Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

IT guy just bought a Mac. How do I . . . .

donmei said:
There SHOULD be a maximize button.
Click to expand...
Try the green button in the upper left corner. It will maximize certain apps -- depending on how they're programmed. Since I'm another Windows switcher (also an IT guy), I'm not familiar with exactly how that button is supposed to behave.

I do agree that OS X isn't flawless. However, I do think it's really good. Much better than Windows 95/98/2k/XP ever were for me.
 
1. There is no "explorer". There is Finder. In Finder, keyboard (Command J) to set your view, choose apply to all. You can also change view with Command 1, Command 2, Command 3, and Command 4.

2. There is no C: in OS X. You can rename your harddrives whatever name you want. Much better than trying to remember: are my 2006 projects on drive D or E or F?

To go up a folder level, use keyboard (COMMAND uparrow), or in Finder, command click on the little folder on the top of each window to see the hiarachy.

However, in general files should be put in the proper place in your User folder, such as documents, music, etc. There is almost zero need to go to root of your startup drive.

6. VMWare is better. If you want to share screen, Macs with 10.5 can share screen extremely easily via iChat.

7. Quicktime is NOT a video format. It's a video player (You are probably thinking about .mov files). Quicktime plays many file types such as mp3, mp4, and can play avi wmf files with the proper codecs installed (take seconds to install).

8. You want a 34mm ExpressCard card SD reader

9a. The most recent MS Office is a pig. No way to avoid it but it's ok if you can get it for free. Still better than to run VMware just for office (unless there is something that won't appear correctly in Mac Office). Mac Office has no macros, so then you might need to run vmware.

9b. Launch Apps: in finder, keyboard (Command A) will take you to the apps folder, and you can type the app, for example ichat and Command O to open.

You can also use keyboard (Command space) to open spotlight, type in the app, and hit enter.

10. You can keep your file structures.

11. There is no ivideo. There is iMovie. It exports to various formats, including mp4 which is a standard. Even if you export to mov files, QUICKTIME PLAYER IS FREE.

Screen capture:
cmd+shift+3 will save your whole screen to an image file, you can keep doing it. No need to print screen, paste somewhere, save, go back, print screen, etc.

If you do cmd+shift+4, you can choose which part of screen to capture with your mouse.
 
If you really need macro support don't bother with Office 08, since MS took out the ability to use VBA macros and replaced it with Applescripting. Stick to 04 in that case.
 
Just to add a suggestion to the OP: for Quicktime, have you looked at Perian and Flip4Mac?

Perian installs a lot of missing video codecs into Quicktime (i.e. DiVX,XViD, etc). It's pretty comprehensive, except for Windows Media. That's where Flip4Mac comes in. The free plugin lets you view Windows Media format files. The $49 "studio" product lets you export to WMV.

Congratulations on your switch. I was in exactly the same bout you are about a year ago. These days, my old Vista clunker sits almost entirely unused. :) My only regret is having waisted money on Vista.
 
steeler said:
Try the green button in the upper left corner. It will maximize certain apps -- depending on how they're programmed. Since I'm another Windows switcher (also an IT guy), I'm not familiar with exactly how that button is supposed to behave.

I do agree that OS X isn't flawless. However, I do think it's really good. Much better than Windows 95/98/2k/XP ever were for me.
Click to expand...


The green plus button is the "zoom" button. It does NOT maximize the majority of programs. Instead, it attempts to find the best window size to fit the content, thus maximizing screen space.

You can try this yourself by opening a webpage in safari. Go to a site that has a fixed width design, such that if you expand the Safari window as wide as possible you will see empty white space on the sides of the pages' content. Press the zoom button and the window should shrink to fit the content of the page.

This is simply a case of the Macintosh philosophy being different than the Windows philosophy. The Mac is designed with multitasking and multiple-documents in mind. Windows doesn't follow this principle and instead most users have their apps maximized--so they are effectively using only one app at a time.
 
1) I want "explorer" to show in the icons in list form for all "folders" and stay that way even after I close it. I dont want it to go back to those large icons.

Not Explorer, Finder. You click the list view button in the toolbar and then open the View -> Show View Options window. There is an option to display all folders in the same way.

2) I dont understand the folder heirarchy? dont get how folders work. Can I see the root of C:. what I see doesnt seem to truly be the root?

There is no "C" drive. There are no drive numbers at all. The root of the computer is "Computer", then you have all your drives, then your folders in the drives. So in Finder to see the top level of your main Hard disk (Macintosh HD = Drive C) you would double-click the icon on the desktop.

3) can I see unix // system folders (/stand, /dev?)

They are hidden, but you can open them by opening "Go to Folder Window" in the Go menu in finder and typing /stand, /dev, etc.

4) Does an admin have root privelidges

Not technically. Applications do not inherit user-level privileges. If I remember correctly, even the root user has to type in their password for the application to gain root-user privileges.

5) What dvd decrypter do you use to rip DVD's.

Handbrake

6) Parallels or Synergy (dont bother with this one, I'm sure its covered in the archives)
I think Synergy is a feature available in VMWare. I don't know which is better. I think Parallels messed up my Boot Camp partition to the point that neither one can use it (It still boots though) so I'd go with VMWare.

