My first mac! (my opinion)

[Nioxic]

hi. This is sorta a review and first impressions and such, from a newbie mac-owner.. i've never ever used a mac PC / laptop, before i bought my macbook air.

Only products i've ever owned from apple is: 2 iphones and a couple of ipods from long ago (currently running the iphone 4)

The iPhone was actually the reason i even considered the macbook air. I love the fact that they so easily talk with each other (airdrop and facetime), and the upcomming iCloud features certainly doesn't make it any worse! And on top of that, the MBA is the best looking, and smallest 11 inch laptop on the market. But its certainly not the cheapest (its performance makes up for that though)

I got the macbook air from my local computer / hifi store. I originally wanted the 1.6 i5 with a 128gb HDD. Figured i could just store my stuff on a USB stick, or on the Cloud in the future. However - then i realised, this sucker can run windows too?! Through something called Bootcamp? (and its easy?!) omg!
I will probably need more space! So.. i asked if they had, or was able to get a 256gb version, and they did! unfortunately that model also had the 1.8ghz i7 cpu. Which is ofcourse a good thing, but it adds higher price tag too

However! i fell in their trap. bought it.. got home. booted it up. Made my user login etc. got into the desktop.. and then... i was completely lost!
I had never ever seen anyone use a mac before. so i had a long list of questions...
How do i rightclick - is there even a menu if i do?
How do i install a program? - apart from the mac app store i was lost(i knew the app store on the iphone)
If i install a program, how do i remove it?
How do i even find a program in my folders etc?
Wtf is this.. screen runs away when i flick my fingers across the touchpad?!

basically.. so many new things to get used to, so many weird gestures for the touchpad, so many "easy" things i've been doing in windows 7 that i needed to relearn.

I took me.. only.. 4-5 hours of random browsing for programs and trying random things to get to know how to install and uninstall, change wallpaper, change background on the ... whats it called, the one where you got the widgets

Things that has taken me months to learn on my windows pc's...

Basically.. A few hours as a mac owner has made me love it!

Its quite simply, the simplest thing in the world

This is still very basic stuff though. But for me i think it was pretty easy to get started. Now i just need to learn the more advanced stuff.

Pro's about Lion + MBA

Design (the design of the MBA itself, and the lions animations etc. all just feels so good!)
Feel (gestures and intuitive menu system!)
Ease of use and easy to learn
and all the other things mentioned further above

Cons
I cannot hold CTRL and press backspace to delete a whole word at a time!

To finish off this little thread here.. i'd like to ask a couple of questions:

is there anyone who can point me in the direction of some more advanced "everyday" things i should learn, and where i can learn them - for lion ofc

And what was your first impressions of macs (preferably compared to windows) ?

And last and least: can anyone recommend some programs i might need for a new MBA?
Currently i only have my office pack, vlc player, steam, starcraft 2, and skype installed... which is not alot. I dont do any video or picture editing, neither am i a programmer or similar. I just use it for communication, school, surfing, entertainment and things in between...

Sorry for any weird words or spelling errors. English is not my main language :<

Thanks for reading!

 

[Mrguidogenio]

Cons
I cannot hold CTRL and press backspace to delete a whole word at a time!

You need to hold ALT, not CTRL.
CMD deletes the whole Line. Combined with Fn, you can do the same to the other side (as Windows supr key)

 

[StevenT42]

I always appreciate the enthusiasm of new Mac owners!

I've been using Macs since 1985, back before Windows (we used DOS). This was in college. We had the LaserWriter, and it made nice resumes. I loved them, they were so easy to use.

I bought my first Mac in 1994, a Performa 630CD. I liked it because it was a nice multimedia machine. There was a game called Myst (which you can now actually get for the iPhone), and it was just awesome on the Mac.

I upgraded to a PowerPC in 1995. At work, we were still using Windows 3.1. It sucked. At work, we eventually upgraded to Windows 95, which was much better, but it seemed like a copy of what the Mac had in 1984.

I've been through many Mac upgrades, iMacs, PowerBooks, iBooks, MacBooks, Mac towers, Mac minis, and now the latest MacBook Air.

I've also been through many Windows operating systems at home and work, Windows 98, Windows 2000, XP (Home and Professional), 2003, and Vista.

I currently have Windows XP Home loaded on my MBA using Parallels. There is a spreadsheet application that I can only get to run under Windows, or I would use it on the Mac.

I don't think much of Windows. It has gotten better over the years, but it still has DOS under the covers. I have been using UNIX for over 20 years, and Macs are UNIX-based, and I like that.

I can't recommend many programs, I don't have all that many installed on the MBA yet. If you like music, you can do fun things with GarageBand (one of the apps already installed). I loaded in all the Jam Packs for GB, and some of the tunes I created over the years on supposedly more powerful desktops, and they played on the MBA without a hitch.

As for learning more about Lion, Apple has some simple tutorial videos, but you've probably figured most of that out already. Learn by doing!

