New to Mac with Questions

[iMacXpress]

Hello, MacRumors. I am new to Mac coming from a PC since forever.

I currently own the new 13" Macbook Air.

My questions are:

1. How do you know which tabs/apps are open?
   
2. How do you you rearrange the dock/move items to the desktop?
   
3. How do you right click?
   
4. I currently have Microsoft Office Home & Student Edition 2011 and I am currently taking CSIS 115 which is Introduction to Microcomputer Applications. Will it transfer to a Windows computer? To be specific, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Any tips, answers, suggestions, etc will be greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

* I am learning as I explore this Mac. Completely different everything coming from a PC all my life.

 

[dusk007]

1. There is usually a small white dot in the dock at all applications which are open. In some Lion beta it was disabled in case that is the new default I highly recommend enabling it again. It just saves energy if there isn't all the nonsense runnning all the time.
2. Just click hold and move the items around. Everything you move once will stay were you put it. Stuff that is not always in the dock will be appended at the right side in the order the apps are started.
It effectively works exactly the same as in Windows 7 (default).
Though for the future the dock is rather useless for managment thus I would minimize it and get it out of the way. Use a launcher like Alfred and or set it to slide in when required. CMD+option+D is the short cut for this. Otherwise it just takes a lot of screenspace for no real benefit.

As to which Windows are open? Just use Expose or Mission Control as the new stuff is called. There is a keyboard key for it (F3). And a four finger touchpad swipe down triggered it too.

If you click and hold an icon in the dock it will also trigger (at least in snow leopard) an App specific expose. It only shows you all open windows of this application such as mail. I set the top right corner to trigger it. In Preferences -> Expose/Space aka MissionControl -> you can set corners to trigger some commands. If you move your mouse into the corner it triggers it, like in Windows where bottom right shows the desktop. Very useful with mouse in hand. With Touchpad gestures are faster.

3. Use two fingers.
With an app calles BetterTouchTool you can also make a three finger click to be a middle click. And a lot of other stuff.
It is also possible to set the bottom right corner as a right click area. I don't recommend it. Get used to the two finger click. More precise less errors or involuntary clicks.

4. There is a seperate Office for Mac. You have to buy it again though. It sucks and doesn't look exactly alike. Running the Windows Office in a Virtual Machine works best or just using some other software. I assume running Virtual Machines is too difficult considering your questions. Thus you might just buy the office for Mac but a lot of things are little to very different, to the fact that office for mac doesn't even support some of the higher end features. And there are quite a few compatibility issues.

BetterTouchTool is really worth it if you want to make the most of it.

 

[iMacXpress]

dusk007,

Thank you so much for taking the time to type everything out and especially answering all of my questions. I really do appreciate it and this really helped me out a lot.

The most important was the question about Microsoft Office.

That really does suck if it's completely different and all. But I might have to purchase that as well since I do not want to mess with the virtual windows thing.

Do you happen to which version Microsoft Office that would be?

Thanks again for your time!

 

[Shrink]

1. There is usually a small white dot in the dock at all applications which are open. In some Lion beta it was disabled in case that is the new default I highly recommend enabling it again. It just saves energy if there isn't all the nonsense runnning all the time.
2. Just click hold and move the items around. Everything you move once will stay were you put it. Stuff that is not always in the dock will be appended at the right side in the order the apps are started.
It effectively works exactly the same as in Windows 7 (default).
Though for the future the dock is rather useless for managment thus I would minimize it and get it out of the way. Use a launcher like Alfred and or set it to slide in when required. CMD+option+D is the short cut for this. Otherwise it just takes a lot of screenspace for no real benefit.

As to which Windows are open? Just use Expose or Mission Control as the new stuff is called. There is a keyboard key for it (F3). And a four finger touchpad swipe down triggered it too.

If you click and hold an icon in the dock it will also trigger (at least in snow leopard) an App specific expose. It only shows you all open windows of this application such as mail. I set the top right corner to trigger it. In Preferences -> Expose/Space aka MissionControl -> you can set corners to trigger some commands. If you move your mouse into the corner it triggers it, like in Windows where bottom right shows the desktop. Very useful with mouse in hand. With Touchpad gestures are faster.

3. Use two fingers.
With an app calles BetterTouchTool you can also make a three finger click to be a middle click. And a lot of other stuff.
It is also possible to set the bottom right corner as a right click area. I don't recommend it. Get used to the two finger click. More precise less errors or involuntary clicks.

4. There is a seperate Office for Mac. You have to buy it again though. It sucks and doesn't look exactly alike. Running the Windows Office in a Virtual Machine works best or just using some other software. I assume running Virtual Machines is too difficult considering your questions. Thus you might just buy the office for Mac but a lot of things are little to very different, to the fact that office for mac doesn't even support some of the higher end features. And there are quite a few compatibility issues.

BetterTouchTool is really worth it if you want to make the most of it.

Hey, thanks. I never noticed that before.

The things you learn every day...

 

[AdrianK]

Do you happen to which version Microsoft Office that would be?

Anything with 'Microsoft Office' and 'Mac' in the title. The 2011 version is by far the best, you can look at which applications are included here.

 

[iMacXpress]

Anything with 'Microsoft Office' and 'Mac' in the title. The 2011 version is by far the best, you can look at which applications are included here.

I already have Microsoft Office 2011 Home and Student Edition for Mac that I purchased a couple days ago. I thought he mentioned a different version that can be transferable to a Windows PC from my Macbook.

 

[gusmahler]

I already have Microsoft Office 2011 Home and Student Edition for Mac that I purchased a couple days ago. I thought he mentioned a different version that can be transferable to a Windows PC from my Macbook.

Office 2011 is the Mac version. If you need a Windows version for class, you need to get Office 2010. (In addition to a copy of Windows that you dual-boot into or use Parallels for).

 

[Young Spade]

I already have Microsoft Office 2011 Home and Student Edition for Mac that I purchased a couple days ago. I thought he mentioned a different version that can be transferable to a Windows PC from my Macbook.

Office 2011 is the Mac version. If you need a Windows version for class, you need to get Office 2010. (In addition to a copy of Windows that you dual-boot into or use Parallels for).

If you're referring to files (being able to type a document on the Mac and then use it in class on their computers) you can do that as well.

The default file type is either .doc or .docx and if both programs are 2011/2010, you shouldn't have any problems.

I would bring the Mac to class on the first day or so just in case you need to save it to a different format and transfer it over with a USB stick or something.

 

[Daffodil]

That really does suck if it's completely different and all. But I might have to purchase that as well since I do not want to mess with the virtual windows thing.

Do you happen to which version Microsoft Office that would be?

Thanks again for your time!

Office for Mac is definitely not completely different - I had no problem when I switched from pc to mac, just a little exploring in the menus until you see where everything is, and otherwise it works exactly the same. As Young Spade pointed out, the file formats are the same, so there are no issues with compatibility in files transferred either way.

@dusk007 - I didn't know about the four finger swipe, that's awesome!

 

[AdeFowler]

I've heard good things about Tutor for Lion from new users. It's relatively inexpensive and seems like the kind of thing that Apple could pre-install:

http://appshopper.com/mac/productivity/tutor-for-lion