what would it be? An productive discussion was held on the MacLaw list and I tried to pull all the ideas together, with the following result:
Hardware & Accessories:
- a laptop sleeve [ Timbuk2 Sleeve] or Slipcase for inside your brief case
- USB Hub [powered] [Belkin’s is about $30]
- Fujitsu ScanSnap [which also bundles Adobe Acrobat]
- External drives for backups [my suggestion is to have one for TimeMachine use and a separate one for a different backup program]
- Cable/adapter to connect to external display and/or projector
- Remote (or use the iPhone Remote App)
- Line out connector cable to connect your MBP to an external speaker if needed
- 22"+ monitor (to hook up with when you're not traveling--you'll love the extra screen real estate and you can work in dual monitor mode)
- if you want to use the MBP screen as a monitor, then a stand to position it to do so
- A good size (16+Gb) thumb drive or two [to back up all your critical data (even using Apple's Backup) [Be sure to encrypt it!!!]
- Dymo label printer--either a duo or twin
- Extra powerbrick/cord if you will use the MBP in more than one location
- If you travel, I'd think about a small printer, like a Canon Pixmo
SOFTWARE
- AppleCare: bar none, the best money you can spend when you get a computer, particularly a portable one, or your iPhone/iPod.
- Adobe Acrobat/Professional [but see above ref. ScanSnap]
- CircusPonies Notebook, www.CircusPonies.com
- Billings
- Daylite
- SuperDuper for backups [to supplement Time Machine]
- QuicKeys [from Startly, http://www.quickeys.com/, a Des Moines company]
- Launchbar
- DragThing [Which is what I use]
- Quicksilver
- Disk Warrior: - Diskwarrior - $99 - www.alsoft.com [“Disk Utility in the Utilities folder will recover about 40% of the bad disk experiences... Diskwarrior gets the rest of them. It's expensive, but it's so awesome we buy licenses for our clients to keep on-site for their Macs. It's just easier on all of us if they have a copy handy. It has two flavors: boot disk & download.”]
- iDefrag
- Drive Genius
- iWork: Pages for word processing, Numbers for spreadsheets and Keynote for presentations. I have MSOffice but haven’t used it in eons and prefer Pages etc.
- Consider whether you need NeoOffice (compatible with WordPerfect files)
- Leap/Yep
- Games?
- JungleDisk online storage software
- Skitch - free - http://skitch.com/ - More aimed at screenshots and short screen videos than anything else. Has a small palette of tools for working with stuff.
- Pixelmator - $59 - http://www.pixelmator.com/ - The most photoshop-y of the bunch, but the priciest, too.
- Acorn - $49 - http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/ - A good mid-range compromise.
- Delicious Library - $40 - http://delicious-monster.com/ - This one makes use of your onboard iSight camera to scan books, DVDs, VHS, BD discs, HD-DVD, that new drill you got at target, etc, into one really big library database. It's seriously elegant software.
- TextWrangler - free - http://www.barebones.com/ - Need a text editor? And I do mean a text editor, not a word processor, then this one is your friend.
- TextMate: <http://macromates.com/>
- Coda - $99 -http://www.panic.com/coda - Wow. Just, wow. Coda is a development environment for coding for the web. There are two, both have quirks, play with both and decide.
- Launchbar - 24 Euro - http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/beta.html
- Quicksilver - free - <http://www.blacktree.com/>http://www.blacktree.com/
- Yojimbo - $39 - http://barebones.com/products/yojimbo/ - Yojimbo is an information manager, not just a password manager, so it'll support notes, passwords, serial numbers, bunch of general stuff. worth a look.
- 1password - $39 - http://agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password 1password is hooked into your browser directly, meaning when you use Autofill, it will handle the secure storage, etc.
- Default Folder X http://www.agilewebsolutions.com
- PageSender http://www.smileonmymac.com/
- NetNewsWire for RSS feed reading [GoogleReader & Safari also do fine]
- With a big shout out to Kern Lewis, Dave Flory, Tom Hart, Tom Bridge, Larry Silverman, Kai Lui, Jeffery A. Rataiczak, Paul Hogan
