MacBook Pro

Today my new MacBook Pro arrived. This posting is actually the first thing I've done with it (the software update started automacical and is now downloading 8 updates). I will post each step to bring the pre-configured mac to a work machine supporting all my needs. That means some configuration and a lot of software to install. My old G4 PowerBook has served me for almost 4 years and will, when it is retired, become my test machine running web-servers (including Plone/Zope and Django), my experimental Python, Java and Lisp servers and much more. It might also act as a file server.

I decided not to use the Setup Assistant to transfer my old data from the PowerBook to the MacBook. The main reason is that I want to start with a standard configuration of my Mac, and in a controlled way move data from the PowerBook to the MacBook. Most of my work data are stored in a CVS repository, so there is no need to copy them. I'll just check out the repositories when I need them. My bookmarks are managed at del.icio.us, and my music and photos are on an external firewire disk. I guess Email and Keychain data are the important stuff I have to move first. OK, here are each step:

1. Open Safari preferences and enabled tabbed browsing. Why isn't this on be default? Also added the del.icio.us buttons to Safari.
2. Desktop manager has been an important tool for me on my PowerBook. One workspace is impossible to live with when you are used to 4, 6 or more. Found a universal version (via), and it seems to partly work (but see also mach inject and enabling cross-task control on intel). Update: Well, some functions that I were used to did not work (but might soon), but Tony Arnold have made Virtue work on Mac:Intel (Virtue is originally inspired by Desktop Manager). You can find the Mac:Intel version here.
3. Quicksilver is universal and installs without any problems on the MacBook. It is so strange to sit down on a Mac without it. I hit Command-Space and Spotlight emerges in the upper right corner. Sorry Spotlight, you are moved to Alt-Space. Quicksilver is more important for me and is the master behind Command-Space. You'll find it here. Update: A Quicksilver screencast is available. [via]
4. Many Emacs options exists, but lately I have used Aquamacs (now also available as universal). See nightlies – includes Gnu Emacs.
5. Apple Xcode Tools are available from the Apple Developer Connection. You have to register. It includes a lot of nice stuff that I need when I start programming on this Mac, but the first couple of days the important tool for me is cvs.
6. I've become addicted to Textpander. You should donate if you use it. Growl (and growlnotify) is another small tool (a notification tool) that I use a lot without thinking about it. Donate if you are using it.
7. Python 2.3.5 is included on the MacBook, but a universal build of Python 2.4.2 will soon be available here. Update: Python 2.4.3 is now released. A universal installer for Mac OS X 10.3 and later is available.
8. Java 1.5 is also available from the Apple Developer Connection.
9. Create a set of ssh keys an populate them to the different servers/computers that I need to access. This is done with the ssh-keygen command. If you want to be able to login to this computer with ssh, you have to start the Remote Login service (use System Preferences and select Sharing – under Services start Remote Login). I also recommend to start and configure the firewall (also under Sharing).
10. GPGMail is now universal, but be aware of the problems with older versions of gpg (gpg is not a part of the GPGMail distribution, you have to install it separately). MacGPG provides a installer for gpg for your Mac. Universal (and upgraded) version should be available soon (or you can build and install it yourself following the instructions found at the same site).
11. Copy the keychain from my old PowerBook to the MacBook. Your personal keychain is located at Library/Keychains in your home directory. The name of the file is either your username or it is login.keychain. Just copy it to the same locations on your new MacBook. I didn't have to do anything else. First time I opened Keychain Access my keychain was there. If this is not the case for you, this Keychain migration with Mac OS X Tiger note might be useful.
12. Safari without PithHelemt and Saft is like training without pain – not very effective. Saft is universal, and PithHelemt will be there soon (a developers version can be found here)
13. Since the Mac file system is HFS I use hfstar to pack and copy files between my Mac computers. It is PPC binary, but Rosetta makes it work (and source is available if you want to recompile it).
14. Enable root user using the Security menu in the Netinfo Manager (you have to authenticate first – same menu). Sometimes sudo isn't good enough (e.g. next step). See also this article on sudo and root.
15. Create ssh tunnels to my smtp and pop servers. A detailed guide for doing this is available.
16. If you have a .Mac account, you can use this to sync your calendar, your contacts, your keychains, your mail accounts, your mail-rules/signatures/smart-mailboxes, and your Safari bookmarks. I used my .Mac account to sync the calendar, my contacts, my keychains and my mail-rules/signatures/smart-mailboxes. If you have a .Mac account you can also download and install Backup 3 from Apple (for free – if you have paid for the .Mac account). I use Backup, but you should read this review of it before you start using it. Another option for backup is BackityMac [via]
17. When I got mail up and running on of the first thing I received was a funny video (I guess) from a friend encoded in a Windows media format. I need the Flip4Mac plugin to QuickTime, but it isn't available as universal yet. Rumors say soon.
18. TeX and friends are easily installed with the i-Installer. The i-Installer itself is not universal but it runs well on my MacBook. The TeX installation that you install with the i-Installer is available for the intel processor. More information about the i-Installer here. I use i-Installer to install the TeX package, the ConTeXt updater, ImageMagick (you need to install Freetype 2, PNG reference library, and libwmf with i-Installer first), and XeTeX (at Jonathan Kew's i-Directory @ SIL, but XeTeX does not work on Intel boxes yet - a workaround is to install both the ppc and i386 binaries of TeX and put the .../bin/powerpc-apple-darwin-current path last in your PATH. XeTeX and friends installed here will work OK with Rosetta on an Intel Mac).
19. I work a lot in the terminal (in bash), and I need my Norwegian characters (æ, ø and å). I create a file named .inputrc in my home directory containing these commands:

