I had installed Linux recently on my PowerBook Titanium (again, yes), but was having issues related to WPA2 encryption for wireless access, so here I am back on OS X again.
I haven’t done this in a while, but I’ve decided this time to actually write down all of the things I install and do to set up the machine. These notes are below
I just set up Mail.app according to my server’s configuration. Nothing special there. First things first, I need Firefox, and I want it optimized for the G4 processor. I’m getting the latest version from BeatnikPad. Then, I’m going to save this draft, exit Safari (which is driving me nuts) and continue. It calls itself “DeerPark” so before I can continue properly I’m going to rename it “Firefox”.
(time lapses)
Ahh, back at home in Firefox. I need several essential plugins, including TabMix Plus, AdBlock Plus, Cookie Culler, and Foxmarks. I’m used to having Quicksilver handy, so that’s next… I ran through the Quicksilver set-up wizard, picked the default recommended plugins, told it to always install requirements. I switched the hotkey to command-space, and set the catalog to scan every 10 minutes. Spotlight uses that key combination, so I have to load up system preferences and fix it. I just disabled all spotlight hotkeys. I turned on advanced features in Quicksilver, set up my preferred triggers for iTunes, and installed just about every plugin I might use (after refreshing the list).
This brings me to Growl. I used to disregard Growl because it wasn’t used by many applications, but now that it is, it provides a nice, unified notification system for OS X. (I confess, I had to try the Master Shakestyle).
I just realized I need my usual “Inbox” and “Action” folders, so I created them in my home directory and then symlinked them to the Desktop.
I also just realized that I should install Xcode while I have the install disk handy. So I’m doing that.
Anyway, installed GrowlMail. The growlnotify thing looks neat, I hadn’t tried that before. I should tell Rob about it.
I had to get some files from my work machine, so I downloaded my favorite free sftp client, Fugu.
I got Audacity to edit a microwave “Ding” sound that I found.
I’m trying to work on my prospectus now, so I got Emacs from here and TeX from here.
The computer keeps calling itself brock-tices-powerbook-g4, which is annoying. The computer’s name is Arwen, so I switched it to “arwen” (.local)
In order to access my encrypted files, I downloaded Mac GPG.
Oh, and I forgot to get the Download Statusbar plugin for Firefox, the lack of which was driving me nuts. Why is Firefox’s built-in download manager so bad?
I finally installed Mail Act-On, the lack of which was driving me nuts. Oh, and switched Firefox to download to my inbox. The lack of this was also driving me nuts.
I reinstalled Witch, which I also need to do on my work machine.
I had to find Spirited Away, which unfortunately doesn’t yet have a Universal Binary, and it looks like it never may.