Just got my MBP, have a couple of questions...

[iMerlin]

Hey all. I know the new MBPs are coming soon, but the current one is just so damned sexy I went ahead and pulled the trigger on it anyway. I picked up the 17" high res model. I am totally new to Macs other than watching almost every tutorial on apple.com. I played with this sucker all night last night and I am very impressed. So easy to set up and use but I do have a couple of things I could do on a PC but cant figure out how to do on my Mac...

1. Create a PDF or JPG from a screen shot or webpage. On my PC I had the page open, do a screen print and then paste that into PowerPoint and save as a JPG. I figured out how to screen print on the Mac and I see it places the captured portion onto the desktop, but what do I do with it from there?

2. Ok, something really simple, how do I check my WiFi connection speed to ensure I truly am connecting at 802.11n and not g. The only reason I ask this is because I have a PS3, and was playing online last night while also using my Mac and my PS3 was really acting flaky and its usually solid. I thought if the MBP was on a totally different band (PS3 uses 802.11g) that it wouldnt interfere with anything else?

3. If I have multiple windows open, I know I can set up Spaces, which is awesome, but for the windows on the same screen, how do I easily switch between them all. I like Expose also, just wondering if thats the only way to do it.

4. I see there is a delete key, however that acts like the PCs backspace key. Is there any key combo that acts like the PCs delete key??
Is there a Home or end key?

5. How do I simply check what make/model/cpu I have on my MBP? I found the finder info, is that the same as right clicking on My Computer??

Ok, and last but not least, I recently picked up a Drobo and an Airport Extreme to share the Drobo on my network. All of my PCs can see it and it appears in Finder as a shared device. However, it does not appear as a drive selection for Time Machine. I did a quick search on apple.com and noticed a bulletin or something that says you can not use an Airdisc with Time Machine. Does anyone know a work around? Also, I have Airport Utility on my MBP, but cant find the Airport Disc Utility for the life of me. And I couldnt find it on apple.com as a seperate download either. What am I doing wrong here?

I did a quick search for this stuff and didnt find it, so I apologize if its already in a thread somewhere.

Thanks to all on the forums here, you have converted another.

 

[aristobrat]

1. If you used CMD+SHIFT+3 or CMD+SHIFT+4 to take a screen shot, the file on your desktop is a .PNG. Use it just like you would a .JPG There is a tool out there somewhere that will allow you to config your Mac to save those as JPGs instead of PNGs.

2. If you hold the option button down and click the WiFi icon on the menu bar, it should show you how fast your connection rate currently is. You can also go into Applications > Utilities and then click on Network Utility. You may have to change the little drop down there to have it show you the correct card. (i.e. it may default to showing you your ethernet card and not your wirelesss card). There are also some dashboard widgets that show network info.

3. CMD-TAB will allow you to cycle thru your open windows. Personally, I have my MBP setup so that if I move my mouse to the upper-right corner, it activates Spaces, and if I move my mouse to the lower-right corner, it activates Expose. Those screen shortcuts allow me to extremely quickly find the window I need (without having to use the keyboard or having to click on something on the dock).

4. fn+delete?

5. Try clicking on the Apple in the top-left corner and then clicking on About this Mac. Where it says "Version 10.5.4", you can click there and it will cycle through some info. The "More info..." button will show you all about your computer.

6. I've read about some tricks, but haven't tried them, so hopefully someone with first-hand experience can help you on that one.

 

[rychencop]

Hey all. I know the new MBPs are coming soon, but the current one is just so damned sexy I went ahead and pulled the trigger on it anyway. I picked up the 17" high res model. I am totally new to Macs other than watching almost every tutorial on apple.com. I played with this sucker all night last night and I am very impressed. So easy to set up and use but I do have a couple of things I could do on a PC but cant figure out how to do on my Mac...

1. Create a PDF or JPG from a screen shot or webpage. On my PC I had the page open, do a screen print and then paste that into PowerPoint and save as a JPG. I figured out how to screen print on the Mac and I see it places the captured portion onto the desktop, but what do I do with it from there?

2. Ok, something really simple, how do I check my WiFi connection speed to ensure I truly am connecting at 802.11n and not g. The only reason I ask this is because I have a PS3, and was playing online last night while also using my Mac and my PS3 was really acting flaky and its usually solid. I thought if the MBP was on a totally different band (PS3 uses 802.11g) that it wouldnt interfere with anything else?

3. If I have multiple windows open, I know I can set up Spaces, which is awesome, but for the windows on the same screen, how do I easily switch between them all. I like Expose also, just wondering if thats the only way to do it.

