What to Install on a Macintosh Running OS X

Login Files

My dot login and emacs (aquamacs) files are in lib.zip.

Manually Tweaking Canon Printer Color

Photos printed by my Canon MP640 inkjet printer came out too dark, despite the fact that the color profiles were installed and correct paper type was selected. I finally found a way to manually tweak the color when printing from any application. From the Print dialog box, expand options if necessary, and:

• If using Acrobat or Photoshop, in main print dialog box select Advanced -> Printer Manages Colors
• (Pop up menu) -> Media & Quality -> select appropriate paper and quality
• (Pop up menu) -> Color Matching -> "Canon Coloring Matching" rather than "Colorsync"
• (Pop up menu) -> Color Options -> Color Mode -> Vivid Photo, Brightness -> Light

Free software

1. x-windows (install from the CDs included with Mac OS X)
2. Apple developers toolkit programming tools (also on the Mac OS X CDs)
3. aquamacs better version of emacs
4. Galarie web gallery creation
5. Discus cd label printer
6. MPEG Streamclip demux and convert video files
7. HandBreak DVD ripper and mp4 encoder
8. Audacity audio editor
9. LAME library needed for Audacity
10. fink other Unix programs (including LaTex) and/or macports
11. open office has a better drawing tool than any in MS office
12. Fetch (free for students/teachers) ftp client
13. Stuffit Expander for those .sit files
14. Flip4Mac Quicktime Component to play Windows Media files
15. Firefox download status bar

Commerical software

1. Audio Hijack Pro lets you record any audio being played back by any program, including timed recordings.

Useful Information

Enable Hibernation (Safe Save)

When the lid to your MacBook is closed, to make it hibernate (save state on disk and power down completely) rather than sleep, open a Terminal window and enter:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1