computer anymore.

You will however still curse at your code (and sometimes your computer until you realize that it was actually just your crappy code that caused the problem). At least this has been my experience.

 

[ZBoater]

I installed Windows 7 using Boot Camp and was pleasantly surprised on how easy it was, and how smooth Win7 runs on the MBA. I am, however, only running what I have to, spending most of my time on the OS X side.

Filezilla for FTP is a familiar face with a Mac version.

Office 2011 for Mac is looking very sweet. Im not sure about Outlook though.

Still looking for a clean, easy to use text editor....

 

[DagazaGZ]

Pixelmator for a cheap very good alternative to photoshop.

 

[vty]

I should mention as a Windows user, resist the urge to just install Windows and use that on your new MBA. OSX takes a lot of getting used to, there are a lot of design decisions that annoy the piss out of me (X's on the left?, insane number of keyboard commands, etc) but I really feel like it's a superior desktop OS.

And it has amazing applications that unfortunately never get ported to the other operating systems.

 

[Curren~Sea]

Snagit for Mac = great screen capture tool
UltraEdit for Mac = great text editor with hundreds of wordfile types
Pixelmator = a very good commercial graphic editor
Seahorse = a free graphic editor that is decent

 

[kenwalton]

In addition to others mentioned:

VLC - great lightweight open source video viewer - way faster and smoother than QuickTime + Perian.
Caffeine - handy little utility to keep from going into screensaver while you're watching video.
Growl - should be built into the OS
Flexiglass - do with your windows what you can do in Windows (and more)
Chrome (of course)
uTorrent (better on Mac than PC, imo)

 

[thornguy]

Thanks for all the titles I've been pulling demos and trials. A lot of really cool stuff that seem to integrate well with OSX

What do you debs do for testing your site code with IE and Firefox?
Is the Mac Firefox roughly the same as the win version?

I don't want to go the boot camp/vm route. Partly for space and partly because I don't want the temptation. Kind of like an alcoholic buying a house next to a liqueur store.

I installed MS RDP client so I can remote into my desktop if I need to.

Thanks. Loving the new Mac.

 

[h00ligan]

You have no choice but to virtualize. The apps are similar but rendering can be different.