Guide for Users New to the Mac

[TheStu]

Yay Sticky!

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: RedWolf
Great start.

I would tone down the Apple love. For instance, the paragraph about Apple taking more care than and the glorious macbook. I read the first as a swipe at Windows machines and the second as something taken from an Apple marketing ad. Both turned me off from reading. Ditto on the mighty blue apple (unless it's actually called that, of course). Of course reading the "mighty bue apple" reminds me of the Crash Different video and I love that video.

I have seen the way most other laptops are packaged, and Apple does seem to take more care, just like I said. I'm sorry if you think that is me loving Apple... but it is more me loving the attention to detail. If Dell did it that way, I would give them props, but this is about Macs, and so that means Apple.

As for the 'glorious' comment, would you prefer 'splendiferous', 'terrific', 'super, thanks for asking'? I am the one writing this, so I will color it from time to time with my own personal opinions. And in my opinion, the MacBooks and MacBook Pros are quite glorious, great pieces of hardware.

And that video is Hi-Larious! That is where I got it from, I should link that video the first time I say it though, just so others can get a laugh too.

I would put something in about command-F5 and fn-command-F5 for turning on/off voice over. In Windows, ctrl+F5 refreshes a page andreloads everything. I do that a fair amount and it turns on the voiceover in OS X. Took me a while to figure out how to turn the damn voiceover off.

I had no idea that it would do that. I thought that just F5 refreshed a page in Windows, but hey I would always use Ctrl+R or press the reload button anyway.

Put in some shortcut keys all together or put a link to a page with them.
I like this list:
http://creativebits.org/keyboard_shortcuts_in_os_x
or this one
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459

I'd also mention the key combos for taking different screen shots. (command+shift+3, command+shift+4 are quite useful) I think most people are going to be used the print screen and there isn't one.

That's not a bad idea, I am not sure how to work it in there, but I'll try

I would also talk a bit about .sit files and Stuffit Expander. A lot of files that people will download are going to be compressed as a .sit. My MBP didn't come with stuffit installed and I had to do it.

I have only ever run into 2 .sit files in the 13 months that i have owned my MacBook. Most everything I download is either a .zip, .tgz, or a .dmg, all of which are handled natively, so that is why I didn't mention them. I try to find a place for it though.

I'd also talk about ejecting 'drives'. When you connect to a share on another computer you have to eject the drive by dragging it to the trash. That is going to be confusing for Windows users since they would be used to disconnecting a network drive. You do the same for dmg files.

I'd mention where the eject button for the dvd drive is. Most people don't know where that button is when they want to eject a cd/dvd.

Or you can press the eject button located next to the mounted drive, click on it on the desktop and press Command+E, within the open finder window of the given mounted item, click on an empty spot and press Command+E. Dragging to teh trash is passe.

It is the button with the eject symbol on it, how is this hard? (Sorry for coming off snippy, but I have been having a similar argument on another site, and i was hoping it was isolated to that one guy)

It may be out of the realm of this post but you might mention bootcamp and vmware/parallels.

That is a possibility, but that might be better as a separate guide all together.

I'd also talk about the remote that comes with a mac. Mostly because it's cool and fun and not very common on windows machines (HP and Dell have ones that fit in the expresscard slot but not many people buy them).

I really should have, I am amazed by the number of people that just set the remote aside and never use it. My mother got a refurbed MacBook, pulled the remote out of the box, and then just set it down on the desk. I came home months later and asked her why her remote was still in the original plastic wrapping. She said she didn't know what it was for. Apparently, she didn't even try pressing any of the buttons.

You mention Dashboard but then don't get back to it. I would. I personally love the way dashboard is implemented. It's very cool. I wish I could change the sensitivity of the corners for activating it but it's still neat.
Anyway, great start.

I did mention Dashboard... I meant to have a section for it, but must have been distracted. I'll see what I can type up.

 

[TheStu]

Guide edited to include most of what RedWolf mentioned, as well as fleshing out the rest of the included apps, added another "should have been included" app, and did some minor editing.

 

[Parasitic]

How well does that XSlimmer program work? Seems like quite a novel idea.
From your personal experience how much HD space have you saved? What about program performance?

 

[TheStu]

XSlimmer works great. Where it especially shines is in reducing the size of Apple's apps, most of them get reduced in size 50% or more. Plus, by eliminating the code that it doesn't need (ie PPC code if you have an intel processor) the apps also load faster.

I feel that it is useful, and unfortunately the trial only lets you slim 50MB (I wish it was like AppZapper where you can at least use it for 3 zaps) so it is hard to get a good feel for it.

 

[miniMUNCH]

I also found Pathfinder from cocoatech to a great app when I had my Mac... worth it's $30 price. It's basically what Finder should be, IMO. Now I haven't used 10.5 at all, don't have a mac right now, so maybe Finder is better in 10.5.

In all likelihood, I'm going back to mac when I'm done with school.

 

[Kmax82]

Wow.. XSlimmer and Pathfinder look amazing! I'll have to give those a shot when I get home tonight. Thanks!

 

[JackBurton]

WOW!! Great write up!!!!!

 

[manly]

Spotlight (Command+Space) is indispensable as both an app launcher and a document search tool.

And yet for some reason, I still regularly launch apps (the slow way) from the Dock or the Recent items menu!

 

[Tyranicus]

You know, I'm aware of Spotlight's existence, and how well it works but I almost never use it. I think it's just because I've been using computers for 15 years now, and I've always manually accessed my files. Really the only time I use Spotlight is when I need to find something and don't know where it is. Otherwise I use the Dock or the Finder.

 

[grimdeath]

Very nice guide, really helped me a lot with my new Hackintosh build. I had been looking for a better way to switching apps when windows were hidden behind each other vs alt+tab expose works GREAT! Just the sort of info a newb needs!

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: grimdeath
Very nice guide, really helped me a lot with my new Hackintosh build. I had been looking for a better way to switching apps when windows were hidden behind each other vs alt+tab expose works GREAT! Just the sort of info a newb needs!

vista does the same thing as expose... http://insentient.net/ but it doesnt run as well...

 

[TheStu]

Yea, most expose clones for Windows tend to be laggy and whatnot, however this is a guide for user new to the Mac, specifically new to OS X, so I would appreciate if we kept Windows side comments to a minimum.

 

[slugg]

I had many questions regarding system audio on the Mac. After asking around on these forums and Insanely Mac, nobody could really come up with a solution for me. Well, I finally found one and it's time to share!

This is something that I think a lot of Windows users would like to see, especially those with premium consumer level sound cards:

Want similar functionality to the Creative Control Panel in Windows, but you your Mac?

This includes global EQ and several DSP effects for your system-wide audio. This is comparable to Creative Lab's audio control panel with their X-Fi sound cards, but this is even more feature-rich. I'm trying the demo right now and it has DEFINITELY helped improve audio quality.

Here's a link to the product page.

Here's a direct link to download the demo.

 

[TheStu]

That is great Slugg, good links. I have never had too much reason for this, but it couldn't hurt to have Safari not be as loud as iTunes some times.

 

[Ichigo]

Woah... you missed QuickSilver?

It's basically Spotlight on crack. I can access iTunes from it, open any app, open bookmarks in Safari, etc. QuickSilver is ridiculously good. It also has plugins so you can use it for more specific functions within applications (browse all the mail in your Mail inbox, whatever.

$0.02

 

[TheStu]

I know about Quicksilver, I just never got into using it. I don't need to do that much with my system, and even when I did... i didn't even use spotlight... some things are hard to change

 

[Ichigo]

Fair enough. I still think it's worth a mention though.

 

[TheStu]

If you want to write up a section for it, i would be more than happy to add it. Since I do not use it that much, I have nothing to write. Same reason why the iMovie section is still blank

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: Ichigo
Woah... you missed QuickSilver?

It's basically Spotlight on crack. I can access iTunes from it, open any app, open bookmarks in Safari, etc. QuickSilver is ridiculously good. It also has plugins so you can use it for more specific functions within applications (browse all the mail in your Mail inbox, whatever.

$0.02

I have to say, I never got into QS. I tried it a few times, but always found myself going back to just the old method of using a mouse.

 

[biggestmuff]

Okay, help me by explaining the download/install process with more detail. I needed to grab some drivers for a USB MIDI device from M-Audio's website. If that link doesn't work, look under "Midisport Series" then "MIDISPORT 2X2" then "Mac OS 10.5.4"

Okay, I start the d/l. I end up with "MIDI_USB_OSX_3.2.3.dmg" in my 'Downloads' folder. I click it (or it opens on it's own) and another file, "" spawns on the desktop. Huh?!

I absolutely love how all of the Apps are stored and installed in the Applications folder. It works so much better than Windows scattering all kinds of files all over the drive and system.

 

[TheStu]

Ok, the window that opened should have 2 things in it, one is the uninstaller and the other is the installer. You want to double click the installer ad it should launch a program that will install the driver. Then just eject the .DMG (Disk iMaGe) and everything is solid.

 

[James Bond]

This is a great guide, Stu. It's stuff like this that really helps me learn on a fast track

Thanks for the read and all of your help, so far being a Mac user has been great thanks to you guys

 

[MotionMan]

I just got THREE new Macs, as I am converting from an all Pc household to all Macs, all at once.

This should be a great resource once I sit down to actually do the conversion.

Thanks.

MotionMan

 

[MikeMike]

What happened to the sticky?