New to MAC - Dissappointed - text size

[g3imacboy]

gmail is kinda sucky to start with but there shouldnt be a 2 hour delay but maybe thats how gmail works might explain how i miss out on some of the sweet deals on craigslist. at least the mac is up and running again dont let the annoyances bother you enjoy that sweet computer

 

[dyn]

Not as simple as that. In the Mail.app preferences, there is a setting for keeping the files on the server. I use POP/SMTP and have this checked. It marks the files as read when downloading from GMAIL so they no longer appear in the Inbox but the messages also stay on the server.

That setting only applies to the inbox (unlike IMAP as I already explained). Every other mailbox you've created is on that specific device or webmail only. As you already mentioned the problem with this is indeed that mail stays on the server. You need to login via webmail to clean out the inbox or else the account will fill itself. With IMAP you've got a similar problem though it is slightly different. With POP there it's about every message you receive which also means the ones you deleted. Such isn't the case with IMAP. With IMAP you only have the mails you've "saved" or left alone.

YeS you are correct! It is on the POP server of the ecommerce site, gmail 'rips' it at certain intervals, from there it goes to Mac Mail. Going to look at preferences right now.

Gmail is the problem. At random intervals it will check that POP account. There is no way telling Gmail at what intervals to do that (say, every 5 or 10 minutes). The only way of speeding this up is to log into gmail.com and check that POP account manually. Obviously that is not an option.

 

[chkdg8]

I got used to Mac OS X in a week, I think because of my previous experience with Ubuntu which I think has a similar feel to Mac OS X.

This is an interesting comment because recently I wiped my XP drive on my 6 year old pc and installed the latest Ubuntu just to play around with. I have to admit that it gave me more of an appreciation to OSX. It's all Unix, it's all good.

This is probably waaay late or maybe already suggested but give Pixelmator a shot as a replacement to photoshop. Its cheap $50 - $70 and has almost all the functionality. Its a great program.

I couldn't agree more. I used CS2 a lot on my windows machine before making the switch in October 2007 and then I settled on Pixelmator. The recent update added much needed features for the low price.

 

[124c41]

OP, just return the Mac… get a new PC (running Windows 7) and get on with your business.

and how pray tell , does she get all her business and personal info off of the mac...
there is no truly "secure delete"..
which is why i am stuck with a 2K$ 27" imac that my 3 yr old xp leaves in the dirt...
the tutorials are worse than useless , the techs are a joke with a bad punchline...
but too much personal info is on it, and i have no trust for the techs/people at the store i bought it from...

 

[melchior]

and how pray tell , does she get all her business and personal info off of the mac...
there is no truly "secure delete"..
which is why i am stuck with a 2K$ 27" imac that my 3 yr old xp leaves in the dirt...
the tutorials are worse than useless , the techs are a joke with a bad punchline...
but too much personal info is on it, and i have no trust for the techs/people at the store i bought it from...

there is secure delete. boot from the install media, select erase then choose your security option. it takes sophisticated magnetic force microscopic techniques to recover data beyond this point. you'll be fine.

 

[TonyK]

That setting only applies to the inbox (unlike IMAP as I already explained). Every other mailbox you've created is on that specific device or webmail only. As you already mentioned the problem with this is indeed that mail stays on the server. You need to login via webmail to clean out the inbox or else the account will fill itself. With IMAP you've got a similar problem though it is slightly different. With POP there it's about every message you receive which also means the ones you deleted. Such isn't the case with IMAP. With IMAP you only have the mails you've "saved" or left alone.

There is that. I tend to go in every month or two and clean out the trash on my 4 gmail accounts. The benefit is the mail is there. Now IMAP allows one to manage server mail from their desktop BUT if I accidentally delete something it is gone - completely. With POP, the file would still be on the server until I visit and remove it myself. For me POP is a level of protection against accidental deletes. 😀

and how pray tell , does she get all her business and personal info off of the mac...
there is no truly "secure delete"..
which is why i am stuck with a 2K$ 27" imac that my 3 yr old xp leaves in the dirt...
the tutorials are worse than useless , the techs are a joke with a bad punchline...
but too much personal info is on it, and i have no trust for the techs/people at the store i bought it from...

