New Mac owner with a bunch of questions

[Traxan]

Hi gang. I am the owner of a MacBook 15" model from 2011 that I got used for $1149, Office included. But man am I missing a lot of Windows features. So I'm hoping you can help me:

* WHat is the F5 equivalent for page refresh in a browser?
* What is the F2 equivalent for editing cells in Excel?
* Is there a way to make Outlook show progress when I do a send/receive, and is there an equivalent to F9, which does a send/receive?
* How do I bring Dashboard apps to the desktop? I really miss Rainmeter and this is the closest thing I can find. Also, how do I close the apps? There isn't anything in the right click menu.
* Does MacOS read an NTFS drive if I plug it into a USB drive?
* On Windows, when connect my iPhone, the photo import wizard pops up to import pics. Which app in MacOS does this and is there a way I can get it to fire up when I connect the iPhone?
* I've heard you can use an iPad as a second monitor. Do I need any special software or is it native to MacOS?
* How do you bring up a task manager similar to Windows? I had an app lock up and I couldn't close it.

That's the start. Thanks for your help, all.

 

[satcomer]

Get the almost ready to release Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mavericks Edition.

Plus bookmark the Apple site OS X Keyboard Shortcuts.

 

[Traxan]

I don't have Mavericks. Heard it was terrible and avoided it.

 

[sosimple]

need help guys and gals, quick question

Ok guys and gals, new here and I have an issue, trust me i've done research, what i've looked for cannot be found apparently in the new OSX Mavericks? This Macbook air is my girlfriends, we were trying to download an app but couldn't because we needed her admin and pass, she couldn't remember her password, so me trying to dig to find it I ended up going to single user mode, which brought up the root system admin or "Other User" on the screen right after turning on the computer. Question is, how do I make this "Other User" icon disappear, she wants it gone like no tomorrow, she has OCD and it's driving me nuts... Any insight?

 

[GGJstudios]

This may be useful:

Helpful Information for Any Mac User​

* WHat is the F5 equivalent for page refresh in a browser?

Command-R

* What is the F2 equivalent for editing cells in Excel?

I don't recall of the top of my head, (I think it's Control-U) but the link I posted above includes shortcuts for OS X and MS Office. You can find it there.

* How do I bring Dashboard apps to the desktop?

They don't run on the desktop. I believe there are some 3rd party apps that might accomplish something like that.

Also, how do I close the apps?

Command-Q

* Does MacOS read an NTFS drive if I plug it into a USB drive?

Yes, OS X can read NTFS drives natively. It doesn't write to them natively.

* On Windows, when connect my iPhone, the photo import wizard pops up to import pics. Which app in MacOS does this and is there a way I can get it to fire up when I connect the iPhone?

You can set this up using iPhoto, or you can even use Dropbox to automatically load pics from your Camera Roll to your Dropbox account when you plug in your iPhone.

* I've heard you can use an iPad as a second monitor. Do I need any special software or is it native to MacOS?

That's a new one on me. I've never heard of such a capability

* How do you bring up a task manager similar to Windows? I had an app lock up and I couldn't close it.

Activity Monitor is in your /Applications/Utilities folder. You can also press Option-Command-Esc to bring up the Force Quit menu, or access it by clicking  on the Menu Bar.

 

[DeltaMac]

...which brought up the root system admin or "Other User" on the screen right after turning on the computer. Question is, how do I make this "Other User" icon disappear, she wants it gone like no tomorrow, she has OCD and it's driving me nuts... Any insight?

Yes - (I know about OCD ) disable the root user (I think you have already fixed this, but it's just for closure on this thread for you) http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14281

 

[And]

* On Windows, when connect my iPhone, the photo import wizard pops up to import pics. Which app in MacOS does this and is there a way I can get it to fire up when I connect the iPhone?

Image Capture in the applications folder can do this, i've done it with my iPhone certainly in the past.

 

[Kelmon]

* On Windows, when connect my iPhone, the photo import wizard pops up to import pics. Which app in MacOS does this and is there a way I can get it to fire up when I connect the iPhone?

The thought occurs that if you are using iPhoto to store/manage your pictures then you can use Photo Stream (your photos stored in iCloud) on your iPhone and iPhoto so that you do not need to connect your iPhone in order to get them into iPhoto. The only thing to remember is that photos on your Photo Stream need to be copied into your Library of photos in iPhoto so that they aren't lost if you reach the storage limit (1000 pictures, if I remember).

