Transitioning from a PC to the Mac world can take some getting used to.

Below is my list of apps, utilities, and tweaks I have recently installed to tame OS X (Lion) into submission and have it conform to my workflow.


First off, the Terminal app needs some customization.  And although it's Unix and not DOS, some habits are difficult to break.  Besides, typing 'dir' is still less effort than 'ls -la' all the time.

All laptops generate heat.  The i7 MacBook Pro is no excepton.  This little utility lets me keep an eye on the temperature and also provides a handy fan control status.

Keyboard shortcuts are amazing at improving the efficiency of using the computer.

For some reason though, OS X doesn't do a good job of providing enough flexibility to map a keyboard shortcut to any app (like Windows).

Thankfully the Mac App store has LaunchIt.
It's cheap, single purpose, and works very well.

Sometimes it's the little things that are needed, like the ability to refresh a web page or Finder view, by simply hitting F5.







Althought the default TextEdit app is fine for simple notes, replacing it with TextWrangler makes life much easier.  It's free, fast, and does what I need it to do quite well, like column selection and multiple file searching.











Some other bits and pieces

I replaced the internal HDD with my own Intel SSD.  Afterwhich, enabling TRIM within OS X Lion was necessary.  Even though I didn't really notice any difference in performance.   :/


Finally, I must admit that the gestures support on the huge trackpad are simply awesome.  I feel like I'm in the future.

Well done Apple.