Entertainment For Lively Minds
Apple Mac help
Posted by Richie B on 25 October 2010 - 5:19pm.
Hello Massive,
I start a new job next month where I shall exclusively be using an Apple Mac. Given that I am and have been a PC user for the past 17 years, and I am unlikely to get any training I thought I would ask you knowledgeable guys for any handy hints which will save me time.
Thanks in advance,
Richie
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Don't panic
The one thing that caused me issues when I switched was the keyboard layout, with certain characters being in different places, and some of the keyboard shortcuts being different. But it took no time at all to adjust. You'll be fine.
I, on the other hand
am still trying to adjust to Windows XP. It is clunky beyond belief, crashes at least once a day and can't handle Adobe CS4.
It does depend on the Mac OS and hardware but I reckon you'll be fine Ritchie, I'd even wager by the end of the week you'll be wondering why things were so difficult in the past.
XP is a dog
But I run CS4 on a moderately powered PC with Windows 7, it's probably as fast as my Mac, and has yet to crash.
We have (so we're told) high spec HP peecees
but the fault must lie with XP trying to run a suite of programs that are far too sophisticated for it.
I lost 20mins work today trying to place a pic from Word (Spit!) into ID and then Outlook crashed as I was sending it to the client.
Fault is likely to be
in the software build of the pc. XP is ok on the whole but IT departments don't test the software properly and inflict builds on people that aren't right.
I have a mac at home and an XP laptop at work. Both are pretty stable (but I do work for an IT company). I do prefer my mac though.
Agree on W7
I had it installed on my 'work' machine a month ago, and have had no crashes, and excellent performance on startup and shutdown. XP used to take about 10 minutes from cold, it's now about one minute.
For Dummies
The 'For Dummies' series of books has a very good one on OS/X, In common with all their technical books, it's very good as a quick introduction. There may actually be a book in that series on how to switch from PC to Mac.
The main thing to do is to learn the various control/menu/option keys. Once you have that, it will be easy.
Short cuts
All the short cuts like ctrl X, work just press the cmd button instead of the ctrl. On the other hand MOST right click things are accessed by ctrl clicking. That's the biggest difference as far as I am concerned - oh and the location of the @ symbol.....
Cmd
or "Command button" is the one next to the space bar with a little Apple logo on it (and/or a ⌘ sign).
Any 2 (or more-) button mice work just as on a PC, the right-click bringing up a contextual menu.
On a Mac laptop tapping the trackpad with 2 fingers is the same as right-clicking. Newer mac laptops have quite a number of touch gestures (swipe, pinch, 2- 3- and even 4-finger combinations) on the trackpad.
There's a whole load of pages and videos here, direct from the horse's mouth for folks in your position:
http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/
That should help you along. It's actually not that difficult or different at all, it just seems odd when everything looks familiar but slightly re-arranged.
Other basics
Double-click an App's icon to open it. If the icon is highlighted and you press Enter, it will think you want to rename the icon. Be careful not to rename things to " " accidentally.
The close/minimise/maximise buttons are on the top left of a window, and colour-coded. If you close the window of an Application (Mac word for Program) the Application will still be open, even though there's no open windows running. Go to the App's main menu in the taskbar (top left) and choose Quit to close it (or press Command-q).
The Dock, along the bottom of the screen, is basically a bunch of shortcuts. Removing something from the dock will not delete or uninstall it. To add something to the dock just drag it in, and remove it by dragging it out again.
Delete Key
The two things that threw me to begin with were:
Lack of delete key
you have to drag the item to the trash or "right click" and move to trash
No add/remove program equivalent
You have to go to applications and move the application from there to the trash
Apart from that, the biggest thing was the position of the CMD key - damn Fn key kept getting in the way.
I also run Parallels with windows 7 which causes me more confusion - but does get rid of the whole "Flexibility" argument mentioned somewhere else in the thread.
Delete key (-ish)
When an item is selected in the finder press cmd+backspace to send it to the trash.
Delete key
fn plus backspace = delete. Someone here taught me that and I apologise for forgetting his name but it was an ace tip.
The other thing that puzzled me recently until I figured it out myself - if you use a memory stick, then drag files to the trash, although invisible, they are still on your stick until you actually empty the trash - seems stoopid to me but I'm sure there's a reason for it. (Is it the same on windows machines?)
