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Youngho Andrew Chaa
Youngho Andrew Chaa

Posted on • Edited on

Set up a new Mac

#tutorial #productivity

I bought a new MacBook, as I thought the new US tariff would increase the price of Apple products. This is how I set up a new Mac.

  • Install oh my zsh: sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
  • Install brew

Then, I install my favourite apps

  • Chrome: brew install --cask google-chrome
  • Rectangle: brew install --cask rectangle
  • Warp: brew install --cask warp
  • Whats App Desktop: brew install --cask whatsapp
  • Obsidian: brew install --cask obsidian
  • Slack: brew install --cask slack
  • Perplexity AI

Adjust the settings

  • Delete all the apps from the Dock: defaults delete com.apple.dock persistent-apps && killall Dock
  • Turn on Auto hiding on Dock.
  • Enable 3 finger drag and drop.
  • Add a new language of your choice. Mine is Korean. Go to Settings > Keyboard > Text Input > Edit.
  • Use F1, F2 as function key: Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Function Keys
  • Enable Keyboard navigation: Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard navigation
  • Display application switcher on every screen in multi-monitor setup: defaults write com.apple.dock appswitcher-all-displays -bool true Then killall Dock

Install developer tools

  • XCode
  • Github CLI: brew install gh
  • VS Code: brew install --cask visual-studio-code
  • MongoDB Compass: brew install --cask mongodb-compass
  • Postman: brew install --cask postman
  • Docker
  • Minikube: brew install minikube
  • Terraform: brew install terraform
  • AWS CLI
  • Fork: brew install --cask fork

Set up Git

  • ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com": to generate a new SSH key
  • eval "$(ssh-agent -s)": to start the ssh agent
  • Update ~/.ssh/config to automatically load keys into the ssh-agent 
Host github.com
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  UseKeychain yes
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
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  • ssh-add --apple-use-keychain ~/.ssh/id_ed25519: add the SSH private key to the ssh-agent
  • pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub: copy the public key
  • Go to Github settings and add the key
  • git config --global user.name "Your Name": set your username
  • git config --global user.email "your.email@example.com": set your email
  • git config pull.rebase false: set the pull action to be merge

Set up VS Code

  • Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH

Set up Node.js

  • curl https://get.volta.sh | bash: to install Volta:
  • volta install node: to install the latest LTS node
  • npm i -g eas-cli: to install eas

Set up Ruby

  • brew install ruby@3.2
  • Add export PATH="/opt/homebrew/opt/ruby@3.2/bin:$PATH" to ~/.zshrc
  • source ~/.zshrc: to reload the settings

Set up XCode

  • Check if XCode is in the correct path: xcode-select -p
  • If it's in a different place like this, /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools, reset the path: sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer. This is necessary to build a React Native project successfully locally

Set up Python

  • brew install pyenv: to install python version manager
  • Update ~/.zshrc 
echo 'export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"' >> ~/.zshrc
echo '[[ -d $PYENV_ROOT/bin ]] && export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
echo 'eval "$(pyenv init - zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc

source ~/.zshrc
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  • pyenv install 3.12: to install python 3.12
  • pyenv global 3.12: to set the global version
  • Install Python extension from Microsoft in VS Code
  • Install Jupyter extension in VS Code

Set up AWS

  • aws configure to set region, aws_access_key_id, and aws_secret_access_key

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