Anyway, congrats on the new MBA. I hope you enjoy it over the years!

 

[finneganfly]

I'm a Mac newbie, too

First of all, let me say that your English is very good. It seems more and more that people have forgotten how to spell or just don't care. It drives me nuts. Your post is refreshing.

You're way ahead of me in terms of how to use your Mac. I'm still trying to figure out how or where to save my documents!

However, I really like the quality feel of my iMac. I just hope I can figure out how to run it properly before the honeymoon is over!

 

[MOKHAN]

Cons
I cannot hold CTRL and press backspace to delete a whole word at a time!

ugh, I never knew I could do that even on Windows computers

 

[Typswif2fingers]

Did you try:

Command + Delete = Deletes the line

Command + Alt/Option = Deletes last word


EDIT: Apologies... this is a repeat... Did not see mrguidogenio's post....

 

[njsa04playa]

im happy for you! i too fell in love with apple about 1.5 yrs ago with a mbp 13

 

[Nioxic]

Thanks guys! Really appreciate it!

And thanks for the hint about command instead of ctrl. That really speeds up my browsing

i checked out apples site.. they dont have any general Lion videos. Only about their programs like iMovie and Garageband... And mail...

:< (but no i couldnt browse through the 1000+ videos - a search on lion only found me Videos about an older version of Mail )

 

[ThomasBoss]

I recently got my first MacBook too! (Royal Wedding Day lol) I adapted fairly easily, but that was because ages ago I bought an old PowerBook G4 running Lion and got to play around with it...
The apple webpage has some tutorials on Mac basics, I know that they do not have Lion installed but it is roughly the same thing
http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/

 

[Typswif2fingers]

i checked out apples site.. they dont have any general Lion videos. Only about their programs like iMovie and Garageband... And mail...

Not sure, i.e. have not really looked into it, but did you have a looksie on the Youtube? It could be a place to look for Lion videos...

Also, if you note down what in particular you'd like to find out about Lion, you can always post it on this, or other similar forums... There isn't much what people won't know when it comes to techie questions...

 

[bobr1952]

Like the OP, when I got my iMac in 2008, I had never seen a Mac in action before and really had no idea what it would look like once it booted. But it really was easy to get used to and as long as you don't try to make it a "Windows" Mac it isn't all that hard adjusting to a new OS. Granted this was Leopard, not Lion but I don't anticipate moving to Lion to be a big deal either.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Roller]

is there anyone who can point me in the direction of some more advanced "everyday" things i should learn, and where i can learn them - for lion ofc

Thank you for your post. It's always interesting to hear how OS X and Mac hardware look from the perspective of a Windows user. Those of us who've been using Macs since the early days (I bought a Mac 128 to replace an Apple II+ in 1984) sometimes forget what it's like to switch.

As for your question about places to learn:

• Apple has a site for Windows switchers. Although it doesn't seem to have been updated for Lion, there's still lots of useful information.

• Sites such as MacInTouch and Macworld have articles that will help you navigate your way, including many about the ins-and-outs of Lion.

And, as you've discovered, this is a good place to go for advice.

 

[dennya]

Honestly, there's so much stuff in Lion now that I don't think it's that the Mac's any easier to learn as much as it is that, after learning Windows and the iPhone, the transition's easy. It's a big jump from the original super-simple Mac OS!

I've used Macs on and off since '85 when we got a bunch of Macs and a networked Laserwriter (that weighed a million pounds) in our college paper's lab.

Bought a retired SE/30 from a magazine I worked at around 1994 and gave it to my now-wife when we were dating, so she should get online and we could e-mail after I moved to the left coast. That was the first Mac I owned, but I pretty much just set it up and passed it on to her. (I did play around a lot with Mac emulation on my Amiga in the early 2000s, though. )

The first real Mac I ever owned and used as a 12.1" iBook G4 around 2003/2004. Loved the form factor and battery life, but needed better Windows compatibility for work, so sold after about a year.

Bought a MacBook Pro 13 when they were introduced in 2009. Figured I'd use Boot Camp for work stuff, and then explore Mac mode. But sold it after a year, because (1) the Boot Camp drives for the original MBP 13 were horrid - the sound driver only put out half volume, there was practically no power management so you'd get no battery life and it'd run hot, and (2) I used it in Windows mode most of the time, so really couldn't justify hanging on to it, particularly since while it was a great Mac, it was a pretty mediocre Windows PC.

Now, thanks to the killer discount and absolutely falling in love with the form factor, I'm giving it another shot with an MBA 13/256. Plus I'm intrigued* by some of the stuff Apple is doing, like the App Store. But this time I'm going to take a different approach: I'm going to use Mac-native apps as exclusively as possible, going into Parallels or Boot Camp only when I absolutely have to run something on Windows. If I really get into the OS X side and use the Air in the mode that Apple really supports and cares about, hopefully this will finally be the Mac I hang on to for more than a year!