It's just being consistent
That's how it works if you drag something on your main hard drive into the trash. A memory stick is just another drive, so why should it handle files differently?
I get that
- but doesn't it mean I'm effectively copying the files from my memory stick onto my laptop - where they are stored in the trash?
So instead of getting rid of anything, it actually creates an extra copy whilst making it *appear* as though it has been wiped from my memory stick.
No
each volume, whether on the hard disk, or a memory stick has its own "compartment" in the Trash (they're actually separate directories on the devices called .Trash - note the dot - which means that users can't normally see them). If you don't empty the trash the files just stay on the trash compartment on the volume.
a-ha
penny drops - cheers. Now, can anyone give me a hand changing this light-bulb?
Thanks!
Well that will make life easier. I have a feeling I'd been told that before, but had completely forgotten. I look forward to testing it out tonight.
I thought of something else that used to confuse me too - when you change a setting, there's no OK or Apply... you just close the window. It never seems very official to me.
Also, I'm sure others will disagree, but I love the new trackpad - the mouse has had the batteries removed and is relegated to the Misc. Cables' drawer.
Switching from Windows
As I remember there is a section in Help on the Mac specifically for people who have switched from Windows, and the Help system on OSX is generally much more friendly than that of Windows XP (I haven't used more recent versions of Windows and so can't comment on those).
Also this site might be of some help:
http://www.myfirstmac.com/index.php/mac/categories/C7/
Yes main thing will be
Yes main thing will be keyboard shortcuts. But the mac keyboard is frankly laid out a lot better, the command key being an easy thumb perch.
Surely you just switch on a Mac
and it just, like, works ;)
Indeed it does
it's the users that cause the problems :-)
Also known as PEBKAC
"Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair".
Oh, and within OSX...
...check out the little magnifying glass in the top right of your screen. That's Spotlight, and it'll find pretty much anything on your computer within a few keystrokes. It's unbelievably fast and useful, and for a desktop-neat-freak like me, saves me having to have all my applications cluttering up my Dock (the bit at the bottom of the screen with your apps on it).
Another lovely thing about OSX is Exposé, which you can set up from System Preferences (under the Apple logo menu on the top left). My main use for this is making the corners of my screen active. I've got it set up so that when I flick the mouse into the corners, stuff happens:
- top left, and my computer goes to sleep.
- bottom left, and my Dashboard (handy widgets like calculator, unit converter, weather etc) appears.
- bottom right and my screensaver comes on.
- top right and it shows my Desktop.
Bloody handy.
I only mention all this because others have already given you pointers on so much good stuff above.
I also like
Spaces. Being a hardcore geek, I used to use Linux and XWindows a lot, which had virtual desktops (I still do from time to time to time). I get this with spaces. The other benefit is that it's "boss friendly", so you can hide, say, an afternoon browse of this website by switching desktops to your email program or other such useful thing.
I'm Two Months Into...
...the Mac experience after 20 years of Windows and it's OK, it really is!
All the tips above will help - especially the Apple on-line Help. It's great. There are also some really good user forums which have helped me out of one or two issues.
I think you'll love it.
I, on the other hand
have found myself in the converse position of having to get used to a pc after 15 years of using Mac. I'm not liking it much!
same here
a year in and it really doesn't work.
bloomin journo's
Yeap
bloody journo that decided on our switch, he hates everything Apple.
Once you've had Mac
you'll never go back
I did
When faced with the prospect of buying a Mac with my own money.
I mean, Christ, it's only a computer. They all do pretty much the same thing.
They all do pretty much the same thing...
...and you could drive Route 66 in a convertible Mustang or you could do it in a Vauxhall Astra. You'd get there either way, but would the experience be the same?
That's a rather poor analogy
Because, in terms of hardware, PCs and Macs are identical. Your metaphorical Mustang would have a Astra engine under the bonnet.
The hardware isn't ''identical'.
Almost every Mac since 1998 has been a thing of beauty, almost every Wintel box is a box.
The internals might be similar but they're not the bit you spend all day looking at :-)
Well you've put your finger on it
The case is nicer. Many people feel it doesn't justify paying nearly double for a similarly specified computer.
yeah but...
with a 'stang you could have the radio on whereas with an astra it would stall every couple of miles.
