Setting up a Mac 05: Programming Editors for the Mac

Programming editors are next. There really are not a lot of options for the Mac if you are looking for lightweight, inexpensive and free tools.



Native Apps

TextMate - The best native programming editor for the Mac. It is shareware and costs �39 for a copy. But with an excellent set of features and good support, it is worth it.



Smultron - A good native open source editor. Nothing fancy, but a very solid editor. Currently, (as of 10/2010) the developer is not going to release any new versions.



Cross Platform

Komodo Edit - This is the free open source version of the Komodo IDE. But it still has a lot of features. Currently my favorite editor.



JEdit - An open source Java editor with a very active community working on it. Lots of plugins and useful features.



IDEs

NetBeans - The only tool I use for coding Java. It really can make things a lot easier.

Setting up a Mac 04: Fixing the Terminal and Bash

Being a command line junkie, I find the default bash shell settings on the Mac need a few tweaks. Only two files need to be changed, the bash login configuration file (.bash_profile) and the bash run control file (.bashrc). A good explanation of both can be found here.



.bash_profile

The only change here is to call the .bashrc file on the login.

. .bashrc



This will load the settings in the .bashrc file every time the login shell is executed.



.bashrc

Two things to do in this file. Colorize the ls command and change the command prompt.



alias ls='ls -G'

alias ll='ls -lG'



export PS1='\w \$ '



The -G option colorizes the results. The PS1 changes the command prompt to show only the current directory and the dollar sign. This gets rid of rather long default host name.



If you want to change the host name, go to the sharing preferences and change the Computer Name. Then you can leave the prompt like this:

export PS1='\h:\w \$ '

Setting up a Mac 03: Web Browsers

The first software I install is Web browsers. With the Mac, Safari is installed by default, so that is taken care of.



Firefox gets installed first, great for general web browsing and web development. The following addons are a must.



Flashblock - Prevents flash from running on a web page without your approval. Instead of flash, a flash icon is presented in a box where the flash would be. Click on the icon to load that flash element if your wish. The plugin prevents all those nasty CPU hogging flash ads from running. But just clicking allows you to run things like videos just fine.



Firebug - A web page debugger. A must for anyone developing a web site.



Chrome is next. Each tab has its own thread and runs really fast. Great for using Google sites too. There is also a FlashBlock for Chrome.



Lastly, SeaMonkey gets added. This is the real descendent of the old Netscape browser and uses the same rendering engine as Firefox. An integrated browser with built in mail and web page creation tool. In addition, this browser supports profiles. So if you have multiple Google accounts, for example, you can run a separate instance of the browser for each account.



For example, a shell script like this will run a new instance of the browser:



#!/bin/bash

/Applications/SeaMonkey.app/Contents/MacOS/seamonkey-bin -P profileName &



Setting up a Mac 02: Bootcamp

If you want to dual boot your shiny new Mac, you will need to install Bootcamp. Not one program, but a number of programs on both OS X and Mac, Bootcamp makes switching between the two operating systems a snap. This note is not a comprehensive guide to bootcamp, there are lots of docs on that, but a few tips from my experience.



What You Need to Start

Before you start the install, you will need a few things.

1. First, you need a copy of Windows 7. I recommend the 64 bit version as this is gonna work best in the long run. If you know what your are doing, consider getting the System Builders version, it will save you a little money. If you want tech support, get the standard version linked here.
   
   
   
   


2. Next, you need a wired connection to your Internet. Once my installation was done, the Wifi for the MacBook Pro did not work under Windows initially. This is not required but definitely makes things go smoother.


3. A mouse. After the initial install, the track pad did not work completely. No right click for example. A simple 3 button mouse makes things a lot easier.

Bootcamp Installation

To start the installation, open Spotlight (Command Spacebar) and type boot. This should provide a link to the Bootcamp Assistant. Click on that and the assistant will walk your through the setup on the Mac side.



When you partition the drive, I would recommend a minimum of 80gig of space. Bootcamp assistant will name the new partition BOOTCAMP making it easy to know which partition to format when you install Windows.



Bootcamp will have you insert the install disc and will reboot and start the installation.

Once Windows Starts

Once Windows starts up, you need to install the Windows Bootcamp utilities. You will find these on your OS X operating system disc. This contains all the drivers and utilities to make your Mac work on Windows. Just insert the disc and run the installer.



Once the installation is complete, you should have all the drivers for your Mac installed. In addition, there will be a Bootcamp app in the system tray of your Windows system. At this point, you can proceed with your Windows patching and software installation.

Setting up a Mac 01: Initial Steps

These steps are performed before doing any software installation or any real setup steps.



First, just turn on the machine. Choose your language, time zone and all that fun stuff. When prompted for select a user id, I recommend using something other than your first and last name for your account. It takes too long to type and its not all that secure.



Once everything boots up, select Software Update from the Apple menu. This should get the patching process started. Running this command one or two times should get you up to date. After this, you should be ready to start installing software.



One thing I ran into with the 17 MacBook Pro was the 1600 x 1200 screen resolution. Although this is great for screen real estate, the default font sizes were not so great for my 40 year old eyes. Very tiny. Amazingly, there is no way to change the default system font size in OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. However, there is a work around. Check out TinkerTool. This is a simple app that allows you to change most of the system fonts for your account. However, it does not work on all of them.



One other tip. Because of the resolution issue, I'm zooming in and out of web pages a lot. This can be done on a Mac by pressing Command + and Command - to zoom in and out respectively.