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Funny things you did, when first using a Mac

Dr McKay

Dr McKay

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Aug 11, 2010
3,893
1,674
Kirkland
When I first started using a Mac from a life of Windows, I had an utter panic attack when using Photoshop, I accidentlly missed a button on one of the toolboxes, clicked the desktop, and the whole programn vanished.

I also had a blonde moment, announcing to the whole room of bemused Graphic Designers, 'Wheres the bloody Print Screen Key??'

Other than that it was pretty smooth sailing.

Any other funny things you've attempted to do, not known how to do, or anything inbetween?
 
When I got my first Mac (2001ish), I didn't know how to uninstall programs. So after about 2 weeks I backed up my documents and reinstalled the whole system. After that I realized I could just put the apps in the trash...
 
The biggest one for me was realizing that when you "x" a window, the app is still open. Once I understood that Macintosh treats windows as "documents" not like "applications" (like Windows) does, this made much more sense. In the meantime, I'd have like twenty different apps open all at once. :rolleyes:
 
iShater said:
First time ever was in the 90's when someone told me to eject a disk using a paper clip. :eek:
Click to expand...

I kept a paperclip in my wallet so that when I was at Uni, when machines locked up ( and they did, regularly ) I could get out my 'Apple toolkit' and get CD's or floppy out of the machines in question.
 
Melrose said:
The biggest one for me was realizing that when you "x" a window, the app is still open. Once I understood that Macintosh treats windows as "documents" not like "applications" (like Windows) does, this made much more sense. In the meantime, I'd have like twenty different apps open all at once. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

my boyfriend will use my computer and never close the apps. ive showed him a million times, he just doesnt seem to get it.
 
My first mac was a Quadra 610. It had a 2x CD-ROM drive that had no tray - you had to put the CD in a caddy (looks vaguely like a floppy disk) and then stick it into the computer. I didn't realize this at first and spent what seemed like an hour trying to figure it out until my old man, frightened that I was just going to try and shove it in, showed me how. If you failed to close the caddy properly it would get stuck inside the computer and you'd have to take the computer apart and remove the front bezel to get it out. :rolleyes:

I also fooled around with bad floppies that the SuperDrive didn't recognize, so I quickly learned the paperclip poke routine.
 
I dragged a bunch of music off a CD into a folder, ejected the disk and everything vanished. Aghh the good ol days when dragging and dropping didn't mean 'move/create' but 'add an alias for this here'.

ohhh yeah... And used a lot of zip disks.
 
When I got my first mac, a g3 black powerbook with System 9, home I could not wait to play a dvd movie on it. I was pretty annoyed when I could hear the movie playing but could not see it. I don't know how long it was until I realized I had to double click the top of the window bar to see the video. It was a Fry's demo unit. :)
 
Can't really think up any 'duh' moments when I first started. Although when working in the semiconductor industry I had my windows PC, a couple Solaris and IRIX machines, and my Macbook Pro. I constantly got hot keys mixed up and could be heard cursing at the computers for not doing what was asked. Luckily some of the UNIX commands I did on the IRIX machines were not recognized by Darwin.:eek:

/make me a sandwich
you do not have significant privileges.
/sudo make me a sandwich
password:
 
Remove my thumb drive without dragging the volume into the trash. Windows will be quiet about it (unless you are writing a file to it, in which case it will say `file transfer failed' or something like that), but Mac will always say `NO YOU MUST SAFELY EJECT'.
 
I called the resident "Tech guy" over and reported a problem with the Mac Plus I was using.

"Someone had inverted the colors," I complained, pointing at the screen. Instead of the normal green letters on a black screen, it was black letters on a white screen. He laughed for five minutes before regaining his composure and explaining that it was normal on a Mac. He walked back to his desk, a snort of laughter escaping every once in a while.
 
I would get a little frustrated when hitting the middle button to "maximize" the window. I got used to it after a while. But about a year ago I stumbled upon this app called Right Zoom. Now I have the option of maximizing when I need it.
 
mariahrg said:
my boyfriend will use my computer and never close the apps. ive showed him a million times, he just doesnt seem to get it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, when my parents got a Mac it took forever to get them to actually close the apps they were through with...
 
Melrose said:
The biggest one for me was realizing that when you "x" a window, the app is still open. Once I understood that Macintosh treats windows as "documents" not like "applications" (like Windows) does, this made much more sense. In the meantime, I'd have like twenty different apps open all at once. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I did the same thing. I wondered why that fancy Mac was running so slow. Oops.
 
First time I used a mac, I downloaded Adium as my third app and I closed the window for a second and I thought I quit the app. But then I saw that it was open but I couldn't see the window even after I clicked the dock icon a hundred times :D

I had to restart the computer haha.
It took a while for me to realize all I had to do was show the contact list.
 
Not really a problem, but a slight thing I had to get used to was the fact that the menubar is always at the top of the screen... First time I used a Mac I spent *forever* looking for the file and edit menus.. :D I much prefer they way Mac does it, I just had to get used to it.
 
I never had any problems with the first mac I used, but I occasionally make the mistake of closing a window I am using when I mean to minimize it, I have no real reference to windows machines I used Apple first 90 percent of my life has been on a mac since the mid to late 80's other than a TRS80 and a TI99.
 
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