Path Finder, which I think has a trial, has a secure delete for their trash can. Disk Utility I think can erase empty space on a drive. Not sitting in front of my Macs so I can't see either application at this moment. Just know there are ways to securely delete from OS X that do not require wiping the partition and re-installing the base OS; though that also works. 🙂

Take care,

 

[melchior]

That setting only applies to the inbox (unlike IMAP as I already explained). Every other mailbox you've created is on that specific device or webmail only. As you already mentioned the problem with this is indeed that mail stays on the server. You need to login via webmail to clean out the inbox or else the account will fill itself. With IMAP you've got a similar problem though it is slightly different. With POP there it's about every message you receive which also means the ones you deleted. Such isn't the case with IMAP. With IMAP you only have the mails you've "saved" or left alone.


Gmail is the problem. At random intervals it will check that POP account. There is no way telling Gmail at what intervals to do that (say, every 5 or 10 minutes). The only way of speeding this up is to log into gmail.com and check that POP account manually. Obviously that is not an option.

another possible option depending on the email setup is to have the ecommerce email server forward emails to your gmail. this will eliminate the lag.

this ecommerce email address of yours, is it a domain name you own, but hosted through your web provider? if so you should consider using google apps

 

[kramseivad102]

Hmm i cant see your problem you are clearly not this best with computers yea to make the text larger (i have no idea why u need to do it it is perfectly readable) you need to lower the res but why do u want to make it larger the imac preforms much better computer i have ever used also remember if u have the res set at full that is higher then High definition which is set to 1080
But yea set it to 1080p then it will be better for you

 

[dr. shdw]

gmail is kinda sucky to start with but there shouldnt be a 2 hour delay but maybe thats how gmail works might explain how i miss out on some of the sweet deals on craigslist. at least the mac is up and running again dont let the annoyances bother you enjoy that sweet computer

Maybe it's craiglist that's slow? I've never had speed issues with Gmail.

There is that. I tend to go in every month or two and clean out the trash on my 4 gmail accounts. The benefit is the mail is there. Now IMAP allows one to manage server mail from their desktop BUT if I accidentally delete something it is gone - completely. With POP, the file would still be on the server until I visit and remove it myself. For me POP is a level of protection against accidental deletes. 😀



Path Finder, which I think has a trial, has a secure delete for their trash can. Disk Utility I think can erase empty space on a drive. Not sitting in front of my Macs so I can't see either application at this moment. Just know there are ways to securely delete from OS X that do not require wiping the partition and re-installing the base OS; though that also works. 🙂

Take care,

Does IMAP not delete to the trashcan first?

and how pray tell , does she get all her business and personal info off of the mac...
there is no truly "secure delete"..
which is why i am stuck with a 2K$ 27" imac that my 3 yr old xp leaves in the dirt...
the tutorials are worse than useless , the techs are a joke with a bad punchline...
but too much personal info is on it, and i have no trust for the techs/people at the store i bought it from...

What? You can do a 35 pass if you really wanted to in Disk Utility. Or shoot your HD with some 50 cal bullets..

 

[124c41]

What? You can do a 35 pass if you really wanted to in Disk Utility. Or shoot your HD with some 50 cal bullets..

while 50cal sounds fun (would a ML work?) i would prefer to wrap it in c4 and put 10 tons of packed earth on it to compress it to the size of a matchbox... ;-P***
ps, how to get at HD w/o destrying the rest of the computer ? ;-P***
how do i find this 'disc utility' ? its not on the SP and google is no help...

 

[masmullin]

There are two major problems with the mac UI that windows power users will detest

1) the inability to resize windows from any of the outside border... it's the most idiotic of UI decisions that mac made to only resize the window from the bottom right hand corner.

WORST UI DECISION EVER!

2) the lack of system wide shortcut keys
eg. windows-E to bring up "finder"
windows-R to bring up "run"
etc

The ability to close windows from cmd+w nearly makes up for this, but not quite.