If the above doesn't work for you then, indeed, Image Capture is the application to coordinate what happens when imaging devices are connected to your Mac (it's a great utility application). While most posts on the subject seem to be how to stop iPhoto from opening automatically when your iPhone is connected, you can find step-by-step instructions on how to do this here:

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/open-iphoto-iphone-plugged-55239.html

On the subject of Mavericks, I confess that I haven't had problems with it and would always recommend keeping up-to-date, assuming there aren't known problems that will impact what you do.

 

[r0k]

I don't have Mavericks. Heard it was terrible and avoided it.

I upgraded to Mavericks and noticed an immediate improvement because of the way Mavericks handles memory. There are several other things I like about Mavericks that would prevent me from going back including tabs in Finder and the way Mavericks handles a second monitor with fullscreen apps.

Image Capture in the applications folder can do this, i've done it with my iPhone certainly in the past.

I use Photostream to get photos copied from my iPhone to my iPad and Mac. When my phone gets clogged with videos, I use Image Capture with images and videos sorted by size and I set it to delete files after copying them.

 

[Traxan]

So tell me, everyone, is Mavericks better, then? I'd heard it was a buggy mess and a real embarrassment for Apple, but this is all second-hand.

 

[Starshadow]

So tell me, everyone, is Mavericks better, then? I'd heard it was a buggy mess and a real embarrassment for Apple, but this is all second-hand.

Where have you read this?

I've upgraded to Mavericks seconds after it was possible to download, There is no problems compared to Mountain Lion infact there are many under the hood benefits.

Its seems to handle memory much better as stated and saves a ton on battery life. Reviews have been glowing in what it can do for older MacBooks battery life so give it a try.

 

[Kelmon]

So tell me, everyone, is Mavericks better, then? I'd heard it was a buggy mess and a real embarrassment for Apple, but this is all second-hand.

I may be mistaken but the only whopper issue that I'd heard of with Mavericks is its support for Gmail email accounts in Mail, which has been fixed. I don't consider myself to be a "power" Gmail user, whatever the heck that might be, but Gmail seems to work OK for me in Mail at the moment with 10.9.1 installed. I can't say I've encountered any bugs outside of the original release with Mail, so I'm not sure where this "buggy mess" or "real embarrassment" is coming from. Maybe I missed a memo.

The above said, I have just switched from a Late 2009 iMac to a Late 2013 Retina MacBook Pro, so everything just seems to fly right now. I don't know how much of that is due to Mavericks. Certainly I've used much worse releases of the Mac OS during the years (OS X 10.4 gave me kernel panics regularly with my old PowerBook until about 10.4.3) and I don't have a problem saying that it is OK. That said, I'm hard pressed to really say what's new/better than before but I'm not arguing with free.

 

[r0k]

There is one arguable down side to Mavericks compared to previous OSX versions in that it begins to bring just a few of the lockdown/jailbreaking kinds of controls over from iOS to the Mac. These are similar to the new anti theft features that were introduced in iOS7 and to me they really aren't a down side.

It will be possible to recover your password using your iCloud login on Mavericks while before this was impossible. Every release of OSX creeps closer to a controlled walled garden. In Mountain Lion, the concept of having to give "permission" to run apps that didn't come from the app store or "identified developers" was introduced and later back-ported to Lion. Now the concept of "recovering" a Mac using iCloud login credentials is introduced in Mavericks.

On iOS it is not possible to log in to more than one iCloud account at one time, though it is possible to use one AppleID for iCloud backup and sync and another AppleID for purchases. On Android, it is possible to have multiple logins. Now that OSX has iCloud login to recover the entire OS, perhaps someday we might be faced with you can't restore an OSX app store purchase from account B when the OS is signed in using account A. This isn't (yet) an issue on iOS but it's worth mentioning nonetheless.

 

[whooleytoo]

* I've heard you can use an iPad as a second monitor. Do I need any special software or is it native to MacOS?

There's an iOS app that does this, Air Display. Costs about €8.99/$9.99

 

[tillsbury]

So tell me, everyone, is Mavericks better, then? I'd heard it was a buggy mess and a real embarrassment for Apple, but this is all second-hand.

Definitely better in many ways. Very few downsides to Mavericks, there were a small number of bug reports many of which are now fixed. I never saw any of the "embarrassment for Apple" posts... and usually everything new has plenty of those on here! One of the better launches for Apple, I'd say.