* ...and frightened. I firmly believe Apple eventually wants to move Macs to the same walled economy they have on iOS, where every app is approved and sold through the Mac store. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Yumunum]

OP, this one word will change your experience for the better:

BetterTouchTool

Okay I know it's three words, but they're all together! Just google it, you won't be disappointed

 

[QuarterSwede]

Only products i've ever owned from apple is: 2 iphones and a couple of ipods from long ago (currently running the iphone 4)

The iPhone was actually the reason i even considered the macbook air

Another person sucked in by the crack that is iDevices.

Glad you like it so much OP.

Apps:

• Reeder - Mac App Store (MAS) - Beautiful RSS app that syncs with Google Reader.
• Bowtie - Controls iTunes with a nice customizable interface.
• 1Password - Fantastic cross platform password manager (Mac, Win, iDevices). Not cheap but well worth it. Supports locally encrypted Dropbox syncing (add a password on any device and it's automatically added to all other devices).
• AppCleaner - finds plists (preference files) and other garbage that sometimes gets left behind when trashing an app.
• Cyberduck - free FTP client. Not great but it works.
• uTorrent or Transmission - Excellent bittorrent apps.
• Keynote - MAS - Definitely better than PowerPoint. You should have a trial.
• Pages - MAS - Very capable word processor. Not quite as heavy lifting as Word but much better at publishing (newsletters, non regular formatting). Can import and export Word formats. You should have a trial.

Also, to make PDF files you have to use the print menu (Cmd+P) then choose PDF. There are a myriad of options from there.

I also recommend Mac OS X Hints (part of MacWorld) for more advanced tips and tricks. They have an extensive database for OS X, iOS and Apps.

Great site for OS X shortcuts (hotkeys). It looks like Lion specific shortcuts are in the works.

 

[PharmDoc]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Apple stores also hold workshops. I know they are holding one on Lion. Check the local apple stores in your area.

 

[singlestick]

Thanks guys! Really appreciate it!

And thanks for the hint about command instead of ctrl. That really speeds up my browsing

i checked out apples site.. they dont have any general Lion videos. Only about their programs like iMovie and Garageband... And mail...

:< (but no i couldnt browse through the 1000+ videos - a search on lion only found me Videos about an older version of Mail )

I am not a Mac user (love my iPad, though), but your excellent post may move me in that direction.

You might check iTunes to see if there are video podcasts that might help you. There is one titled (I think) Typical Mac User that may have useful stuff. You might also check to see if iTunes University, also within iTunes, has anything that might help.

 

[GGJstudios]

AppCleaner - finds plists (preference files) and other garbage that sometimes gets left behind when trashing an app.

App removal software like AppCleaner doesn't do a thorough job of deleting files/folders related to deleted apps. For more information, read this.

The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:

Best way to FULLY DELETE a program​

 

[Nioxic]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Apple stores also hold workshops. I know they are holding one on Lion. Check the local apple stores in your area.

There are no "real" applestores in denmark

only real(aka licenced?) apple retailers selling their stuff.

:<

its a real shame (living in denmark)

This is as far as i know...

 

[Sniv]

I was very new too when I bought my MBA.
However, I don't feel totally lost. I find the trackpad and the keyboard shortcuts logical. One of the hardest things for me was to get the "@" sign.

It will take some time getting use to and learn all the small tricks. But I really feel like it's worth it. There is so many positive things about this mac that I don't feel a Windows computer can offer me at this point.

So hang in there. I haven't even seen the intro videos on Apple's site yet. Maybe there are some tricks there I can learn..

 

[iphonsteve4ajob]

App removal software like AppCleaner doesn't do a thorough job of deleting files/folders related to deleted apps. For more information, read this.

The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:

Best way to FULLY DELETE a program​

Great post. Thank you! I downloaded AppCleaner and used it for one application. This method seems very methodical, it puts the cleaning in the users hands. Awesome.

 

[orfeas0]

You can see the touchpad gestures in the touchpad pane in your preferences.
Also, I don't know if you found it but the right-click is the 2-finger click (or tap, whatever you like).

As for must-have apps, I'd suggest Parallels or VMware Fusion.
They both serve the same purpose, which is to run Windows while on Mac OSX.
You cannot play games in parallels/vmware but you can run any windows apps you want.
If you want to play games on Windows you have to use Boot Camp, which basically partitions your drive (it doesn't format it) and installs windows (you need to buy/download them yourself, though) aside from Lion.
Which means when you boot your MBA, you will choose to either boot Lion or Windows (natively).
A really nice app for macs is DaisyDisk, which makes a graph of all your files and folders , helping you find the biggest files in your disk (in case you need more storage space).

The first app I would install is uTorrent, but that's up to you. Then there's skype, which you already have, Adium and/or aMSN(for MSN messaging).
Also, I'd suggest you try Google Chrome as a browser instead of Safari, it's faster and more convenient to use.

Also, good call on VLC, it rocks
Another app you may want is SMC fan control, which lets you decide the mba's fan speed and also shows the temperature of it.

That's all from me.