    set input-meta on
    set convert-meta off
    set output-meta on
    

    This is bash (readline) specific. Other shells have other ways of doing this. You should also go to Window Settings… in the Terminal menu of the Terminal application, select Display, and choose Western (ISO Latin 1) as character encoding (remember to push the Use Settings as Defaults button to save this for future Terminal windows). The default unicode settings does not work well with my bash configuration. For Mail.app I have tried to set the default encoding (when composing) to ISO Latin 1 with this command in the Terminal prompt:

    defaults write com.apple.mail NSPreferredMailCharset ISO-8859-1
    

    I am not sure if that works, but I will investigate it further.
20. Mail Act-On gives more power to the keyboard in Apple Mail. The plugin is now available as a universal binary.
21. Firefox is not officially ready for Mac:Intel yet, but a build is available here.
22. Skype is not universal yet, but soon: "The new version will be available to Skype users sometime in the second quarter" (Skype 2.0 for Mac). Skype will work OK with Rosetta.
23. Remote access to the new MacBook is done by ssh or vnc. OSXvnc is a vnc server that is universal (and now installed on my new Mac). I also use the vnc client Chicken of the VNC (to access my old PowerBook). See my earlier note on vnc.
24. Location X is a very nice $20 tool when you are moving between different locations with your laptop (MacBook). The AutoLocate feature is very nice. And now it works well on Mac:Intel.
25. I've been using NetNewsWire to read my selection of rss feeds. However, the latest release of NetNewsWire are not universal, and I need a reader on my new Mac. NewsFire seems to be the best rss reader currently available for Mac:Intel. So now I have $16.99 less in my pockets and a new news reader on my desktop. I've only used it briefly so far, but it seems to be an OK alternative to NetNewsWire. I also bought and installed Inquisitor from the same site (by David Watanabe I think). It adds instant search to Safari (not an important add-on, but for €5 its nice-to-have). Update: a beta version of NetNewsWire for Mac:Intel (universal) is now available. [via]
26. File Juicer ($9) is a nice tool when you want to extract images from different types of documents. The program is universal and supports a lot of different formats.
27. Mouseposé is another tiny useful tool (universal and free, but you need a license key). I use it in demos and lectures when I want to get the focus on something on the screen.
28. NovaMind ($25) is a nice tool to organize information (and it is universal). I use it for lecture notes. Several similar options exists, but I am happy with NovaMind.
29. Toast 7 ($79.95 now) is not universal, but it works OK under Rosetta. A free update will be available when the Mac:Intel version is ready.
30. MS Office (except the media player?) installed OK from my old CDs on my MacBook. Using Rosetta I guess.
31. VLC is not official ready for Mac:Intel, but a nightly experimental build is available. MPlayer is also only PowerPC, but it runs OK under Rosetta.
32. Ispell (combined with flyspell in Emacs) is another important tool for me. I just discovered this nice flyspell-check-previous-highlighted-word functionality of flyspell. Very nice. CocoaSpell is another spell checker for Mac that is popular. It is not working on Intel Macs yet, but the site says soon.