 

[swiftflo]

from the pc

I can understand all the OP's worries & fears. I too have used a PC for the past 15yrs & consider myself to be upto speed on all things PC. However in Nov.09 I decided enough was enough with all the business of updates to various programs etc., so took the plunge & purchased a new 21'5" iMac. I should add a very good friend suggested this to me, even though I had a very high spec. home built PC. As the OP has said nothing is the same & the OSX certainly takes some getting to grips with, but I am sure given time we will both be pleased we have made the change. I must point out however that I am not running a business but have retired, so I have the time to workout the different methods.

 

[dr. shdw]

while 50cal sounds fun (would a ML work?) i would prefer to wrap it in c4 and put 10 tons of packed earth on it to compress it to the size of a matchbox... ;-P***
ps, how to get at HD w/o destrying the rest of the computer ? ;-P***
how do i find this 'disc utility' ? its not on the SP and google is no help...

Under Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app

Should show up under spotlight too.

 

[dangerfish]

while 50cal sounds fun (would a ML work?) i would prefer to wrap it in c4 and put 10 tons of packed earth on it to compress it to the size of a matchbox... ;-P***
ps, how to get at HD w/o destrying the rest of the computer ? ;-P***
how do i find this 'disc utility' ? its not on the SP and google is no help...

You have obviously not put forth a bit of effort to learn anything about your computer. The hard drive is very easy to remove. To find Disk Utility (or anything else on your computer), use spotlight. It is right there on your desktop. If you did, you would have found disk utility in about 2 seconds.

 

[dangerfish]

YeS you are correct! It is on the POP server of the ecommerce site, gmail 'rips' it at certain intervals, from there it goes to Mac Mail.

It took me a while to figure out what you meant by Gmail "ripping" the emails. I assume you are talking about their mail fetch feature. This isnt really a good option for running a business especially when you rely so heavily on your email. There is no way to set how often Gmail fetches email and they wont even tell you how often the mail is fetched. It could be 5 minutes and it could be two hours. Is there a specific reason you have done it this way? It would make more sense to have your emails forwarded to your Gmail account. That would be instant. But even better would be to POP your emails straight to your Mac. Why are you even putting Gmail into the mix? Unless, I missed it, I dont think you have told us who your email/ecommerce provider is. If we knew, we could look into the options they provide and help you figure out a better solution.

 

[MariekeFJ]

Hmm i cant see your problem you are clearly not this best with computers yea to make the text larger (i have no idea why u need to do it it is perfectly readable) you need to lower the res but why do u want to make it larger the imac preforms much better computer i have ever used also remember if u have the res set at full that is higher then High definition which is set to 1080
But yea set it to 1080p then it will be better for you

You're absolutely right, why worry about seizures? They are just a minor little inconvenience.

It took me a while to figure out what you meant by Gmail "ripping" the emails. I assume you are talking about their mail fetch feature. This isnt really a good option for running a business especially when you rely so heavily on your email. There is no way to set how often Gmail fetches email and they wont even tell you how often the mail is fetched. It could be 5 minutes and it could be two hours. Is there a specific reason you have done it this way? It would make more sense to have your emails forwarded to your Gmail account. That would be instant. But even better would be to POP your emails straight to your Mac. Why are you even putting Gmail into the mix? Unless, I missed it, I dont think you have told us who your email/ecommerce provider is. If we knew, we could look into the options they provide and help you figure out a better solution.

The issue is with the POP3 server. I had tried to forward it at first to gmail, but not all emails come through. By letting Gmail 'rip', or FETCH 🙂D that's the word!), I do get all the emails. There seems to be a 'learn' function, and the delay time is getting less then 20 mins, so manageable.

The POP3 won't connect with software for MAC, the company admitted it. Like Amazon too, they only make there upload programs for Windows, and I asked about MAC, and it is not in the future.

I'm coming to terms with all of that. It's ok.

 

[dangerfish]

Are you saying that Mac Mail cant be setup with a POP3 email account? Or that it just doesnt work properly. If the latter, what specifically is the problem?

