former PC User needs HELP !!

[vitus]

hi,

im relatively new to mac and im currently working with osx on my new 15"pb.

there are a few questions ive come upon, maybe some of you have a clue

1.) how do i manually change the MAC-Address of my airport / ethernet card? -is it even possible ?

2.) how can i set a certain program as the standart for opening a certain file type ? ( eg. i ALWAYS want to open all the media files with VLC instead of quicktime)

3.)which files / programms of osx are usually unnecessary and can thus be deleted (to save harddisk space)?

4.)are there tools to optimize running time ? (link would be enough)

tia.

regards vitus

 

[matticus008]

hi,

im relatively new to mac and im currently working with osx on my new 15"pb.

there are a few questions ive come upon, maybe some of you have a clue

1.) how do i manually change the MAC-Address of my airport / ethernet card? -is it even possible ?

2.) how can i set a certain program as the standart for opening a certain file type ? ( eg. i ALWAYS want to open all the media files with VLC instead of quicktime)

3.)which files / programms of osx are usually unnecessary and can thus be deleted (to save harddisk space)?

4.)are there tools to optimize running time ? (link would be enough)

tia.

regards vitus

Welcome welcome. There's a few differences in the ways OS X and Windows work and so on, so you might find that you don't need to work so hard to keep things running (for example, you don't really need to worry about your fourth question). I hope these answers help you out.


1. A MAC address is designed to be a unique identifier for anything that can be networked. As such, in practice and in principle, it cannot and should not be changed. (It is, however, possible.) Why do you want to change your MAC address? There's probably a different way to accomplish what you want.

2. Choose any file of the type and hit command-i. (Alternatively, right click and go to Get Info). There will be a list of items, including one called Open With. Change the application, and click the "Change all" button to apply it to every file of that type.

3. It depends on what you do. Generally, you can just uninstall anything in the Applications folder you don't need or want. Other than that, the best way to free up space is to remove the extra printer drivers in /Library/Printers (make sure not to delete your printer!). Another way to gain a few hundred MB is to use something like Monolingual to remove the extra localizations if you don't speak/work in any other language than English. Between these two, you can usually get about 1.5GB back. OS X is a fairly sizeable OS, just like Windows, and there's not a whole lot you can or should need to squeeze out.

4. You can look into something like Onyx, but really, as long as you leave your computer on overnight (or at least once a week, if you're a "shut down" type), just about everything will be taken care of for you. That is, of course, assuming you mean system optimization when you say "running time." If you're not asking about sort of general housekeeping, give us a little more info about what you mean and we'll be able to help.

I should stress that you should not go around deleting files installed by the OS, especially as a new user unfamiliar to OS X. As you learn a little more about things, you can start tinkering.

 

[fayans]

Q #1 & #2 are answered perfectly by matticus008

Alternately, you can try the following and see what suits you best

Q #3: DeLocalizer to remove those unnecessary non-use languages

Q #4: Anacron for periodic OSX maintenance.

BTW, welcome to the Mac community.

 

[Deepdale]

I should stress that you should not go around deleting files installed by the OS, especially as a new user unfamiliar to OS X. As you learn a little more about things, you can start tinkering.

That is a sage piece of advice that should be followed by all relative newcomers to the Mac OS. Posts appear here regularly from members seeking to restore some aspect of their computer that has been altered because they were determined to free up precious space without knowing the importance of certain system files and the consequences of deleting them.

 

[fayans]

I always follow the rule of thumbs, that are to keep not less than 10GB of HD space and to max the RAM

 

[MrSugar]

I always follow the rule of thumbs, that are to keep not less than 10GB of HD space and to max the RAM

holy crap, 10gigs, I have like 2 on my powerbook right now

 

[vitus]

Welcome welcome. There's a few differences in the ways OS X and Windows work and so on, so you might find that you don't need to work so hard to keep things running (for example, you don't really need to worry about your fourth question). I hope these answers help you out.


