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Calvin Nguyen
Calvin Nguyen

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Apps to install when you got the new Mac

A guide to set up your Mac and improve your programming experience to another level with Vim/Zsh/Tmux, macOS Apps, Extensions for high productive development


Inspiration

Whenever I got a new laptop, it usually takes me up to 2 hours to re-setup everything again, and I start getting tired and annoyed. Every time I set up my Mac again, I learned something new and cool things that improve my programming experience better.

So, I make a collection of setup and apps to share with you my personal guide of setting up a new Mac for software development.


1. System Preferences

Alt Text

  • System Preferences > Trackpad/Keyboard > set up as above images
  • iCloud > login to your account
  • Filevault: On
  • Disable Ask Siri
  • Location Services: On (Limited)
  • Check software updates
  • Messages app > add your Number + email
  • App Store > install previously installed applications

2. Terminal

Alfred

  • It’s a replacement to Spotlight because it’s way much faster when it comes to search any files: brew cask install alfred

Brew

  • Install Xcode: $ xcode-select --install

  • Install Homebrew: $ /bin/bash -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

  • brew cask install to install an application

iTerm2

Optional: ZSH/Tmux/Vim

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*Y7MmBIs_8Xfx76MQOSfbiA.png

3. Git

Git has become one of the main tools that every developer should know how to use it. The new Mac usually comes with Git pre-installed.

  • Install git: brew install git

  • Config git:

$ git config --global user.name "Your Name"
$ git config --global user.email "you@your-domain.com"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

You will constantly be using Git daily, and SSH will allow you to pull and push to git without re-entering email and password every single time.


4. Install Mac Apps with command line

If you’re a fan of command-line, and you don’t want to install apps by going through each of them on Chrome. then you should try mas

  • Install mas for quick setup: $ brew install mas

  • Search for your app: $ mas search XCode . You will find the app ID for each app

  • Copy the App ID into 1 command line: $ mas install <app_id1> <app_id1> <app_id3>

Note: If these apps below don’t have an app ID, then you have to install it from the browser. (Links included)

Work

  1. XCode: 497799835
  2. The Unarchiver: 425424353
  3. Microsoft Word: 462054704
  4. Excel: 462058435
  5. PowerPoint: 462062816
  6. VSCode
  7. Postman
  8. Docker

Communication

  1. Slack: 803453959
  2. Notions: 974929595
  3. Zoom: 884018914

Entertainment

  1. Messenger: 1480068668
  2. WeChat: 836500024
  3. Line: 539883307
  4. Chrome
  5. Viber
  6. Spotify
  7. Open Spotify: This website lets you listen to Spotify music with NO Ads

5. Chrome Extension

You don’t want to install many Chrome extensions unless you want it to “eat” a lot of your RAM or unless you have a powerful computer.

Here are the TOP 6 that I used daily:

  1. Adblock Plus: Block all the ads
  2. Grammarly: Used to check my grammar when I write essays, blogs, etc.
  3. Honey: To find me the best deals
  4. Rakuten: Give me cash back when I shop online
  5. Redux Dev Tool: For debugging with React
  6. JSON View: View JSON on the web browser prettier

6. VSCode Extension

  1. Prettier
  2. AutoClose Tag
  3. Auto Rename Tag
  4. Better Comments
  5. Debugger for Chrome
  6. ESLint
  7. Gittens
  8. Go
  9. HTML Snippets
  10. Javascript (ES6)
  11. code snippets
  12. Python
  13. Turbo Console.log
  14. dotENV
  15. npm Intellisense
  16. Path Intellisense
  17. Live Server
  18. Color Highlight

Top comments (4)

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cocoonkid profile image
cocoonkid

look into ansible and automate the whole thing.. Wasting 2 hours is way too much, also dump a brew file.

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calvinqc profile image
Calvin Nguyen

Nice, that's a great feature. I used it as well. I listed them all to help newbies as well, but definitely try to put it in the post

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alandbh profile image
Alan Vasconcelos

Thanks for the post!
However, I'd like to suggest to move from Postman to Insomnia.

It's cleaner, faster, open source, and it has a pretty UI. 🙂

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calvinqc profile image
Calvin Nguyen

Nice, it looks awesome, definitely give it a try tonight, I also use swaggerUI before, but don't like it that much (maybe because I use Postman daily and get used to it).