The mind of Ross Armer » Mac http://blog.rossarmer.com ...professional geek by day, photographer by night. Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:44:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 First Mac apps to install http://blog.rossarmer.com/2010/03/22/first-mac-apps-to-install/ http://blog.rossarmer.com/2010/03/22/first-mac-apps-to-install/#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:19:07 +0000 Ross http://blog.rossarmer.com/?p=210 I have more and more coworkers, friends, and family moving to the Mac and I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of a some of the must-have Mac applications.

1:  Qucksilver (Free) – Do anything on your Mac in just a few keystrokes. Extremely powerful and can be a bit overwhelming at first but well worth the effort.

2:  Bento ($49) –  The most user-friendly database and organization program you will ever use.  You can take your spreadsheets to an entirely new level or do some pretty sophisticated customer management.  Check out the demo videos on their site.

3: SuperDuper! ($27.95) – The simplest and most complete backup app for the Mac.

4:  CoRD (Free) – One for the geeks here… A great free RDP program to have remote access to your remaining Windows machines.

5:  Parallels ($79) – For those times when you need a full copy of Windows running locally.

6:  iLife ($79) – Comes free on new Macs but worth the purchase or upgrade if you don’t already have the latest version.

7:  iWork ($79) – Beautiful Microsoft Office replacement.

These are just the Mac-specific apps I run regularly.  I highly recommend you use these cross-platform apps as well:

  1. Dropbox
  2. Google Chrome
  3. Evernote
  4. Skype
]]> http://blog.rossarmer.com/2010/03/22/first-mac-apps-to-install/feed/ 0 Learning to play a real guitar with GarageBand. http://blog.rossarmer.com/2010/01/18/learning-to-play-a-real-guitar-with-garageband/ http://blog.rossarmer.com/2010/01/18/learning-to-play-a-real-guitar-with-garageband/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:55:13 +0000 Ross http://blog.rossarmer.com/?p=134 Over the last week or so I’ve started using GarageBand to start the process of learning to play.  Here is a video of lesson 1, I’m onto number 3 now.  It’s a great way to learn at your own pace, and I’ve gotten to know “Tim” well.

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