 

[snberk103]

...
The issue is with the POP3 server. I had tried to forward it at first to gmail, but not all emails come through.

That seems to be an issue with your ecommerce site. I know it doesn't solve your problems for now, but I would be unhappy with an email provider that couldn't forward mail reliably. But, for now I'm guessing you don't need to solve more problems.

By letting Gmail 'rip', or FETCH 🙂D that's the word!), I do get all the emails. There seems to be a 'learn' function, and the delay time is getting less then 20 mins, so manageable.

The POP3 won't connect with software for MAC, the company admitted it.

OK, in my opinion that bit 'POP3 won't connect with ... Mac', well - that is, um - "horse hockey" from your ecommerce site. First, let me say I am not a network professional - so if anyone with some professional experience wants to correct me, please do so. However, I do consider myself to be a serious tinkerer and I have trouble shot (shooted?) my own email, network, etc problems. This is what I think they actually mean. "We don't test our systems with Macs, so we have no idea what kind of settings are required. Instead of saying "we don't know" we'd rather fib and tell you it doesn't work." Why I'm saying that is this. As far as I know POP mailboxes are an internet standard, and not a Windows, Mac, Linux, etc standard. That is to say, if they implemented POP3 properly then any operating system should be able to access it. If they, the web-host people, can't tell you how then they should just tell you they don't know. Another black eye for your ecommerce site, incidentally....

If you can get the detailed instructions (usually found in one of the sites help files) someone here can likely tell you how to set up your Mac Mail. I doubt its actually that hard. Of course, this only helps you when you are at home, and not travelling with your mobile store. Or, do you take your iMac with you when you travel?

Like Amazon too, they only make there upload programs for Windows, and I asked about MAC, and it is not in the future.

I'm coming to terms with all of that. It's ok.

I have no experience with Amazon. I would suggest that you start a new thread specifically asking how to upload to Amazon. You might find that in fact there are some easy ways to do it.

UPDATE: Don't confuse "we don't support" (or "we only support Windows") with "it doesn't work". Often "we don't support" means that it works fine, but they can't be bothered to test their systems with a Mac. I've run into that before, and it means fibbing to them and telling them you have a Windows system so that their tech support person will read the settings you need from their screen script. But I rant.

 

[BlueRevolution]

"We don't test our systems with Macs, so we have no idea what kind of settings are required. Instead of saying "we don't know" we'd rather fib and tell you it doesn't work."

Bingo. I run into that all the time. And seriously, something as simple as POP3?

 

[Wheaty]

Don't confuse "we don't support" (or "we only support Windows") with "it doesn't work". Often "we don't support" means that it works fine, but they can't be bothered to test their systems with a Mac. I've run into that before, and it means fibbing to them and telling them you have a Windows system so that their tech support person will read the settings you need from their screen script. But I rant.

Absolutely!

My example is my new (ish) nokia E71 phone, which according to most of the flim flam can onle access e-mail from my account f I set up Push via my phone Co servers... What Tosh!.. Find e-mail settings stick in my acccount, name, password... and away we go.. fully independent all off "my own" servers.

I have my business e-mail running on IMAP so If I check on my phone, my Mac, the web... telnet.. it all shows me precisely the same..Received, Sent, Junk etc etc..

My Home e-mail I use POP3, and I'm only really bothered about it when at home.

Wheaty.

Hmmm,,, maybe I'll read some of the older posts now..

 

[dyn]

There is that. I tend to go in every month or two and clean out the trash on my 4 gmail accounts. The benefit is the mail is there. Now IMAP allows one to manage server mail from their desktop BUT if I accidentally delete something it is gone - completely. With POP, the file would still be on the server until I visit and remove it myself. For me POP is a level of protection against accidental deletes. 😀

That depends on how you've set up your mailclient. Some do an expunge meaning it will delete the mail. Mostly when deleting email on an IMAP server it will only mark the email for deletion, it does not delete it. To delete such mails you need to do an expunge. A lot of clients do that when exiting.

