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Awesome Mac features...that you don't use?

DaveF said:
I can't bring myself to put that in the "awesome" category. It's a neat idea, but I've not found it that useful. It seems if I can't find a menu item, I'm so far off in what I think it's called that the Help won't find it either. And Help is mediocre at best, often useless and the new interface is step backwards, that I often search online before using Help. I doubt I'm alone.
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You may be more alone than you think. I use the Help menu all the time. So many times my new Mac friends will email me a question about using an app in OS X then I just go to the Help menu and get the answer and email them back. I keep telling them to use the Mac Help menu and they are just too lazy which is generally the case as to why some people don't like using it.

Anyways I will add that Automator is my least used app in OS X although I've used it to create some awesome plug-ins so it's just one of those features that I'm glad it's there and wouldn't want Apple to take it away but just improve it.
 
I think its fare to say that apple software gives us options! Some people use one program while another can do the same but in a different order. What I like about this post is that I am being exposed to these options I did not know I had.
 
HLdan said:
You may be more alone than you think. I use the Help menu all the time. So many times my new Mac friends will email me a question about using an app in OS X then I just go to the Help menu and get the answer and email them back. I keep telling them to use the Mac Help menu and they are just too lazy which is generally the case as to why some people don't like using it.
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Maybe most people do like Help. I've been trying to use Help more as I'm learning the iWork suite. But many times it's very sparse.

petvas said:
I never understood why Dashboard exists...
I really don't like it at all
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I thought that Widgets were a silly idea until I started using them. Having that alternate screen of info has turned out to be very useful to me: I especially like the Weather Radar and Movie Times widgets. The package tracker widget is also handy when I've got something on order. These misc bits of data are just easier to be one button press away, than to need to find individual applications or load various web pages to get to them.
 
DaveF said:
Maybe most people do like Help. I've been trying to use Help more as I'm learning the iWork suite. But many times it's very sparse.

I thought that Widgets were a silly idea until I started using them. Having that alternate screen of info has turned out to be very useful to me: I especially like the Weather Radar and Movie Times widgets. The package tracker widget is also handy when I've got something on order. These misc bits of data are just easier to be one button press away, than to need to find individual applications or load various web pages to get to them.
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You know, that reminds me... I have some handy web tools that I'd like to convert into widgets. If this is not possible (say, using Dashcode), then I'll just have to find an existing widget or make my own.:eek:
 
I used to be a FileVault user, but it always made me uneasy at the risk of data loss, and I prefer being able to use Time Machine anyway, since I understand that they don't quite play well together yet. Once the image is mounted in /Users I don't understand why it wouldn't be possible to back up the contents with the rest of the file system, but I hear they don't have that ironed out yet.

Similarly, I don't use Spaces because of Office 2004 not quite working well with it; Exposé gets it done anyhow.

iPhoto is a cool piece of software for bundled, but it doesn't hold a candle to Lightroom or even Expression Media, which I got at student discount for $99 and free respectively.
 
I've never ever used any iLife or iWork apps, apart from iTunes.

My most-used software is Adobe CS3 Design Premium with Dreamweaver and Flash, MS Office, QuarkXpress and a bunch of other third-party apps. No Garageband. No iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb or iDVD. No Pages or Keynote etc...
 
I'm starting to get really interested in the Smart Folders, but I can't figure out how I want to use them. I'd like to use "keywords" for photos and stuff that aren't in iPhoto, but I'm thinking that's different from the "spotlight comments" window in teh "Get Info" box. I've got little things scattered about in different folders, but I'd like smart folders to keep them tagged by feature.

If anyone has any ideas on that, please PM so as not to derail the thread.

If I could ever figure out how to use them, I wouldn't have to talk about them as "awesome features...that don't use".

Thanks much!
 
Blue Velvet said:
I've never ever used any iLife or iWork apps, apart from iTunes.

My most-used software is Adobe CS3 Design Premium with Dreamweaver and Flash, MS Office, QuarkXpress and a bunch of other third-party apps. No Garageband. No iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb or iDVD. No Pages or Keynote etc...
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You're missing out on a LOT.
 
Cameront9 said:
I rarely if ever use the backlight keyboard on my 15" Powerbook. it's cool, I just never use it, especially on battery power.

Automator is neat, too, but again, never use it.

I would like to use Garageband, but it takes up too much disk space, and I don't have a keyboard to hook up to it..

Got rid of iWeb, too. don't have a .Mac account and don't have the money or need to host a web page elsewhere, either.

And to you people that don't use Expose: you're crazy. Of course, i have it set up as a hot corner...can't imagine having to press a button....
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i find that having the scroll wheel button on my mouse is A LOT nicer than a hot corner for expose
 
iDVD, Garageband (although have been using this slightly to record sounds and play for my parrot to teach her when out :eek:), iDVD, iWeb and Spaces.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
You can. Just enter your keywords into the Spotlight comments area of the file's Get Info dialog.
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I still don't know what either of you are talking about. In iPhoto hit apple-k and it brings up a window to add keywords to your photos.
 
Hot Corners
Spaces
iDVD
iMovie
Garage Band
Front Row
Photobooth (a regular photo would be fine, maybe with B&W and Sepia for good measure)

I disagree with all of you who say iSight, I don't use Skype or iChat video often, but for example, my Dad was in Israel and we could talk. I went to El Salvador and could see everyone back home. I think its awesome.
 
I don't use: Spaces; CoverFlow; Expose. Guess I just haven't found these things to be useful on a regular basis.
 
The coolest thing on my blackbook that I'm not currently using is the TOSLINK digital optical input. My music equipment that has digital audio outputs is all S/PDIF coax, so until my converter arrives next week I have to use analog audio outputs into my FireWire audio interface to get the tracks into Logic.

Not really a huge problem, it just seems silly to convert to analog just to convert back to digital if its not necessary. Kinda like the vga output on my old Dells, computer digital images converted to analog only to be converted back to digital inside the flat panel monitor.

Edit: When I get a few things going on at once, I absolutely love Expose. Very underrated feature, IMO.
 
Automator intrigues me, yet I have no idea what it is, does, how to use it.

Applescript same as automator, I wish I knew how to use it.

I use spaces all the time though.
  1. On my iMac I have mightmouse set to open up spaces when the scroll wheel is clicked.
  2. On my MBP I have spaces set up as a hot corner in the upper right hand side.

I use Expose all the time.
[*]On my iMac I have mightmouse set to open up Expose when I squeeze it
[*]On my MBP I have Expose set up as a hot corner in the lower right hand side.
[/LIST]

Oh, and multitouch on the MBP is amazing.
For example, in Safari when I do a three finger swipe up, it opens up a new tab. A three finger swipe down closes a tab. Rotate right refreshes a pages, rotate left stops a page from loading. Safari is easy to use with that multi-touch set-up.
 
I don't use Spaces. I just haven't found the need yet. Maybe at some point I'll use it.

I use everything else including: Expose, Front Row, iSight, iLife, CMD+TAB, Show Desktop. Can't really think at the moment of anything else.
 
time machine. one day i'll pony up for a time capsule, probably the day i realize i screwed up big time and deleted something i need.

looking at my applications, other things i have never even opened: address book, automator (no clue what that even is) front row, garageband, imovie.

i live by spaces and expose. 1 = adium, 2 = itunes, 3 = safari, 4 = mail. then i open up things like iphoto, iweb, dictionary, whatever i need temporarily generally in 1 with adium. the only corner i use is the bottom left, brings up my spaces. i'm constantly jumping back and forth between 1 and 3.
 
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