They may be similar...
...but not necessarily the same.
For example the processors of the low-end Macbook range is a proper Intel Core2 Duo. Cheaper PC laptops use lowers specification Celeron based processors instead, which, although they may offer the same processor speed, have severe compromises in system performance. These higher specification processors of course cost somewhat more, and can also require additional support hardware.
Netbooks, which Apple don't produce, are usually fitted with even cheaper Intel Atom processors. These are compromised even further regarding performance.
There's also other differences, such as the quality of the screen, graphics hardware, battery capacity, optical audio output and so on. Then there's the issue of Apple's extra hardware options that aren't found on most PCs, such as backlit keyboards and ambient light sensors
Once you start to compare Apple hardware with PCs with very similar specifications (such as the models offered by Sony), the prices are far more comparable.
You're comparing apples with oranges
You can buy a similarly specified laptop with a Core2Duo processor for about £400. The cheapest MacBook on the Apple website is £849.
Now, the MacBook will generally give you longer battery life, a better screen, probably a bit better build quality, a choice of graphics processors and nicer design. But the question I ask myself is: "Is this worth paying another £449 for?" And the answer is generally no.
Nuts
Yes. Why? resale value. Because macs retain their value, and PCs devalue in a very short period of time. Oh… and that's an unfair and inaccurate comparison for price anyway.
Always amazing to me why people who make the ill-educated decision to spend hundreds of quid on any PC, always try to misrepresent the facts when attempting to advise others to make the same stupid decision. Self justification? - probably
My mac logic
was simple. My iMac has a glorious screen. It has a built in webcam, lovely keyboard and truly brilliant mouse. It's also very quiet and came with software that has meant that I do not need to buy Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements.
All in all I valued that at around £400 worth of stuff I would buy or like to buy over and above a windows desktop at about £500. So the £900 I paid for a great looking, very effective computer (duty free at Heathrow, delivered home the day I got back from the US) was good value.
Not True
I've got a couple of Macs but I still prefer to use Windows PCs. They're so much more flexible and I feel more in control of things.
Graphical User Interfaces
Haven't changed significantly for about 35 years. I've used all flavours of Windows, most flavours of Mac and a few Linux distributions.
I'd say they're all 75% identical.
Hey Rich
Well done on the new job as well.
Thanks everyone
This will all come in very handy...
Step one in becoming a Mac user is
adopting a smug air of superiority.
(retreats, shielding himself with the carcasses of discarded Apple Newtons)
Step two in becoming a Mac user is
realising that the smug air of superiority is justified ;-)
We've covered this before
You don't adopt a smug air of superiority when you buy a mac. You buy one because you have a smug air of superiority. Well I did anyway.
*raises eyebrows in a rakish way*
Ah... the old 'smug' cliche
I wondered how long it would be before that one got trotted out.
I'm surprised we've got this far without 'black polo-neck sweaters' being mentioned.
I speak as
someone whose Dad had one of the first Apple IIs in the late seventies, which morphed into various Macs etc up until the late nineties, at which point I realized I was buying the concept of Apple rather than the product. A quick readjustment and it's been nothing but PCs since. They are cheaper, just as reliable and have an interface that is just fine.
And to stand by my comment, there is a particular sort of contrariness required to make someone a die-hard Mac user in a world that's 90% PC.
In music terms...
90% of records sold are Taylor Swift and Kenny Chesney.
10% are by the likes of King Crimson, Grateful Dead and Richard Thompson
I rest my case :-)
I am linux
on the basis that you have picked 5 artists I neither like nor own anything by.
The analogy doesn't hold true
Because your choice of music doesn't preclude you hearing other types of music music. It's more like insisting on using a laserdisc while the rest of the world uses DVD; or DAT instead of CD; or Betamax instead of VHS.
How?
Windows and Mac are very comfortably interoperable these days. At work, I'm the only regular member of staff on a Mac. I connect to the Exchange server, share calendars, use Office, use Adobe CS5 and am under the Windows Server domain, with full access to the machines on the network, share files and use memory sticks in both kinds of machine. .
