new Macbook user..

Here's aload of stuff that should come in handy,enjoy your new Mac

skudderman said:

Hi all,

well i finally took the plunge and bought my first macbook at the weekend. its the basic white macbook.

I am a dedicated windows user and has been for several years.

I have joined this forum for some tips and pointers as i have no idea what i am doing!!

Does anyone have any guides or tips they would like to pass onto me?

thanks

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After couple of months According to mine personal experince it would be one of the worst mistake you ever made.

Switch back to pc or return your product if you can...

(Not intrested to start a war)

ikm19 said:

After couple of months According to mine personal experince it would be one of the worst mistake you ever made.

Switch back to pc or return your product if you can...

(Not intrested to start a war)

Click to expand...

It would be helpful if you were to explain why you make this statement?

I've been using both platforms since the Apple ][ and DOS 5 and at the moment I believe the OS X platform offers a superior experience (ease of use, no anti-virus/anti-spyware required, good performance and Vista is a nightmare. I know, I have to make Vista work each day for the poor individuals who got stuck with it at my place of work). Sure this is all relative to one's experience and expectations, but given your very strong statement I'm curious as to why you feel this way?

And back to the on topic discussion for the new Mac user............

You might want to bookmark this page. It will become your virtual guru launch pad.

Also, this page and paying close attention to Mac 101 and Switch 101 may be helpful as well.

Welcome to Mac and the forum. Come back any time you want to post or just poke around. -GDF

Random tip:

NeoOffice is a fairly good free office app.

ikm19 said:

After couple of months According to mine personal experince it would be one of the worst mistake you ever made.

Switch back to pc or return your product if you can...

(Not intrested to start a war)

Click to expand...

Then WHY post this crap with no explanation what your beef is? Many here including myself have switched and plan on NEVER going back.

I was a windows user for over 20 years and switched about 2 1/2 years ago and haven't looked back!

Why did I switch? BSD's, Windows genuine advantage crap, windows registry, spy ware up the kazoo, viruses, time to run all the anti-virus anti-spyware crap, money saved not buying anti-virus anti-spyware crap, driver hell, updates, updates updates ALL the time, windows idiotic msg windows that pop up, Like are you sure? defrag HD, how many different versions of Vista are there?, and on and on and on.

My sw to Mac has been a dream, I now enjoy computing again like the good old days and OSX just works!

So these are some of my reasons, exactly what are yours.

Pretty easy to say go back and yet you can't even take the time to tell the OP why he/she should!

Pretty Lame Dude!

Oh and to the OP of this. CONGRATS and enjoy your new Mac! Watch the OS tutorials on apples website, read some forums and play with your Mac! You will Love it.

skudderman said:

Hi all,

well i finally took the plunge and bought my first macbook at the weekend. its the basic white macbook.

I am a dedicated windows user and has been for several years.

I have joined this forum for some tips and pointers as i have no idea what i am doing!!

Does anyone have any guides or tips they would like to pass onto me?

thanks

Click to expand...

What do you plan to use your MacBook for primarily? There are a lot of different third party applications (free and small fee required) I could point you towards.

Just a few I use that might make your transition from windows easier include:

• Onyx (System maintenance utility - Free)
• AppZapper (Application uninstaller utility - small fee required)
• NeoOffice (MS Office replacement - Free)
• SuperDuper (Fully bootable backups - small fee required)
• EasyWMA (Convert Windows Media Player WMA formatted files to aiff, mp3, m4a or wav for use in iTunes - small fee required)

what I miss is the Cut option.

It's actually there. It's just... greyed out. Won't click.

Sigh.

skudderman said:

blimey. well firstly what a friendly bunch you all are!!

well i chose to buy a mac purely because i have a skills gap that needs to be filled.

i will mainly be using the mac for some graphics work and some web design (this is the main business use) and for personal it will be music and pictures i guess.

im still trying to get used to the missing commands like copy and paste. ive just worked out you can use the cmd button and the same key presses.

i guess this is going to take some time!!

Click to expand...

Did you enable this on the mouse options, under system prefs? I realized it wasn't on my iMac, and found out how to do it here. Now I have everything I need.

As for the moron that said take it back, and get a PC...don't listen to him. He probably can't play Gizzards and Gaylords on the Mac, so that means all Mac are useless in his mind [probably the size of a pea]...

skudderman said:

is it worth upgrading the memory? it only has 1gb in it at the min and im finding it quite nippy, will i notice the difference if i increase to 2gb?

Click to expand...

Yes max out the RAM,don't go for appleRAM as it's a ripp off,crucial is a good bet & it's cheap at present

skudderman said:

i will mainly be using the mac for some graphics work and some web design (this is the main business use) and for personal it will be music and pictures i guess.

Click to expand...

For graphic work if you don't already have photoshop for OS X you could try GIMP

Here is an interesting article on web development on OS X: 5 reasons why OSX is an unbeatable web development system

For music and pictures you have iPhoto and iTunes.

Cheers!!!

I just made the switch December...

Although I am having some bug problems with iTunes quiting unexpectedly...I think it might be due to iWOW

Will not go back though

skudderman said:

well i have photoshop etc installed and whilst its not slugish i guess i could do with a bit more memory, now as i have the base model am i right in thinking i can only install 2Gb not 4Gb?

Click to expand...

I think your'll find they max out at 4GB,but you could easily check that out for yourself by going to the apple site,here is another useful list of apps & progs

You can keep an eye on your system using:
iStat Pro for the Dashboard
iStat Menu Bar for the Menu Bar

Webdev:
Coda by Panic
Dreamweaver by Adobe (Very heavy App, not my favourite)

Software development environment:
Xcode

FTP:
Transmit by Panic

Par+RAR:
MacPar Deluxe (Multithreaded App)

Burning software:
Toast (Titanium)

Usenet (Newsreader):
Unison by Panic

Word Processing etc:
Office 2008
NeoOffice

Messenger:
Adium (check out some themes too)

Media Player:
VLC (ensure you get the latest version, so it isn't PPC)

All these can be found in your friendly Google search engine. Good luck!

NOTE: Have a look at panic's website, i love all their apps, but please don't crack them! They are only a small company, the apps are very affordable Enjoy.

WannaBMW3 said:

Cheers!!!

I just made the switch December...

Although I am having some bug problems with iTunes quiting unexpectedly...I think it might be due to iWOW

Will not go back though

Click to expand...

I ended up removing all traces of iWOW as I too many issues with it and it interfered with VMWare virtualization software which messed with the audio.

tom. said:

All these can be found in your friendly Google search engine. Good luck!

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They can be found alot nearer than that,look above your post

Neil321 said:

They can be found alot nearer than that,look above your post

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Yeah that link is a good'un.

Just offering my two cents worth.

tom. said:

Yeah that link is a good'un.

Just offering my two cents worth.

Click to expand...

Best link i've come across so far,it's handy as everything's there in groups,with explanations of what there used for

my two pence worth