4. I see there is a delete key, however that acts like the PCs backspace key. Is there any key combo that acts like the PCs delete key??
Is there a Home or end key?

5. How do I simply check what make/model/cpu I have on my MBP? I found the finder info, is that the same as right clicking on My Computer??

Ok, and last but not least, I recently picked up a Drobo and an Airport Extreme to share the Drobo on my network. All of my PCs can see it and it appears in Finder as a shared device. However, it does not appear as a drive selection for Time Machine. I did a quick search on apple.com and noticed a bulletin or something that says you can not use an Airdisc with Time Machine. Does anyone know a work around? Also, I have Airport Utility on my MBP, but cant find the Airport Disc Utility for the life of me. And I couldnt find it on apple.com as a seperate download either. What am I doing wrong here?

I did a quick search for this stuff and didnt find it, so I apologize if its already in a thread somewhere.

Thanks to all on the forums here, you have converted another.

1. use Grab in your utilities for sceenshots.
2. i'm sure there is a utility online to tell you that, but your router is what controls that. if you have 1 router, but share it with devices that run g, it will run g and not n while those other devices are connected.
3.those are the easiest to use.
4.delete means delete. command + delete will delete also.
5.about this Mac under the Apple
6.not sure on this one. may not work.

 

[alphaod]

1. Create a PDF or JPG from a screen shot or webpage. On my PC I had the page open, do a screen print and then paste that into PowerPoint and save as a JPG. I figured out how to screen print on the Mac and I see it places the captured portion onto the desktop, but what do I do with it from there?

Like others have said, Command+Shift+3 is capture the whole screen, Command+Shift+4 is select and if you press the space bar after the latter command without selecting it's capture window (of your choice).

2. Ok, something really simple, how do I check my WiFi connection speed to ensure I truly am connecting at 802.11n and not g. The only reason I ask this is because I have a PS3, and was playing online last night while also using my Mac and my PS3 was really acting flaky and its usually solid. I thought if the MBP was on a totally different band (PS3 uses 802.11g) that it wouldnt interfere with anything else?

The router will drop the entire wireless speeds to the slows wireless spec, so if all devices were N and ONE was G then the network would slow down to G speeds.

3. If I have multiple windows open, I know I can set up Spaces, which is awesome, but for the windows on the same screen, how do I easily switch between them all. I like Expose also, just wondering if thats the only way to do it.

Exposé is just that! Or you can Command+Tab.

4. I see there is a delete key, however that acts like the PCs backspace key. Is there any key combo that acts like the PCs delete key??
Is there a Home or end key?

Fn+Delete

5. How do I simply check what make/model/cpu I have on my MBP? I found the finder info, is that the same as right clicking on My Computer??

Click the --> About This Mac --> More Info; should open up System Profiler and show hardware info.

Ok, and last but not least, I recently picked up a Drobo and an Airport Extreme to share the Drobo on my network. All of my PCs can see it and it appears in Finder as a shared device. However, it does not appear as a drive selection for Time Machine. I did a quick search on apple.com and noticed a bulletin or something that says you can not use an Airdisc with Time Machine. Does anyone know a work around? Also, I have Airport Utility on my MBP, but cant find the Airport Disc Utility for the life of me. And I couldnt find it on apple.com as a seperate download either. What am I doing wrong here?

You can use an Airdisk with Time Machine; you just have to connect to the Airdisk in Finder before you go to Time Machine to set it up.

Thanks to all on the forums here, you have converted another.

And a big welcome and congratulations on the computer.

 

[iMerlin]

Thank you all so much. Excellent info.

So if I use the cmd+shift+4 and take a snapshot o my screen, that image it saves is a png? So if I wanted to email that image I can just attach the screen shot and I dont have to copy it into another program to make it into an image file. EXCELLENT! Nice and easy.

I didnt realize the router thing though. So if I have 3 other devices in the house, my Airport Extreme wont be able to split g and n? I didnt know that. So if I still have my linksys g router, couldnt I bridge that to my AEBS and have the AEBS control n devices and my linksys control g devices?

Ok, cmd+tab is how to cycle through the open windows. I shouldve known that or tried that myself. Thanks for that.

Ok, so fn+delete is just what I was looking for. Thanks for that too.