7) I dont want to use quicktime. Can I save in another video format?
Well, yeah, but it depends on what application you're using.

8) I want a PC Card, SD car reader. Is the card slot a PC Card slot in my new Macbood Pro

You have to buy a SD card reader and put it in the PC card slot. It's a newer technology than most, so make sure you get the right one.

9) Whats the best way to open MS specific docs? I realize that open office is free and good. But I have a friend who works for MS. i can get a copy of Office 08 for free. My concern is that it will be a HUGE pig. I may not want it even if its free.

Just get iWork. It's really cheap and works well. I've had more problems with Office opening (powerpoint) documents than I have with iWork.

9) If I remove a rarely used app from the dock, where would I go to launch it?
You open your Macintosh HD icon and open the applications folder. A quick tip: Drag that Apps folder to your dock and right click on it. It will then work like the start menu. PS- this is where you put ALL of your applications.

10) I dont want to use iphoto to organize my pics. I've got a very detailed file structure that works for me. The "events" idea of managing pics doesnt do it for me. Can I just set up a file structure and work like I always have? Its worked for me for the last 8 yrs, I dont want to dchange

Yeah, it's just like Windows. You can do whatever you want. ...But just get used to iPhoto. Clinging to old habits "just because" is a bad reason.

11) I want to use ivideo but I Do NOT want to work with .mov files because they cant be viewed full screen by PC people I send them to unless they BUY QT. Is this possible?

No. Well, yeah. You have to export them to a different format when you click "Share", but your reasoning is flawed. If they install iTunes, the movies can be viewed fullscreen. Oh yeah, and it's iMovie, not iVideo
 
Or type the application name in Spotlight and Launch

steveza said:
9) If I remove a rarely used app from the dock, where would I go to launch it?

In Finder you will find Applications on the left or click on whatever you hard drive is called (default is Macintosh HD) and it's Applications in there too. This is also the root directory.
Click to expand...
 
donmei said:
Also, please dont tell me to use Iphoto. I've got 5 years of digital photos. Until someone tells me that it wont reorganize them and move them from their original folders, I'm not using it. (I want to preserve the very organized and structured folder protocol that I'm using now) If iphoto builds a catalogue just like iTunes does (it builds a database while leaving your file system untouched) then I'll use iphoto. But I started another thread with that question and havent gotten any answers
Click to expand...

Yes you can use iPhoto the way you want to. Just be sure that after iPhoto builds it's catalog you NEVER move a file or the catalog will point to nothing. You can select this as an option in iPhoto Preferences

BTW how did you solve this typical problem when you designed your "very organized and structured folder protocol" Lets say you have a photo of Mary in a red dress with her dog spike in SanFransico that you took in 1998. Do you file it under spike, red, 1998 or mary?
Then if you files it under 1998 then how when you want the pic of Mary and Spike that you need to look under 1998. OK I know, that is why you want iPhoto to build the index for you so you can serach it and make smart albums and so on. Ok now that you can find anything you want using the index, smart folders and so on why do you need the "very organized and structured folder protocol"?
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
Yes - FAT32 is a good "universal" choice. Beware, though - FAT32 has a maximum file size limit of around 4 GB. You generally won't run into this limit unless you're working with high-definition movie files, or very high pixel density images. HFS Plus (Mac OS X's native file system) and NTFS (the native file system for recent versions of Windows) have a much larger limit.
Click to expand...

FAT32 has some really bad features. First off it lacks the idea of file ownership. Everyone can read and write it i. no security. The file system is slow. It does not keep itself defragmented and worst of all it is not "journaled" so it is suseptable to coruption. Rather then called it "universal" a better term is "low common denominator"

If the disk is being served from a NAS device there is no reason at all to use FAT32. The mac and the PC don't "see" the file system on a NAS they talk using some protocal over the network. The only reason to use FAT is it the disk is going to be plugged into a PC, and then pulled off the PC and plugged directly into a Mac. Like yo might do with a USB flash drive. NAS is just like as iff the PC were to "share" one of it's NTFS drives. The mac would see the shared drive and not even "know" that it was NTFS.

I think a lot of the NAS boxes might actually be running BSD UNIX inside and are using UFS file systems. The client PCs and macs would never know
 
steeler said:
Try the green button in the upper left corner. It will maximize certain apps -- depending on how they're programmed. Since I'm another Windows switcher (also an IT guy), I'm not familiar with exactly how that button is supposed to behave.
Click to expand...

What that green button does is send a signal to the program associated with that window. The convention is that when a program recieves this sgnal it is required to make it's window large enough that all of it's data is displayed. Each program is allowed to deside what "large enough" means
 
Cameront9 said:
The green plus button is the "zoom" button. It does NOT maximize the majority of programs. Instead, it attempts to find the best window size to fit the content, thus maximizing screen space.

This is simply a case of the Macintosh philosophy being different than the Windows philosophy. The Mac is designed with multitasking and multiple-documents in mind. Windows doesn't follow this principle and instead most users have their apps maximized--so they are effectively using only one app at a time.
Click to expand...

