I recently took the plunge and went form an all-linux environment to adding a Macbook Pro to my collection of computers. I thought I would record a few of the apps and tips I have found useful in setting up the machine.
Java can be a bit of a bugbear for linux users, because of the choices between Icedtea, openjdk and the Sun hotspot. Since I do a lot of Java development, I really want the real thing.
On the Mac, the official JVM seems to come from Apple, and unfortunately it’s a bit behind the curve.
On the plus side, eclipse is readily available in a proper apple app. This is a huge advantage. One tip for new mac users is that eclipse needs to be installed as the entire directory in the Applications folder, and you then drag the icon from inside the eclipse folder to the Dock. Ganymede includes support for SVN, so I didn’t need any extra plugins.
I got a copy of Vim 7.0 here, which I prefer infinitely to regular vi. It’s not a recently updated project, but I have few fears about ViM killing my machine.
Smultron has a great icon, and does a pretty good job as a multi-file text editor. It could probably do with a plugin interface though, to help manage syntax colouring and stuff.
The best xml editor out there, in my opinion, is Exchange XML. It’s a pity the project seems to have stopped. I’d love them to opensource it so more work can be done.
Still haven’t got around to Git or Bazaar. At the moment, we are still trying to convince our colleagues that Subversion is a good thing (or any code management!). I looked around, and so far, Versions is a pretty nice application for managing svn outside of eclipse. I use it to store the LaTeX files for papers and my thesis as well, and it’s great for that since it lets me keep every revision.
It turned out that it was super-easy to get this going. I had to search a little bit, but I ended up with one giant package that installed LaTeX, TeXShop and a BibTeX manager all together. They work pretty well, though it could be slightly more integrated. I got the mactex package to get all this assembled. Interestingly, it has a XeTeX installation, which I have often been keen to try.
I love EverNote. It is an astonishingly tight application. The idea is that you can take linear notes, as per usual in a text file. However, if you have iSight on your laptop it will also OCR any pictures you send it. I find that super useful. The handwriting recognition is a bit so-so, but it works fairly well, and I think a better pen will fix my problem with it.
I have a few more apps to talk about. Next time, I will talk about Quicksilver, Adium and what I did to mail.app. So far, the mac experience has been excellent. The OS handled the weirdly-configured network we have here in TCD CS pretty seamlessly.
There are a few outstanding things, which I would love help with:
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This entry was written by , posted on 15/07/2008 at 17:31, filed under Uncategorized and tagged apple, eclipse, evernote, Java, mac, mbp, osx, smultron, software, versions, vim. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.