Note: I’ve decided to publish this post before it’s finished, so that anyone interested can see how far I am (I likely won’t finish today, anyway). Therefore, you may refresh at-will to see the latest updates (you’ll know I’m done when this message goes away).

I’ve been meaning for a while to write up a list of my essential software installs and setup procedures for a new Mac. Now that I finally have my new Mac Pro Quad Xeon Nehalem, I plan on sharing every significant step after start-up that I’ve taking, for future reference. Here we go!

1. System Preferences » Keyboard & Mouse » turned on right-click and set the ball button and side buttons to just be buttons 3 and 4. So annoying.
2. Dragged Macintosh HD, Applications, and my home folder to the Dock. Display as: Folder; View content as: List. So amazingly better.
3. Dock » Position on Screen: Left (to avoid wasting real estate). I would turn hiding on, but I think I’ll just snap it to a smaller size by holding option and dragging left a bit and the “landing strip”. We’ll see how it goes with 1920×1080 × 2 monitors of space.
4. Boot Camp Assistant » 32 GB should be enough for Vista or Windows 7, right? Hmmm… maybe I should research this…
5. Software Update. Might as well get that going. Requires restart. Fine; okay then…
   • Time for round 2 of Software Update. This time, Safari 4.0. Good.
   • After a second restart, I’m GTG.
6. More default config annoyances.
   • System Preferences » Sound » Play alerts through: Internal Speakers; Sound Output Device: Line Out
   • Appearance » Place scroll arrows: At top and bottom. Up is up and down is down, NextStep is ancient and I have stuff to do.
   • Desktop & Screen Saver » Start: Never. Sorry, unnecessarily burning up my processors in not my thing. I may have to consider SETI@Home and/or Folding@home, though…
   • Exposé & Spaces » Spaces tab » Enable Spaces; Show in menu bar; 4 should be fine for now. Activate with F1; my ASUS monitors don’t respond to the brightness keys. Switch between and switch directly with ^? Arrow/Number Keys. I find control-option doesn’t conflict with most things and is easy to hit 1-4 with.
     • I usually keep most stuff in space #1; keep #2 clean for Desktop/filesystem access; #3 is reserved for special projects; and #4 is for long-running background tasks.
   • Exposé & Spaces » Exposé tab » All windows: F3, to match the icon on the key; Application windows: ? F3 for easy access; I never use Show Desktop, so it can be ?? F3; Dashboard: F4 again, to match the key graphic.
   • International » Input Menu » Show that mofo in the menu bar! Character Palette and Keyboard Viewer are essentials.
   • Security: Require password to wake from sleep: Absolutely! Disable automatic login? Absolutely!
   • CDs & DVDs » picture CD: Ignore. Annoying…
   • Displays » Absolutely show in menu bar.
   • Energy Saver: Sleep: Never; Display sleep: yeah, 10 min is fine. Everything else looks fine.
   • Keyboard: Use all F1, F2 keys as standard function keys!!! Otherwise, I can’t customize which does what! Keyboard Shortcuts » Ugg. I’ll set these up as I need to change things.
   • Network » Ethernet 1: DHCP with manual address so I can find my computer by local network IP. I think 192.168.0.7 is appropriate. Connecting to my local network; then disabling Wi-Fi. Just in case I need to use it…
     • Saved it all as “Home – Ethernet Static IP w/ DHCP”. I’ll set up more as I need them.
   • Sharing » Hmmm… need to think of a good name for this beast. File Sharing, Screen Sharing, and Remote Login: On. The 1st is temporary; the 2nd two are permanent (for now).
   • Accounts » change my icon to my standard avatar. Login Options » Enable fast user switching (and fast screen locking!)
   • Date & Time » Set automatically: Yes, please! Time Zone: Seattle, not Cupertino!!! Clock: with seconds, flash time separators (so I can watch my life tick away…)
   • Software Update: Check Daily; why not?
   • Time Machine » in menu bar? No thank you, I’m happy with Mozy remote backup.
   • Universal Access » status in the menu bar: why not.
   • Whew. That was a lot of work. Time for a break (at least from writing, mostly).
7. Activity Monitor
8. Glims
9. ~/Downloads/Installers folder
10. Safari/Glims set-up
11. Bitstream Vera Sans Mono
12. Quicksilver and Login Window shortcut: ??L
13. AppleScript Utility: Show Script in menu bar; Enable GUI Scripting
14. Fast User Switching Color Profile Fix
15. Unity 2.5 Game Engine. I’ve been waiting a long time for this…
16. View Options
    • Icon View: Icon size: 128×128; Grid spacing: all the way down; Text size: 10 pt; Show item info; Arrange by: Name; Use as Defaults
    • Desktop Icon View: Icon size: 96×96; Grid spacing: all the way down; Text size: 10 pt; Label position: Right; Show item info; Arrange by: Kind
    • List View: Text size: 10 pt; drag Date Modified column to the right; Use as Defaults
    • Columns View: Text size: 11 pt
17. TextMate
    • MissingDrawer
18. Adium
19. Growl
20. SynergyKM
21. Little Snitch
22. OnyX & Xupport
23. put swap on it’s own partition
    • chflags hidden /Volumes/swap/
24. Quicktime » Preferences
25. Xupport » settings
26. the latest Firefox beta (3.5 as of now)
    • FireBug
27. Stuffit Expander Their marketing is annoying, but Expander is mighty essential.
28. Screen Lock via Keychain Access
29. SIMBL
30. Git
    • Git for OS X
    • Installing GIT on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
    • GitX
31. Xcode & Developer Tools
32. Windows Media® Components for QuickTime
33. VLC media player
34. Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client 2
35. Audio Hijack Pro