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New to OS X.

M

Mackentosh

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 4, 2014
4
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After being a winblows user for 15 years, I sold my custom built 8 core windows desktop and bought a apple refurb mac mini dual core.

Windows new OS is a joke, it's like two operating systems glued together. You have the "metro" which is basically a windows mobile os glued over windows 7, in a nutshell.

I am fairly computer "smart", but wondering what kinds of major differences one will expect migrating to OS X?

I haven't messed around with mac in over 10 years, so school me.
 
Mackentosh said:
After being a winblows user for 15 years, I sold my custom built 8 core windows desktop and bought a apple refurb mac mini dual core.

Windows new OS is a joke, it's like two operating systems glued together. You have the "metro" which is basically a windows mobile os glued over windows 7, in a nutshell.

I am fairly computer "smart", but wondering what kinds of major differences one will expect migrating to OS X?

I haven't messed around with mac in over 10 years, so school me.
Click to expand...

Apple has some good info on "switching" at their web site here.
 
There is a good video I found that shows you around Mac OS X and it's various features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twf70Tl7piY. It's a professional guide and is well presented, I suggest you watch it. It covers Mountain Lion, so is fairly recent and will help you to get accustomed to "Mavericks," the current Mac OS X release. Most of what it covers will still be relevant when Yosemite (the successor to Mavericks) is released this Autumn.

Hope this helps.
 
Here at MacRumors, you are in the best place possible for help with your transition.
 
I hate people who say stuff like "win blows".
It's an operating system change, not a religion. Sigh.

I have to say Windows is rather bad, but that doesn't mean you have to act like a fanboy. Usage-wise, there's very little to learn switching from Windows. OS X tends to be easy to pick up speaking from experience. Good luck. Just don't be a fanboy please.
 
old-wiz said:
David Pogue has a good book "Switching to the Mac", written for windows users migrating to OSx. there are different versions of the book for different OSx versions.
Click to expand...

I highly recommend these books. Pogue's Switching to the Mac (Tiger Edition) is what guided me to successfully switching back in 2007.
 
Welcome! I'm sure you'll love the Apple world. When I made the switch, it was a whole new world! haha.

There are so many features especially with Yosemite & iOS8 integration but I can tell you the Mission Control, & spaces are some of the most useful things on the Mac OS. I love being able to just swipe between different "desktops." This is old but still relevant for the most part.

If you have an Apple store near you, I highly recommend taking one of their free classes to help familiarize yourself with Mac but I'm sure MR members would be happy to share their knowledge as well.
 
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Welcome!
Something I always do when start for first time os x go to system preferences then general there you can change few basic things for ui try and see what best for you.
Also recommend you disable lcd smoothing as that makes text sharper.
Then in accessibly turn of smooth images when use zoom.
Then go to keyboard and shortcuts there you can customise them.
Other thing I do right away is go to dock setings and turn on magnification also try set it to left or right you may like it better.
Honestly os X is by no way perfect there some things sometimes that can make you truly mad but for me its way better experience than Windows. I can do things much faster and smooother its also much much more stable and I can focus on what im doing not just hope something not to crash and always save every few seconds when doing something important.
Yosemite is overall pretty good and if you have Ios device you will enjoy it even more but there still some stability issues hope they fix them by the time of release.
 
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Mackentosh said:
After being a winblows user for 15 years, I sold my custom built 8 core windows desktop and bought a apple refurb mac mini dual core.

Windows new OS is a joke, it's like two operating systems glued together. You have the "metro" which is basically a windows mobile os glued over windows 7, in a nutshell.

I am fairly computer "smart", but wondering what kinds of major differences one will expect migrating to OS X?

I haven't messed around with mac in over 10 years, so school me.
Click to expand...
An octo-core to a dual-core? Doesn't sound like a very equitable swap to me. Besides, it's not like Windows 7 stopped existing.

Major differences from Windows to OS X: Macs have decent, actually-useful keyboard shortcuts. Learn them and love them. Also, install Quicksilver, unless the built in Spotlight (command + spacebar) works well enough for you.
 
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