

Ask HN: I Just Got A Used MacBook Pro. What To Install? - tronium

I just got a late 2011, 15-inch MacBook Pro from my older brother. I enjoy programming&#x2F;developing a lot, so what apps should I get&#x2F;install on the new system for developing and productivity?
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jevinskie
Divvy lets you easily resize windows to a grid pattern. There may be similar
free utilities but I found that it was worth the $14.

[https://mizage.com/divvy/](https://mizage.com/divvy/)

If you are interested in binary objects/executables, check out MachOView.
Think of it as an excellent GUI version of nm/readelf (for MachO, obviously)
with search.

[https://github.com/gdbinit/MachOView](https://github.com/gdbinit/MachOView)

~~~
tsm
People at work use SizeUp, which is free and beautiful:
[https://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/](https://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/)

I use Slate, which is free and powerful:
[https://github.com/jigish/slate](https://github.com/jigish/slate)

~~~
kovrik
+1 for Slate

------
karangoeluw
Some apps I use every day:

\--------------------------

Homebrew - [http://brew.sh/](http://brew.sh/)

Growl - [http://growl.info/](http://growl.info/)

Alfred - [http://www.alfredapp.com/](http://www.alfredapp.com/)

Sublime Text - [https://www.sublimetext.com](https://www.sublimetext.com)

Transmission -
[http://www.transmissionbt.com/](http://www.transmissionbt.com/)

Transmit - [http://panic.com/transmit/](http://panic.com/transmit/)

Evernote - [http://www.evernote.com/](http://www.evernote.com/)

BetterTouchTool -
[http://blog.boastr.net/?page_id=1722](http://blog.boastr.net/?page_id=1722)

Dash - [http://kapeli.com/dash](http://kapeli.com/dash)

F.lux- [https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/)

~~~
arzugula
I thought Growl was kind of dead since Apple introduced Notification Center?

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vincentbarr
These are my 'must-haves', or very close to it, and most of them are free or
offer a free version.

Alfred 2 (search and a lot more)

aText (text expansion)

Adium (Chat)

Adapter (audio/video filetype conversion)

Caffeine (prevent display from dimming or sleeping)

Chrome (browser)

Colloquy (IRC client)

Dash (documentation and snippet browser)

Dashlane (password management)

Doubleplane (window resizing)

Dropbox (cloud storage)

Evernote (notes, bulky)

Firefox (browser)

F.lux (smart display brightness)

Handbrake (video transcoder)

Hazel (file/folder automation)

iTerm (terminal replacement)

Jumpcut (store and recall clipboard history)

MailMate (email)

Mou (markdown editor with live preview) Readkit (RSS reader)

Screenmailer (free, easy screencast creation and sharing)

Simplenote (notes, lean) Skype (calls)

Spark (hotkey)

Sublime Text Editor 3 (text editor)

TicToc (time tracking)

VLC (media player)

------
hansy
For the people who use Alfred
([http://www.alfredapp.com/](http://www.alfredapp.com/)), I'm curious to know
Alfred's advantages over the native Spotlight (which IMO works fairly well) or
other similar apps like Found
([https://www.foundapp.com/](https://www.foundapp.com/)) or Quicksilver
([http://qsapp.com/download.php](http://qsapp.com/download.php))?

Oh and to add my two cents to the OP's question:

HyperDock ([http://hyperdock.bahoom.com/](http://hyperdock.bahoom.com/)):
Windows 7 functionality to preview individual windows

------
Croaky
[https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop](https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop)
will install Homebrew, Tmux, Silver Searcher, Postgres, Redis, a few
programming languages, and other items.

[https://github.com/thoughtbot/dotfiles](https://github.com/thoughtbot/dotfiles)
sets up a bunch of slick aliases and plugins for Vim and ZSH to make
development productive.

------
shawnreilly
Lately I've become a fan of isolating multiple environments. This way I can
run different IDE environments on the same machine without conflicts or
dependency problems. There are quite a few ways you could do this, ranging
from entire VM's (something like virtualbox), to VM containers (something like
docker), to language specific isolated environments (something like virtualenv
for python or rvm for ruby), to prebuilt environments (something like
bitnami). Each one has different pro's and con's (too heavy, too complex, etc)
but the general idea is the same; Having the ability to build multiple
isolated environments makes it easier for me to maintain those environments.
It also gives me the flexibility to test different environment variables with
some sort of fallback if something goes wrong. So it's something I would
recommend, but YMMV. Another recommendation I would make (not software, but
still a must IMO) is to install an SSD and max out the RAM. Feels like a whole
new machine! Good luck and have fun.

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ken_laun
You have a good older brother.

I recommend these apps.

<Developing>

    
    
        iTerm2
    
        Firefox
    
        Sublime Text
    
        Cyberduck
    
        Xcode
    
        Gimp(Image)
    
        Skitch(Image)
    
    

<Productivity>

    
    
        Evernote
    
        Dropbox
    
        Alfred
    
        Memory Clean
    
        1Password

------
jmagnusson
Alfred App is an absolute essential in my book (especially custom web
searches) [http://www.sequelpro.com/](http://www.sequelpro.com/)

Sublime Text. Makes u feel like a magician.
[http://www.sublimetext.com/](http://www.sublimetext.com/)

Sequel Pro. Best db manager out there. Wish they just supported more than
MySQL. [http://www.sequelpro.com/](http://www.sequelpro.com/)

iTerm2. The built in terminal in OS X kind of sucks.
[http://www.iterm2.com/](http://www.iterm2.com/)

Homebrew. The missing package manager for OS X.
[http://brew.sh/](http://brew.sh/)

