If an app is on the Mac App Store, it is in one of the 21 categories that Apple has listed.īecause this is a "free" app list, I tried to only include apps that are truly free or whose functionality is not diminished without an in-app purchase. This makes it easier to cover the wide variety of content available. In researching the best free apps for the Mac, I started by using Apple's category list. Our team of Apple experts have years of experience testing all kinds of tech and gadgets, so you can be sure our recommendations and criticisms are accurate and helpful. Either way this is a good notebook for my next one.You can always trust iMore. Maybe it will give you some ideas/inspiration for your next rebuild. This list documents the first part of my process pretty well, though. There’s a lot to configure after this, and a lot of tweaking to do to make me utterly comfortable. There are a lot of apps on my machine already, but here are a few of the first I installed: Half of these are in my App Store account, the other half take the effort of typing their name in 1Password, clicking the download link and running them to enter a license code. Disable Caps Lock (System Preferences → Keyboard → Modifer Keys)ĭefaults write no-glass -boolean YES & killall Dock.Function keys act as function keys (System Preferences → Keyboard).These are my current must-have-off-the-bat settings: There are some excellent ways to automate these, but I find my needs change enough between cold installs that I end up doing a lot by hand. My full ~/.ssh setup and a few other vital componentsīefore going too much further I need my system settings. ![]() ![]() Silver Searcher, ack (via brew) and spot.I’m sure not everybody needs this, but I’m never comfortable until I have: Alfred, Quicksilver, whatever your poison. Launchbar is next, as I find functioning on any machine without it laborious.After that comes nvALT, where I have notes on all of the apps I consider vital and any additional information I’ll need during setup.I’m lost without TextExpander, so I usually skip ahead and install it next, setting it up to use Dropbox sync and make all of my snippets available.Next comes 1Password, which facilitates the rest of the setup.First, I install Dropbox and give it enough time to sync all of my shared preferences, passwords and scripts.Note that you can copy the actual license files and url handler links into 1Password for apps that support them, making registering apps as you install them as easy as a double-click. There are other apps that handle this specific case, but having it all in 1Password means that I only have to sync one keychain file to get all of my licenses and my passwords at once. I highly recommend 1Password for this purpose. The App Store takes care of half of this battle, but for all of your apps that weren’t purchased through Apple’s App Store, keep a copy of the license code, any key files and the download link in one place. Lastly (and you should be doing something like this anyway), store all your serial numbers, license files and download info for every app in 1Password. Setting up most apps on a new machine is just a matter of a lot of ln -s. I use a Dropbox folder called “Sync” for all of these, with sub-folders for each app. This is often a PLIST file linked into ~/Library/Preferences, but sometimes an entire ~/Library/Application Support/ folder or subfolders. all have their preference files stored in my Dropbox and symlinked to their appropriate locations on each machine. Settings that you’re accustomed to on one machine often translate to a new machine without any modification. Next, put your portable settings and preferences into Dropbox and symlink the files to their locations as needed. Keep notes in text files (or nvALT) and when it’s time to get going, copy them into Apple’s “Notes” app so they’ll be instantly available once you’ve signed in with an Apple ID on a fresh Mountain Lion (or newer) install. This makes the whole process require 90% less thought and lets you get right down to the drudgery of building an awesome system from scratch. The best tip I can offer is to keep notes on your setup as it changes. Prepīefore I begin, some tricks I’ve learned for making this process easier. It’s something I only do every couple of years and my list of apps, settings and tweaks is almost entirely different each time I do it. They’re primarily for mass-installs, though, and my needs change too frequently to ever really script this process. ![]() I know that tools like Boxen and others can automate a lot of this. I decided to do this install from the ground up and avoid porting legacy garbage into a new machine. ![]() Given my constant experimentation with OS X, I build up a lot of mistakes over time. I spent my free time over the last week setting up a new Macbook Air.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |