What are some basic tips/things to know about using a Mac?

[SAWYER]

I use the Mini I bought my son occassionaly, but really am clueless and have a lot to learn.

 

[TheStu]

Well there is a sticky written by a user here... what was his name... TheAwesome? TheCoolGuyWhosNameRhymesWithDue? I can't recall, I am sure I will think of it eventually.



However, some basic things to remember are that CMD (command) is equivalent to CTRL, though if you are on a Windows keyboard, then that would be the Windows key in place of Command. With few a few exceptions, hitting the X in the upper left corner of a window does not close the program as it does in Windows, it will instead close the window leaving the rest of the program running in memory. Not a huge problem and actually quite advantageous at times. Minimizing is unnecessary since you can either close the window as I mentioned before, or you can do CMD+H to hide it, and clicking its dock icon will bring it back.

What version of OS X is it?

 

[QueBert]

The cmd -> CTRL thing is really messing with my head. I installed OSX 10.5 on my Hackintosh the other day and that's gonna be one hurdle I can't get over lol. Perhaps there's a way to change the keyboard layout so my Ctrl can be CMD. Gotta be doable. Besides that just stick with it OP. I'm semi clueless, it's similar enough to what I'm use to where I can use it without much struggle. But some things just confuse me, like if I have Safari open, clicking on the Safari icon a 2nd time doesn't bring up another copy of Safari. I'm going to stick with it though, I'm enjoying it so far.

 

[TheStu]

The cmd -> CTRL thing is really messing with my head. I installed OSX 10.5 on my Hackintosh the other day and that's gonna be one hurdle I can't get over lol. Perhaps there's a way to change the keyboard layout so my Ctrl can be CMD. Gotta be doable. Besides that just stick with it OP. I'm semi clueless, it's similar enough to what I'm use to where I can use it without much struggle. But some things just confuse me, like if I have Safari open, clicking on the Safari icon a 2nd time doesn't bring up another copy of Safari. I'm going to stick with it though, I'm enjoying it so far.

Yea to get another Safari window, you just hit CMD+N to make a new window. Not sure how to get an entirely new instance of the application, for all I know, it isn't possible.

 

[SAWYER]

It is Snow Leapord, and as far as the dock...I just click on the icon of the program I thought was shutdown and it opens back up?

 

[Ka0t1x]

All I can say is... Key Combos & gestures (on trackpad). They've increased my workflow incredibly.

As for the dock, yes, it works somewhat similar to the taskbar in windows, just with shortcuts built in. If the app is open it will open its window, or a new window if all windows are closed (most browsers stay backgrounded).

 

[mugs]

The cmd -> CTRL thing is really messing with my head. I installed OSX 10.5 on my Hackintosh the other day and that's gonna be one hurdle I can't get over lol. Perhaps there's a way to change the keyboard layout so my Ctrl can be CMD. Gotta be doable. Besides that just stick with it OP. I'm semi clueless, it's similar enough to what I'm use to where I can use it without much struggle. But some things just confuse me, like if I have Safari open, clicking on the Safari icon a 2nd time doesn't bring up another copy of Safari. I'm going to stick with it though, I'm enjoying it so far.

System Preferences->Keyboard->Modifier Keys...


The dock is a combination of the taskbar buttons and the quicklaunch buttons in Windows, with a little system tray action mixed in (dock icons change to indicate their status like system tray items often do; for instance Mail will tell you how many unread messages you have, Entourage will just tell you that you have unread messages, Adium will tell you who you have unread IMs from, file transfer programs will give you transfer stats, etc)

 

[TheStu]

It is Snow Leapord, and as far as the dock...I just click on the icon of the program I thought was shutdown and it opens back up?

If there is a little dot or light under the icon in the dock then that means that it is still running. If you click it and it bounces for a while that means it is opening.

 

[u3laptoper]

There are a few notable productivity utilities softwares on Macs. These range from finance, OS improvements, word processing, etc.. Developers from these softwares have done a beautiful job at polishing these useful tools.

Macupdate.com is the website to start the search.

 

[KeithP]

From a security standpoint, I would not use an admin account for your day-to-day stuff. Make it a standard account. And if you use Safari, go into Safari preferences and uncheck "Open "safe" files after downloading."

I also don't let Software Update automatically update the OS. I download the updates manually when they come out and wait about a week to see if the update is causing widespread problems. Although rare, there have been some FUBAR'ed updates from Apple. Let others doing the testing for you.

Another way to deal with updates is to keep a cloned partition of their boot drive handy for back up purposes (I do this at work). Before you run software update, just make sure the cloned partition is current. If you have any problems, you can just go back to the clone. Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner work fine for this purpose.

Of course all of these things are overkill and probably not necessary. 99% of users will likely never have a problem that these steps would prevent. I tend to be cautious though.

-KeithP