It's not a VHS and Betamax situation - those two systems shared nothing. You couldn't play one's tapes in the other's machine. Sure, some software needs to be ported to OS X, but actually my workflow is more efficient and smooth than the Win users', IMO. The XP builds throw up problems all the time. The OS X builds need the occasional patch, but they're rock solid. As are the Win7 builds, actually (all our machines triple-boot with XP, Win7 and Snow Leopard, since we cater for hundreds of different guest users on a daily basis).
I've got a cashmere poloneck on...
...but it's blue. Will Steve Jobs know?
Did you
get it at M&S? I got navy, grey & black ones.
Sorry, wrong forum...
No Uniqlo
I need to pop into M&S actually thanks for the reminder...
Morning Routine
Make your morning coffee before turning it on.
With a PC you can afford to turn it on then go make coffee, exchange morning pleasantries with co workers etc. while you wait for windows to boot.
With a Mac you'll be up and running in a matter of seconds.
I dunno
My £200 Windows Netbook boots faster than my MacBook Pro.
Don't worry
it does everything for you and whatever stumps you just speak to Mr Google and his billions of friends, they'll tell you in miliseconds.
Then you can spend the hours you save sitting back wondering why you didn't use one sooner.
Congratulations on the new job!
It's personal preference
Apple has a magnificent marketing department that has managed to convince a huge number of people that OSX is better than Windows. This may or may not be the case, for most users all they see is the GUI and a selection of applications that allow us to access the computing power of the hardware.
When people confidently suggest that OSX is better that Windows because two machines (one of which may well be accessing files from an ageing slow network) boot up at different speeds, then you know that the the marketeers have done a good job.
At one stage in personal computing history, the Mac was undoubtedly the best option for graphics work mainly due to the matching between screen and the print that Windows simply didn't do. This is no longer the case and these days it's down to personal preference rather than which is better or worse.
Is Windows 7 better than Windows 98? Yes, in almost every respect. But if I used many (not all) Apple fan's logic I would have to claim that 98 is the best simply because I prefer the GUI.
Have to disagree on the graphics front John
I work with a team of 8 other designers and the problems we experience daily are horrendous.
As mentioned above it may be down to the build of XP we have but no one is willing to address it.
We used to maintain our Macs ourselves and only called in outside help if something was seriously wrong.
Now we're stuck and have to call IT who really don't have a clue about our needs and seem incapable of resolving issues.
It's terribly frustrating to sit at an HP peecee all day trying to achieve results you're used to without negotiating an obstacle course. At least when I come home I have my lovely Mac which really does just work.
Whereas
The geeks in the office next door to me - both very serious power users - both prefer PCs. I use both, and while I do prefer my Mac, it's more an aesthetic thing than anything else - the PC handles Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc just as well as the Mac does.
In 2010 using a PC shouldn't really be an issue for any designer, I suspect, unless it's set up badly. I do, however, think that PCs require more looking after to work at their optimum for a long time.
Agreed
During the 90s, doing desktop publishing on a PC was more trouble than it was worth. There were too many incompatibilities and equivalent packages were just far more usable on a Mac than their PC equivalents.
Around the time of Windows XP coming out, the issues largely disappeared, to the extent that I wasn't really bothered what platform I was using. (This is with the important caveat of being able to send jobs to the printer as PDF files.)
Blame the people, not the technology.
I know that you've brought the subject up before and it does seem that you have an IT department problem rather than a computer problem. If you went out and bought a properly specced Windows 7 PC (or probably XP for that matter) you should be having no problems at all. If you have 8 users experiencing similar problems then there is something wrong with the setup and not the hardware.
IT departments like all their users to do the same thing (preferably at different times) with their computers and spec them accordingly. I'm lucky that I work for a big company that seems to have a reasonable IT department. The FPO is always asking me if the advice she has been given by her large company IT department is correct and the answer is almost always no. Only a couple of years ago she was told that they couldn't install freeware because it was only licensed for private use!
Apple has a magnificent
Well have you entertained the possibility that the mac Operating system IS better than Windows. In every feasible respect. And that this objective and incontrovertible fact is as clear as the sun to anyone with any taste who has spent more than half an hour using it.
GUI or OS?
Obviously I have as I immediately followed the part you quoted with "That may or may not be the case".