In Mail you can change this behaviour for each account separately. My Gmail account has been setup to move all deleted mail messages to the trash which I manually have to empty. Even though I'm used to UNIX/Linux systems (and thus I'm used to the fact that deleting stuff means it really is gone) this way of doing it does the same thing as what you're trying to accomplish, only smarter and more elegant. I can tell from experience that this works perfectly for accidentally deleting mail. Same goes for marking stuff as junk.

1) the inability to resize windows from any of the outside border... it's the most idiotic of UI decisions that mac made to only resize the window from the bottom right hand corner.

WORST UI DECISION EVER!

Borders? What borders? As far as I can tell windows in OS X do not have borders and that might be the problem. I wish resizing windows was indeed a lot easier but I don't consider it to be idiotic or worst UI decision ever (that would go to iTunes).

2) the lack of system wide shortcut keys
eg. windows-E to bring up "finder"
windows-R to bring up "run"
etc

The ability to close windows from cmd+w nearly makes up for this, but not quite.

There are a lot of shortcuts that are standard and as a result used throughout the system which is nice because it makes the system very consistent (although it isn't 100% consistent). I think that would qualify for "system wide". However, the things you want to do is launch apps by using shortcut keys and that seems to be impossible. There is something like winkey-r to bring up something like "run", the application is called DTerm and it will call up a small terminal dialog (with full terminal support). To bring up Finder you can use cmd-tab. Other things you could do is use ctrl-F3 to highlight the dock and use the arrow keys to move to the application you want to activate (you activate by pressing "enter"). This way you can launch application that currently aren't running. Spotlight is another way of doing it. Using Quicksilver most definitely is the way of doing it. You can do simple tasks by merely using the keyboard. If you want to do something like this only using OS X than you might want to look at Automator and the new services in Snow Leopard (you can add shortcut keys to a service).

As most people tend to use their mouse, a lot of shortcut keys are used throughout every application and the choice of several applications that give you this ability, I don't really see what exactly the problem is. I actually think that by having system wide shortcut keys to start applications such as Finder is what will cause the problem. It makes using your keyboard in applications even harder. OS X is about creating your own workflow and with tools like Automator, Services, AppleScript, shellscript, Perl, etc. this is not really a problem. It may have a steep learning curve but once you get on top things are really easy (especially when just sticking to Automator and Services, Perl, AppleScript, shellscript are more advanced things one can use).

Btw, if you want to start an application like OpenOffice.org by hitting ctrl-cmd-e in whatever application you're in is quite easy:
- Start Automator and choose Service.
- Make sure that "service receives selected" is set to "no input".
- In the "Utilities" folder on the left you'll find the option "Launch application". Locate it and drag it to the right side of the window.
- From the pulldown menu select the application you want to open, in this case that would be OpenOffice.org.
- Save it but be sure to choose a proper name so you can recognize it later on.
- Close Automator and open System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard shortcuts > Services.
- Find the service you just created by the name you gave it.
- When found double click behind it's name on the far right side.
- Enter the shortcut you want to use, in this case that would be ctrl-cmd-e.
- Done.

I really love the way Apple has done this in Snow Leopard as it gives users the power to do pretty cool things to make life easy. It's entirely up to the user and that's something I haven't seen in Windows and Ubuntu Linux. It is one of the main reasons why I prefer OS X as a desktop OS.

 

[MariekeFJ]

Thank you all!

I want to say a big thank you to all of you who have tried so hard to help me, and who have offered great advice. I is very much appreciated, and I've learned a lot!

I have returned the MAC. It wasn't working for my purposes. I think it is a great computer, what fails is that business isn't set to work on a MAC. I have spent the past weeks trying to making it work, and the only way things were 'functioning' was by making extra steps.

In the past 5 days I have spent, according to my online phone bill, 24hours 37minutes on the phone with the various software and apple support numbers, that is 5 hours a day on average. I kept on hearing 'you can't do that on a MAC', 'that is not supported on a MAC', I tried to look for alternatives but it just is limited.

