Setting up a Macintosh

My strategy for setting up a new Mac:

1. Wipe the disk and install OS.
2. Download and install Apple Developer tools.
3. Consider purchasing and using these Apple Apps:
   1. iLife
   2. iWork
   3. When you have installed them, be sure to run Apple Update.
4. Download and install the following commercial apps (many of them are free; others are licensed):
   1. Norton Anti-Virus (recommended by DoD)
   2. Microsoft Office
   3. Microsoft Silverlight
   4. SuperDuper!, an easy-to-use backup system for the Mac which makes bootable drives.
   5. OmniGraffle
   6. PDF Pen
   7. Tuxera NTFS for mac
   8. XMarks for Safari
   9. LastPass or 1Password for Password management and synchronization.
   10. DropBox if you don't want to use Mobile Me (or if you want to share files with your Android phone.)
5. Download and install the following open source software:
   1. MacPorts
   2. Adium
   3. Ext2FS for MacOS
   4. A GUI EMACS Aquamacs, Emacs 21 for MacOS , or Emacs.app
   5. iTerm, a much better terminal.
6. LaTeX - Install this software (http://guides.macrumors.com/Installing_LaTeX_on_a_Mac for more info)
   1. MacTeX
   2. LaTeXIt --- LaTeX editor with Services support.
   3. TeXMaker
   4. Latexian, a real-time LaTeX editor.
7. GUI Tweaking:
   1. Drag the Terminal, Console, and Activity Monitor applications from /Applications/Utilities into the Dock.
   2. Put the Dock on the right side of the screen (it was designed for use on the right side of the screen and takes up less screen real estate there.)
   3. Go to Preferences/Keyboard and make the CAPSLOCK key a control key.
8. Go to the Terminal and type the following:

sudo port selfupdate
sudo port install aspell aspell-dict-en hunspell-dict-en_US wget zip unzip \
     automake autoconf cairo-devel boost \
     python_select python33 py33-tkinter py33-matplotlib py33-scipy py33-ipython py33-cairo \
     texlive-basic texlive-bibtex-extra texlive-bin-extra texlive-fonts-extra texlive-generic-extra texlive-humanities texlive-lang-english texlive-latex texlive-latex-extra texlive-math-extra texlive-pictures texlive-publishers texlive-science
sudo port -f activate python33
sudo port select --set python python32

Note: See TexLivePackages for a list of all MacPorts texlive packages.

1. 1. sudo python_select python27

Rationale for the above:

• You should be using python3.2
• The zip/unzip from Apple is from 2005 and doesn't have ZIP64 support.

Developer Tools

• http://crossgcc.rts-software.org/doku.php - Mingw 4.5.2 on Mac

See Also

• Macintosh Notes