1. A MAC address is designed to be a unique identifier for anything that can be networked. As such, in practice and in principle, it cannot and should not be changed. (It is, however, possible.) Why do you want to change your MAC address? There's probably a different way to accomplish what you want.

hi matticus,

thank you very much for taking the time,
most of my problems have resolved by now (except
this - 3rd post -

the reason why i want to change my mac address is simply because my isp at my parents house does the account verifying over mac addresses, since they dont have/need a router and i still want to bring my pb from time to time i needed this feature. (windows xp can do it for example)

but heres another question:

5.) when im browsing my hd and i have marked a file how can i change it so i can press ENTER in order to open the file ( an not rename it ) -

i am aware that i cannot "transform" my mac into a windows computer (and i dont want it) - i still find it MUCH MUCH more helpful if i could open files with ENTER instead of renaming them.

tia.

regards vitus

 

[decksnap]

Apple+O is the keyboard shortcut.

 

[matticus008]

hi matticus,

thank you very much for taking the time,
most of my problems have resolved by now (except
this - 3rd post -

the reason why i want to change my mac address is simply because my isp at my parents house does the account verifying over mac addresses, since they dont have/need a router and i still want to bring my pb from time to time i needed this feature. (windows xp can do it for example)

but heres another question:

5.) when im browsing my hd and i have marked a file how can i change it so i can press ENTER in order to open the file ( an not rename it ) -

i am aware that i cannot "transform" my mac into a windows computer (and i dont want it) - i still find it MUCH MUCH more helpful if i could open files with ENTER instead of renaming them.

tia.

regards vitus

You're welcome. The easiest and most logical method would be simply to get a cheap wired router (they can be found for $20 now), so you could share the internet connection while you were there. But if you really just want to change your MAC address temporarily, open Terminal and enter the following:

sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff

where 'en0' is your interface and "aa:bb:..." is the new MAC address. This will work until your reboot your computer.

As for opening files with the keyboard, the OS X shortcut is Command-O. This seems like a little more work at first, but it's actually quite easy to get used to. Control-F1 will activate full keyboard access, which should allow you to select and open items with the Enter key, but I'm not sure.

 

[Nermal]

holy crap, 10gigs, I have like 2 on my powerbook right now

I got down to 94 MB on my G5! I promptly ordered a bigger drive

 

[maxterpiece]

As for opening files with the keyboard, the OS X shortcut is Command-O. This seems like a little more work at first, but it's actually quite easy to get used to. Control-F1 will activate full keyboard access, which should allow you to select and open items with the Enter key, but I'm not sure.

you can also you use command-down arrow to open and command-up arrow to go back up a level. This is especially useful if you navigate finder using the column view because you probably already have one hand o nthe arrow keypad.

YOu can also add and change keyboard shortcuts in the keyboard and mouse section of system preferences. Unfortunately you can't program "enter" (or as macs call it, "return") to do the open command, but if you need 1-Button access to the open command, you can program the function keys to do this.

Another thing to consider is if you use the spotlight menu instead of navigating finder by windows, you can use enter to open things -- it's super-fast and easy - Apple-Space, type what you need, arrow to it and hit enter.

 

[mduser63]

hi matticus,

thank you very much for taking the time,
most of my problems have resolved by now (except
this - 3rd post -

the reason why i want to change my mac address is simply because my isp at my parents house does the account verifying over mac addresses, since they dont have/need a router and i still want to bring my pb from time to time i needed this feature. (windows xp can do it for example)

but heres another question:

5.) when im browsing my hd and i have marked a file how can i change it so i can press ENTER in order to open the file ( an not rename it ) -

i am aware that i cannot "transform" my mac into a windows computer (and i dont want it) - i still find it MUCH MUCH more helpful if i could open files with ENTER instead of renaming them.

tia.

regards vitus

Just get used to pressing command-down arrow to open files, it's just as fast as enter, just takes a little bit of use and you'll not even think about it. Also, check into an app called Quicksilver. It's really handy way to quickly launch any application on your computer using only the keyboard.

 

[fayans]

I am fine using ⌘+up to go to next higher level but why a need to use ⌘+down when you could just easily hit 'enter' to open an application.

 

[mduser63]

I am fine using ?+up to go to next higher level but why a need to use ?+down when you could just easily hit 'enter' to open an application.

Command down keeps things consistent for folders. If you've got a folder selected, ?-down will go down into it, while ?-up will go back up a level. Having enter do the same thing would make for a little bit of an inconsistency, because ?-up wouldn't do the opposite of ?-down like one would expect. Also, it's kind of nice to have a simple keyboard shortcut to rename files and folders, although I realize that that doesn't have to be enter.