Set Up a New Mac

Updated from a few years ago: http://bluebones.net/2015/12/things-i-absolutely-must-do-on-a-new-mac/

  • Upgrade to latest OSX.
  • Restore home directory from Backblaze. (Or at least dotfiles, .ssh dir, .vim dir, bin directory, ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred 4/*, pwd.dsv.gpg, business, travel)
  • Dock: remove everything, hiding on, magnification on.
  • Sublime Text 3 (and add license key, set “trim_trailing_white_space_on_save”: true in sublime prefs).
  • Solarized theme for Sublime Text 3 (after installing Package Control).
  • subl commandline sublime.$ ln -s “/Applications/Sublime Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl” ~/bin/subl
  • Sublime git ignorer (to have ST3 respect .gitignore in searches, etc.) via Package Control.
  • Hide Desktop icons.
    $ defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop false
    $ killall Finder
  • Alfred (and give it Accessibility access, add license key).
  • Solarized theme for Terminal.
  • “Use Option as Meta Key” in Terminal to make left Alt work as Esc.
  • Use Ctrl-f7 or the Keyboard, Shortcuts in System Preferences to give Full Keyboard Access so that tab takes you to every button in a dialog, etc.
  • Discord.
  • Homebrew. (Installs OSX commandline tools.)
  • Change all .txt to open with Sublime Text.
  • Show hidden files in Finder. Cmd-Shift-.
  • WhatsApp.
  • 1Password.
  • Wine + MTGO: https://github.com/pauleve/docker-mtgo/wiki/macOS:-installing-MTGO-using-Wine
  • Chrome. (Log in to Chrome to get uBlock Origin and other extensions.)
  • Skitch.
  • mysql/mariadb (via homebrew).
  • rtm-cli (via homebrew).
  • Backblaze.

9 Replies to “Set Up a New Mac”

  1. +Disable Ask Siri in System Preferences, Siri
    +Remove Ask Siri from touchbar in System Preferences, Keyboard, Customize Touch Bar…

  2. + https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18482976/tell-sublime-text-to-ignore-everything-in-gitignore/25565420#25565420

  3. + Add { “keys”: [“super+shift+i”], “command”: “exclude_ignored”} to sublime keybindings

  4. Disable long-press (it’s wayyyyy too annoying when selecting text in Chrome): defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

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