Ok, so my Drobo does appear in Finder and I can select it and vew everything on it. Does that count as "connecting" to it?? I tried cmd+click to see if it gave me more options or anything but nothing.
I read through a tutorial on drobo.com which mentions using Airport Disc utility to connect to the Drobo as a device, but for some reason Im not seeing the Airport disc utility.
When I connected the Drobo before, the Airport Disc utility automatically opened on my Windows machines and asked how I wanted to connect to it. But nothing like that happens on my MBP. I tried searching spotlight for Airport disc or airdisc and it didnt find anything.

Thanks again for all the tips. Keep em coming if you know of any cool shortcuts I didnt mention.

 

[panzer06]

Hey I learned a couple of new things myself (especially that Fn Delete when I'm on my laptop). Thanks everyone!

 

[iMerlin]

Here is the link to the Drobo tutorial I mentioned above. In this tutorial it mentions using Finder to see the Drobo, but they show it as a device, mine appears as a shared drive.

http://www.drobospace.com/article/10425/Share-Drobo-on-a-Network--Apple-Airport-Extreme/?textpage=4

 

[Rtb1]

Converting Files

Hey, i noticed that nobody told you how to convert png to jpg, pdf, etc

If you open the png in Preview (default) and then choose 'save as' you can select from about 12 different formats to save it as.

 

[iMerlin]

Hey, i noticed that nobody told you how to convert png to jpg, pdf, etc

If you open the png in Preview (default) and then choose 'save as' you can select from about 12 different formats to save it as.

EXCELLENT!!! And I thought I was limited to png. Thanks a bunch Rtb1!

 

[iMerlin]

So is there any shortcuts to posting a screen shot here on the forums Or just host it with photobucket and post up the image link like I used to on my PC??

 

[Aperture]

So is there any shortcuts to posting a screen shot here on the forums Or just host it with photobucket and post up the image link like I used to on my PC??

You could just take the screen shot & use the attachment options built into MacRumors. (In the posting window)

 

[snberk103]

also...

In any print dialogue you can choose the PDF option. So, if you have a screen captured, you can "print" it to a PDF. You can create a PDF of anything you can print. There is a thread somewhere on Mac Rumours about cool Leopard treats.

Good Luck

 

[iMerlin]

I cant believe I never even clicked on the Apple icon until someone here recommended it. I might be an idiot!

 

[iMerlin]

You could just take the screen shot & use the attachment options built into MacRumors. (In the posting window)

Wow, I never even noticed that. Lemme try...

THis is what I see for my Drobo in Finder...

 

[iMerlin]

In any print dialogue you can choose the PDF option. So, if you have a screen captured, you can "print" it to a PDF. You can create a PDF of anything you can print. There is a thread somewhere on Mac Rumours about cool Leopard treats.

Good Luck

Ill have to look for that one. Thanks!!

 

[mogzieee]

Couple of shortcuts (that may or may not have been mentioned) I like:

⇧ = Shift, ⌘ = Cmd, ⌫ = Backspace, ⌥ = Alt / Option, ➔ = Tab

⌘, = Preferences / Settings etc in nearly EVERY application

⌘ and Spacebar = Start typing in Spotlight
(awesome tip: typing calcutaions into spotlight, eg 3572/2+3 will give 1789 - all worked out without touching the mouse)

⌘⌫ = Send File/Picture/section etc Straight to Recycle Bin

⌥⇧ and volume keys = Up/Down Volume more precisely (hard to explain, try yourself)

⌘➔ = Scroll through open Applications (press ⇧ to go back through the list)

⌘⇧3 = Screenshot
⌘⇧4 = Select Screenshot Area
⌘⇧4 and then Spacebar = Select window for screenshot.

⌘⌥8 and Ctrl = Negative Screen Colours (really cool!)

⌘⇧Q = Log Out

And theres many more!
Hope that all helps!

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Hey I learned a couple of new things myself (especially that Fn Delete when I'm on my laptop). Thanks everyone!

Agree completely; this is an excellent thread for information; I'm a recent switcher too, and am still learning - lots to learn. To the OP welcome to the thread, to the forum, and to the world of Mac. To mogzieee, thanks, a great tutorial, genuinely appreciated, there was stuff that I most certainly didn't know, and to alphaod, thanks too, you explained some stuff really well. (That doesn't mean I have understood it all, but life is an endless learning curve.)
Cheers

 

[aristobrat]

So if I use the cmd+shift+4 and take a snapshot o my screen, that image it saves is a png? So if I wanted to email that image I can just attach the screen shot and I dont have to copy it into another program to make it into an image file. EXCELLENT! Nice and easy.