The final deal breakers for me were the following;

Email; though absolutely a POP3/server issue and NOTHING to do with MAC. The email system does support Outlook, and emails would show up within minutes in Outlook, whereas to get it to work 'the same' on a MAC, it would have to go through gmail (which I've come to like!) and it would have a time delay. I would know the email got there as I would see it come in in Outlook, but it would take time for it to show up (though not as much as 2 hours anymore) on the MAC.
If there was ever a good reason to switch ecommerce sites, this would certainly be it, and I'm going to be working on that!

Adressbook; this was kind of disappointing. I tried several mass mail companies to see if any would work with Mac or even Entourage. Currently I'm set up with Constant Contacts, and they work with both Outlook and Quickbooks, for contact information. Otherwise it is 'enter manually' and that would just be too much work. Edited to add; can you imagine adding 100 emails per week manually 😀

Quicken I spent several days trying to make this work. Because Quicken has a great download your transactions from the financial institution. THis way, I know instantly when somebody has paid. Unfortunately, Q for MAC has a lot of issues, and 1 of them is downloading and especially reconciling statements. It turns things into an absolute mess. Getting my emails in triplicate is confusing, but having several financial transactions not match, that is a nightmare. This happened several days in a row, and when they said on the phone from tech support that that is 'normal', I just broke down. Editted to add: normally you click download, and spent just a couple of minutes if that at accepting and making sure it is matching, the past days I would have to redo everything manually and it would take me up to an hour!

Quickbooks every 1st Wednesday I sent my file to my accountant to submit tax related issues etc. THis time around I found out that in QB for MAC you can not upload an accountants file. I need to FedEx a DVD WITH all my paper reconciliation reports (as that doesn't convert properly), then my accountant has to make a print out for all the things that need to be tweaked, which I then have to enter manually again.

External hard drives. I should have known, and dumb that I didn't think of that, but of course my EHDs are formatted for windows, so I can read the files, but I can't update my working files.

Instead of making my life more efficient, things have slowed down substantially. I have managed to get my orders out, but normally I update inventory, add stuff to the website, do SEO, work on promotions, facebook, twitter etc etc. I also haven't cooked or cleaned the house since I got the MAC. I have spent 10+ hours per day to make this work, whereas my normal work day only compasses of 6 hours, M-F. I'm ready for some freshly cooked veggies vs pizza, chinees, etc etc 😀

I see many reasons why a MAC is a great computer, and I'm definitely going to recommend my mother-in-law to get one. I have enjoyed playing around on it, and it has some GREAT GREAT features. It is unfortunate that so little software is focused on MAC. It is also unfortunate that MAC doesn't have alternatives. It is too bad that there is so little integration 🙁.

I wish you all the best! I hope the future integrates the two OS better, as I would have loved to stay with the MAC for many reasons, but I have to pay the bills! Best to all!

 

[maximart4u]

Try installing Snow Leopard it might speed things up, did for me.

 

[BlueRevolution]

It's a bit late to point this out, but you can in fact read from and write to Windows-formatted hard drives. FAT32 drives can be read/written natively, and NTFS drives have native read-only capacity and can write using MacFUSE and NTFS-3G.

 

[snberk103]

To MariekeFJ:

I think in your particular instance you are making the correct choice. You have a business system that works well for you. The following comments then are aimed at other people thinking of making the switch, and are reading this thread. I think its not that the Mac was inappropriate, but that the transition was much too big a barrier. I think you'll agree that there is no point in moving thriving business to a more efficient system if the transition sets the business back so far you never get back to your starting point.

I think it would have been possible to create a business system that, on balance, worked as well as your Windows based system. Some things would not have worked as well, other things better. There is an immense power in the Apple Address Book that you did not get a chance to explore. There are other ways that the Mac handles mail that would have made your days easier. But, of course, if you have to go through the dislocation angst move your ecommerce site to a new provider do you really save time in the end. Sigh.

So my comment is.... to those of you looking at Macs for a business setting. Start early and work it into your business flow from the beginning, or transition in phases over time. For example, start with content editing, then work out the Mail issues, then the accounting, etc. Trying to transition all at once is big challenge. One of the ways to help with the transition is to simply clone your existing Windows system onto the Mac and then use Windows natively and/or through a virtual system. Oh well. Good Luck.