That's about what I figured, but couldn't put it to words. I'm one of the 2% of Windows users that doesn't maximize all windows. Some do get maximized just because they need the space to show their content. I never maximize Firefox (or IE) in Windows because it just doesn't work for me. I still use Windows XP every day at work in this manner.

I guess I was a Mac-minded user before I owned one.
 
donmei said:
Guys,

Thank you for all the great info. Just to clarify one thing. When working with videos, I want to save them in a format that is NATIVE to a windows Pc. i.e. it can be viewed by pretty much anyone with win2k or above and a reasonably recent version of Windows Media Player with no special plug-ins.
Click to expand...

Microsoft went out of their why to make this hard. Their "native" format is a non-standrd windos-only patened format.

Apple's most natural format is h.264 this is the same video format that is recored on HD and BlueRay disks. I assume any Windows computer would be able to read this. So don't worry just save in an industry standard and you wil be OK.

Don't confuse "container" with "codec". Every media file was both. For example Apple's Quick Time files can contain video that is encoded into any of many sever forms
 
I'm not sure if this was answered, but to toggle windows (not tabs) in Safari, it's cmd+`. And to capture part of the screen and not the whole thing, it's cmd+shft+4 and then drag a box to take a picture.
 
I hate to flame here. But cant help it.

Cameront's response it typical of the kind of biased and incorrect responses that turn switchers off from a site like this. If you dont know anything about Windows, please dont just parrot what you've read on Apple boards.

Cameron, for your inforation, Windows has supported preemptive multitasking and multithreading since 1995!!! (Something Apple didnt have until OSX) (Sorry, cooperative multitasking doesnt count)

In fact, technically, Mac OS lagged behind Windows from the introduction of 95 and NT 3.51 until the introduction of OSX.

Granted, OS9 was solid, fast and friendly, but it had SIGNIFICANT shortcomings. Apple was at a technical dead end with OS9. Thats why they paid Jobs huge bucks for NeXT.

So, in short, Macs have not been better equipped to multitask since the days of DOS.

Re philosophy. You need to just admit that OSX is not perfect. Its much better than Windows. The goal of any software designer is to produce a product that can work with the user wants to use it. (Within reason)

To that end, the lack of a true maximize button, as well as the inability to adjust a window by pulling on ANY border or corner are shortcomings.

Anyone who has to draft documents as part of their livelihood can tell you that a clean, distraction free screen is easier to work in.

(which gets me to the idiocy of this "wide screen" craze, but dont get me started. I'll still continue to use my Pivot, portrait oriented display for creating documents.)

Don
 
soccersquirt

THANKS thats a huge help

is there anr way to sequence through tabs in safari?
 
Yes, to sequence through tabs it is Command + } or { depending on what direction you want to go. And yes, that requires the use of the shift key as those symbols are the shifted version of the key they are on (at least on the US keyboard).
 
"Yes, to sequence through tabs it is Command + } or { depending on what direction you want to go. And yes, that requires the use of the shift key as those symbols are the shifted version of the key they are on (at least on the US keyboard)." Where is the } and { key on the keyboard? I have the older Apple keyboard.
 
On all of the Apple keyboards I have used the { and } are the secondary (shifted) option on the two keys just right of the "p" key.
 
I say this thread gets stickied. This is one of the best shows of help I've ever seen from you guys. This would be invaluable for a more knowledgeable user switching to Mac OS.
 
yippy said:
Yes, to sequence through tabs it is Command + } or { depending on what direction you want to go. And yes, that requires the use of the shift key as those symbols are the shifted version of the key they are on (at least on the US keyboard).
Click to expand...

Also, the Command-Shift-Right Arrow (or Left Arrow) will sequence through tabs while the Command-Right Arrow (or Left Arrow) are the Back (and Forward) key equivalents.
 
I'd be honored if it was sticky'd

Next question.

When I try to view a .mpg movie by clicking on a link in safari, the video opens in a very small box. (It appears to depend on the actual resolution of the video)

How do I full screen it. There does not seem to be any menu option for that. For what its worth, the bar at the top of the screen remains a Safari bar, it does not change to a QT bar or something like that.

I think the solution is to set Safari up to launch qt as an external helper app. But I'm open to any suggestion.

Thanks,

Don
 
That's because the video is opening in the QT plugin for Safari (effectively). If you want to open the video in QuickTime Player and have access to full screen (and all of QuickTime Player's other options), I'd say save the video to your hard drive and open it, or copy the URL of the link and open that in QT Player.
 
killmoms,
if that is the only way to open the vid full screen, then that is a MAJOR annoyance.

Are you telling me that there is no way to create associations with the .mpg file extension so that it opens in the QT player when you just click on the link??

That seems ridiculous.
If you believe this to be so, would I have the same problem in Firefox? Or only in Safari?

I have to think that there is a better way to view an MPg than to download then view. MS had this licked in 2001 and nearly everything about OSX is better than windows, so I have to doubt that this kind of core multimedia functionality is not supported.

Help!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back