~~~
surreal
( Typo, Sequel Pro's URL has been put for Alfred App. For convenience it's
[http://www.alfredapp.com](http://www.alfredapp.com) )

------
marmarlade
Some great submissions here already (second/third the usual suspects Divvy,
Alfred, VLC, Sublime Text et al.)

Depending on what you use for productivity, you might find a Pomodoro Timer
useful. There are loads, and I quite like this one:
[https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/pomodoro-timer-focus-on-
your...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/pomodoro-timer-focus-on-
your/id872515009?mt=12) (or just use the Chrome app [http://tomato-
timer.com/](http://tomato-timer.com/))

And for writing creatively, I can highly recommend OmmWriter.
[http://www.ommwriter.com/](http://www.ommwriter.com/)

------
rgawdzik
The other recommendations are awesome.

For me, I like using a lot of desktop window management, however the Mission
Control transitions are too slow for me, with the fact that are bulky and
uncustomizable.

There is TotalSpaces2, which basically is similar to Ubuntu/etc spaces, but
you can customize the transitions, hotkeys, locations, etc. Even though I
don't have any transitions (so my switching is instant), you can have cube
transitions, etc, very similar to Gnome. Downside to the program: $18, with a
trial. If you miss proper desktop management, do it. Combined with Spectacle
(A tiling window manager), I have functionality similar to XMonad, so I can
use my mac effectively.

------
BillyParadise
Lets see... I recently went Mac for the first time, and what do I have on
there?

For "serious" work-related things, I have Sublime Edit and MacPorts. That's
everything. I picked up Omnigraffle but it's just not all that useful to me
with a small screen. I'll look at using it again when I replace my desktop
with a mac (or when I get an external monitor for the MBA)

Oh, and I have MSDN access, so I put Office on there. But honestly, I never
use it.

(Disclaimer, I'm an old school "only have 1 page of apps on my iPhone" kind of
guy)

------
celias
SourceTree from Altassian git and mercurial client, free

[http://www.sourcetreeapp.com](http://www.sourcetreeapp.com)

CodeRunner from Nikolai Krill for easily running/testing code snippets in any
language, $9.99 on the App Store

[http://krillapps.com/coderunner/](http://krillapps.com/coderunner/)

------
british_geek
Guardian Angel is pretty cool, it locks your Mac when you walk away so you
don't need a password to lock / unlock it. Definitely worth checking out for
$4 - [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/guardian-
angel/id657241260?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/guardian-
angel/id657241260?mt=12)

------
collyw
Windows

~~~
adamconroy
Ditto

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xauronx
I'm a fan of Sip, it lets you grab colors off the screen and generates code
for you.

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itazula
Notational Velocity

------
2close4comfort
Quicksilver