Don't know if this makes things any easier, but if you just want to email a screen shot, adding the CTRL key to the mix (i.e. CMD+CTRL+SHIFT+3 or CMD+CTRL+SHIFT+4) causes it to put the screenshot in the buffer instead of saving it to the disk.

Then you just open up your email and press CMD-V to paste it...

Saves you from the steps of having to drag 'n drop the snapshot from your desktop into the email (and later having to delete the snapshot from the desktop).

 

[Rtb1]

My Tips:

Cmd+Scroll wheel(two finger drag)= zoom in/out

two fingers on trackpad+click= right click

Use spotlight as an application launcher, instead of going through directory files, just (Cmd+space) start typing the application name, and then press enter when it pops up.

 

[alphaod]

I didnt realize the router thing though. So if I have 3 other devices in the house, my Airport Extreme wont be able to split g and n? I didnt know that. So if I still have my linksys g router, couldnt I bridge that to my AEBS and have the AEBS control n devices and my linksys control g devices?

Well you could use 2 wireless routers, but you may have interferance issues and plus they would have to be named differently.

Personally I used to have (well it's just in storage) a Linksys WRT600N which was dual band which meant I could set it to G on one frequency and N on the other, so they wouldn't interfere and I would only have one router.

 

[andrewdale]

HEY

Now that I have your attention, if you want an easier way that converting every screengrab to JPGs, it's very simple!

Onyx. Download it and it has many options within it. One, of which, is what format screengrabs are saved in!

It's a fun program. Play around with it.

 

[macffooky]

Home key and End Key. I must say I had no idea what they were, let alone what the OS X equivalents were

If you want page top/page end its fn + left/right arrow.

 

[iMerlin]

Don't know if this makes things any easier, but if you just want to email a screen shot, adding the CTRL key to the mix (i.e. CMD+CTRL+SHIFT+3 or CMD+CTRL+SHIFT+4) causes it to put the screenshot in the buffer instead of saving it to the disk.

Then you just open up your email and press CMD-V to paste it...

Saves you from the steps of having to drag 'n drop the snapshot from your desktop into the email (and later having to delete the snapshot from the desktop).

Good call, this is very helpful. Thanks
I ran into this last night cause I bought the Adobe academic version and needed to send Adobe an email containing a copy of my most recent invoice. Th only format I could use was jpg or pdf.

Couple of shortcuts (that may or may not have been mentioned) I like:

⇧ = Shift, ⌘ = Cmd, ⌫ = Backspace, ⌥ = Alt / Option, ➔ = Tab

⌘, = Preferences / Settings etc in nearly EVERY application

⌘ and Spacebar = Start typing in Spotlight
(awesome tip: typing calcutaions into spotlight, eg 3572/2+3 will give 1789 - all worked out without touching the mouse)

⌘⌫ = Send File/Picture/section etc Straight to Recycle Bin

⌥⇧ and volume keys = Up/Down Volume more precisely (hard to explain, try yourself)

⌘➔ = Scroll through open Applications (press ⇧ to go back through the list)

⌘⇧3 = Screenshot
⌘⇧4 = Select Screenshot Area
⌘⇧4 and then Spacebar = Select window for screenshot.

⌘⌥8 and Ctrl = Negative Screen Colours (really cool!)

⌘⇧Q = Log Out

And theres many more!
Hope that all helps!

Thanks for this list. I know macrumors has one also but this is nice for me for easy reference.

Well you could use 2 wireless routers, but you may have interferance issues and plus they would have to be named differently.

Personally I used to have (well it's just in storage) a Linksys WRT600N which was dual band which meant I could set it to G on one frequency and N on the other, so they wouldn't interfere and I would only have one router.

I believe I have that option with the Airport. Ill have to look into it.

 

[aristobrat]

I didnt realize the router thing though. So if I have 3 other devices in the house, my Airport Extreme wont be able to split g and n? I didnt know that. So if I still have my linksys g router, couldnt I bridge that to my AEBS and have the AEBS control n devices and my linksys control g devices?

That's what I do. 802.11b/g network for the iPhones and Wii, and a separate 802.11n-only network for all of the laptops + AppleTV.

I have the Airport Extreme set to use the 5GHz band for the 802.11n-only network, so it won't interfere with the old router using 2.4GHz.

Works great. Like Alphaod said, you end up with two separate wireless networks (they can't have the same name), but if you set the Airport Extreme up in bridged mode like you said, it won't matter which wireless network you're on, ... they'll all be on the same TCP/IP network (so all devices can talk to each other).

 

[Fonzijr1964]

what is a ⌥ ???