Damn Computers (in appropriate category)

halfwise wrote:As long as I'm on it, I wrote this guide for people switching about 8 years ago. I haven't upgraded the last few iterations due to legacy software I wanted to keep, so some of this may be out of date and I don't know it. But I think 90% is still good.


Transitioning from Windows to Macintosh


General Layout: there is no “My Computer”. All hard disks and flash drives will appear on the desktop (which is where you want them anyway). Frequently used applications will appear on the dock at the bottom of the screen. System preferences/control panels are also in the dock under the gearbox icon. Other major commands (like shutdown) are in the apple menu in the upper left. The important ‘command’ keys are to either side of the space bar.

Window Layout: windows have red, yellow, and green buttons at the top left. Red closes the window, yellow minimizes it into the dock, and green is supposed to toggle it between maximum size and current size, though Microsoft applications don’t do this so well. Unfortunately you can only change the size by dragging the lower right corner. “Command-W” will close a window. “Command-N” will open a new window in the current application. If you have multiple windows open and need to find one, hit the F3 key and the windows will shrink and spread out. Hover you mouse over each window and a description will appear so you can quickly find the window you want. There are also finger swipes you can set up to do this automatically: typically four fingers at once.
Next to the colored buttons are icons that let you switch between the way you view the list of files in the folder: icon view, list, or 3-window list that shows the directory structure. Beside that is a gear icon that shows a menu for basic operations such as copying files, making new folders, etc. On the far upper right is the spotlight search feature described below.
The icon list of hardware and commonly used folders to the left can be modified by drag and drop: if there’s a folder you want to be able to find easily, drag and drop it to the left side of the window and it will be there for future use. You can also move files by dragging them to one of these icons.

Mouse: yes, there’s only one mouse button. The ‘right click’ is emulated by holding down the ‘ctl’ button while clicking. Some applications will have you hold down the command button. If you have a trackpad, placing two fingers on it while clicking with the thumb will also emulate a right click if you set it up for this.

Dock: drag the icons of applications that you use frequently from the applications folder to the dock. You can remove icons from the dock by dragging them to the trash – don’t worry, this doesn’t uninstall them, just removes them from the dock. How the dock behaves can be set by system preferences. You should probably drag the activity monitor from the application/utility folder to the dock (see below).

Trackpad: upgraded to use iphone finger swipes, this really streamlines common tasks. To set up your preferences, click on the ‘System Preferences’ (gearbox) in the dock, and click on the dock button under hardware. Hover the mouse over options: it will guide you through by video. There are easy and intuitive ways to scroll, manage windows, etc. Two finger scrolling is the best: check it out!

Moving/Renaming Files: OS X has no “move this file to…” menu. Apple’s answer to navigating the file system is spring-loaded folders. If you have to move a file through several levels, drag its icon to the top-level folder and hold it there. The folder will pop open, and you can hold the icon over the next level folder, which will pop open, and so on. To rename a file, click on the icon so it is highlighted, then hit the ‘return’ key. The filename is now in edit mode. The double click if done at the right speed will also put you in edit mode.

Ejecting Flash Drives: either drag it to the trash or click on it and hit ‘command-E’.

Managing Applications: closing a window sends an application into background mode, it does not quit it. This means it opens faster next time, but very occasionally too many applications in background will cause hang-ups. A little light below the application icon in the dock tells you it is in running in background. You can switch between applications in background using ‘command-tab’. The menu at the top of the screen will change. If no window is open you may open a new one from the appropriate menu at the top, or use ‘command-N’ (for new window). ‘Command-Q’ will quit an application under normal circumstances. If an application hangs up, use the activity monitor to quit, which is why you should move the activity monitor to the dock from the utilities folder. “Command-W” will close a window without quitting the application.

Searching for Files: Apple has created a system called “Spotlight” which is acknowledged to be the fastest computer search system available. You will see a magnifying glass next to a text box at the top right of every window. Type words found in the file or file name (including pdf’s) in the window, and spotlight will find all files that match almost before you are done typing.