33. FlickrExport is now universal. If you are a flickr user and and iPhoto user, this is the right tool for you.
34. EventMaker is a free tool that you can use to create events from an e-mail. This is one of the few things I used a lot in Entourage that is not available in Apple Mail. EventMaker is not the perfect solution, because I would like to have a reference (or link) in iCal back to the message the event was created from. But the integration of iCal of Mail is not tight enough to make this possible. [via and Best five freeware extras for Mail.app]
35. My new bag (horizontal laptop sleeves with flap, suspension strap, and piggyback) for the MacBook Pro arrived in the weekend. I am very happy with this one. It is from WaterField Designs in San Francisco, and they have a lot of other options (for different HW, too).
36. CoverFlow is the best way to browse you iTunes music collection. It is now universal.
37. Dashboard has some pros and cons, but now I actually use it. I've not yet installed Konfabulator, sorry I meant Yahoo! Widgets, on MacBook Pro, and I'm not sure that I will. Anyway, these are the widgets that is always running on my dashboard: Widget Update (an alternative is Widget Master [supports Konfabulator too] or the Widget Manager preference pane), Wikipedia (@ Apple), WeatherBug (@ Apple), Gule Sider og Telefonkatalogen (@ Apple), Screenshot Plus (@ Apple), Airtime Plus (@ Apple), Caizer’s Absolutely Simple Calculator (@ Apple), Easy Currency (@ Apple), and qwikCONVERT (@ Apple). More widgets can be found here. If you prefer to not use Dashboard, this posting includes information on how to turn it of (see comments too). Update: Preinstalled on my MacBook Pro I found the following widgets: Dictionary, Flight Tracker, and Unit Converter. I keep these running too. Actually, Unit Converter can replace both qwikCONVERT and Easy Currency. I also found this Norwegian Dictionary Installed and in use.
38. CapsLock is a key I never use. Open System Preferences, select Keyboard and Mouse, then Keyboard, and then the button Modifier Keys …. Change Caps Lock to None or Control (or whatever you prefer). On my old PowerBook the light would still come on every second time I pressed the Caps Lock key. On the MacBook Pro it doesn't. Nice. (See also Changing modifier keys.)
39. Subversion is available as a precompiled package for Mac OS X. See also this screencast.[via]
40. Problem with 802.1x on a macbook pro? Try this fix. [via]
41. I need HandBrake to get a DVD on my iPod. See also the DivX player (after you have installed this QuickTime and Front Row will be able to play DivX movies), an XviD component and an AC3 codec. [via,via]
42. Boot Camp is cool. I need a firmware update for my MacBook Pro to make this work.

To keep track on the available software for Mac:Intel, this might be useful: The Macintosh Products Guide for Universal Application is a nice place to start. VersionTracker has a Universal Application Resource Center (RSS feeds: software update and troubleshooting).

MacFixIt have a Rosetta compatibility index for Intel-based Macs (software compiled for ppc that runs on Intel on your Mac).

Update: List of Universal Binaries. [via]

March 13 2006 (aa)