I would suggest that there is a very small number of people that are capable of getting anywhere near the OS within half an hour of using it. In fact if the GUI is any good at all (which both OSX and Windows are) you will hopefully be quite well protected from knowing what exactly is going on underneath.
Both
Both GUI and OS in the unlikely event you have any idea what you are talking about. And next time you install Norton/McaFee Waste of Cash on your machine, don't forget to include it along with all the extra twaddle you have to buy in your pricing considerations.
Case closed
Not quite sure why you've taken the stance you have. I don't come here for a slanging match so the case is closed.
Reasons to pay the Apple Premium
Design: the keyboard, mouse, screen, positioning of webcams and general layout of stuff is better than a cheap PC. As others have said, it is pretty much comparable to a similar spec Vaio or similar.
If you're buying a laptop, the quality is irrefutable.
All of them run OS X: a thing of beauty, not least because it is built on Unix. I like having a proper terminal (not the abortion that Windows uses-PowerShell? Eurgh). Not just that, but most of the most powerful tools and specialist bits of code that I need are Unix-based, and waaay easier to install and get running on the Mac. Adobe CS5 just 'feels' nicer on a Mac, even though it's perfectly adequate on a PC. Even MS Office is just as good now.
And then there's XCode. A full development environment. Free. On the OS disc. Compare tot he cost of comparable MS Visual Studio tools for full blown development.
And it'll run Windows. At least as well as most other PCs (and in some cases, like the laptops, somewhat better). I have a Windows 7 install on my machine. It's fine, in fact Windows 7 is the best OS Microsoft has produced in a long time. I just prefer living in OS X most times.
I think it's worth paying the extra for.
Alternatively...
I know someone - a developer responsible for building one of the World's most popular, technically innovative websites - who owns a Mac Pro with dual 3GHz quad cores, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. But he thinks the OS is awful.
And so he does nearly all his development on an HP laptop running XP.
I'll add my congratulations too. Good luck!
Just to add:
The Spotlight feature, which idiotbear mentioned above, is an absolute joy to use.
The best way I can describe it is a kind of google search of your computer.
You click on the magnifying glass (top right-hand corner), and type in what you're looking for. This could be the title of a document, the name of a contact, music, pictures, or anything you want to find quickly on your computer.
Up pops a list, with one-click links to everything that matches. It's superb. It means you don't have to trawl through folder trees to get to the item you need. It even pops up with a dictionary/thesaurus definition link, too. It's the most useful thing on a mac.
If you do want to read up beforehand, this is a good guide:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/MacMost-com-Guide-Switching-Mac/dp/B002RAPB4G/re...
The author also has a website: http://macmost.com/
Cultish behaviour
These discussions are funny though. And it's always amusing to bait the Mac fanbois.
The three or four Windows users in this discussion (and I include myself) are of the general opinion that Macs are nice computers but they're a bit overpriced and inflexible.
Windows users, meanwhile, are ill-educated, stupid, have no taste and buy "twaddle".
The irony is that most computer users probably spend 75 per cent of their time in a web browser. And my experiences of Firefox and Chrome have been pretty much identical whether I've used them on Windows, Mac or Linux.
Not sure I agree
I use both and see the merits of both. I think mac bating and looking down at windows users is not behaviour guaranteed by owning certain types of hardware (but it does occur). The thread above shows plenty of reasonable views on the relative merits of both windows and mac users (as well as some stereotype fitting emotion). I certainly don't think, or didn't say Windows users are ill educated, stupid, have no taste and by twaddle. I beat myself up at times but never in public on the web.
*logs off and goes to beat himself up*
Can I amend Stimpy's Law (qv) to read
"In any discussion of politics, the discussion will trend toward a binary argument of "Margaret Thatcher was the best/worst Prime Minister this country ever had". Once this point is reached, the discussion if for all practical purposes over.
Codicil 1: This law also applies to any discussion relating to computers. It will trend toward an OSX/Windows binary argument usually, but not always, centering on the likelihood of an OSX computer becoming infected with a virus OR the comparative gullibility of people who buy one OS or the other."
Which is daft because...
... we all know that Linux is the best!
Time for a
Fedora vs Ubuntu vs OpenSUSE argument.