Sorting Files: When looking at a list of files in a window, clicking on the titles at the top will sort the list according to that aspect of the file. Clicking on ‘name’ will sort the list alphabetically, ‘date’ will sort by date modified, etc. Clicking a second time will sort the files in reverse order.

Cutting and Pasting – Command-v,x,c all work as in Windows, substituting for ‘ctrl’. If you need to cut out part of the screen to save as a png file, hit shift-command-4. Crosshairs will appear, which you can drag to outline the part you want to cut. It will appear on the desktop as ‘screen_capture_timestamp.png’. This is good to use for creating powerpoint images, etc.

Accessing Unix: (for true computer geeks) the command line is reached from the Terminal application. If you are a unix user you will want to drag this from the applications/utilities folder to the dock. If your application requires X-windows you can use the X window utility.

Bluebottle wrote:
It still feels a little claustrophobic, and I do feel the windows experience is more open ended, but that migth very well be a result of habit. So, we'll see.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Totally unrelated to computers but your video choice Blue has reminded me why I dont enjoy or rate the modern chatshow- they are so sanitised, that edge I remember, that sense the guests could go too far, takeover, go completely off script that always seemed to be hanging in the air, making for edgy exciting tv- even in that short clip Moore and Cook are teasing the edges of what's acceptable, probing and pushing what they can get away with- like the variations on the golf gag ending on Moore's very risqué for the time 'come over the wicket' gag that marks as far as they choose to push that one.
Modern chatshows are so organised, so scripted, so safe with no one wanting to offend or risk a bad headline or a twitter revolt that they are just for self promotion and sales now- anyone remember when Parky could interview someone for an hour about their art and how they see it and interact with it- without a single direct product plug?

halfwise wrote:Actually the functionality on both is almost precisely the same, you just aren't used to the Mac stuff yet.

The stumbling block for most windows users is they want to right and left click everything, but much of that is done differently on the Mac.  The right click menu is still there if that's the way you want to go (at least three different ways to simulate the right click using either the trackpad or the option key), but you'll find different ways to do most of it which you may end up liking more.  The full functionality of the track pad is probably the biggest dividing line, so go into that menu in system preferences and find all the goodies.  Nothing matches the trackpad on a Mac.

halfwise wrote:My biggest beef with OSX is that you can only change window shape by dragging the bottom right corner, and they don't provide a 'move file to' menu, forcing you to use spring loaded folders.  All other things are done more elegantly in my opinion.  And viruses remain all but unnoticeable.

Eldorion wrote: Does anyone have any experience using iCloud versus Google Drive versus anything else?

I love the metal build and how light it is, though I would have traded a little bit of weight and thickness for a disc drive, since I had wanted a way to watch my Blu-rays on a computer

bungobaggins wrote:I haven't used iCloud, for me. I never did want to get totally invested in Apple's ecosystem as I prefer Android phones. So I stick with Google Drive. For cloud storage I'd go for anything that can work on multiple platforms, so no matter what your next device is you'll still be able to access your stuff. I don't think you can access iCloud from an Android phone.

Well, you would have been out of luck anyway, because Apple does not offer support for blu-ray right out of the box as they would prefer you to buy HD movies from iTunes. You'd have to buy an external blu-ray drive from a third party manufacturer and then blu-ray player software from another company. I've looked into it before, really quite a mess.

Eldorion wrote:I'm probably overthinking this, but I'm a little worried about overheating the battery so I'm trying to figure out if Chrome is the culprit here, since I know a common complaint is that it's a resource hog.  It does seem to be worse than Safari both in terms of how hot the computer gets and what the Activity Monitor states its energy impact is.  I haven't been too impressed by Safari so far either, though, and I figure streaming video is gonna put a strain on the computer no matter what.  Anyone have any thoughts on this?  Maybe I should give Firefox another try.