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PC guy buys a mac mini; head scratching

bruinsrme

bruinsrme

macrumors 604
Original poster
Oct 26, 2008
7,213
3,090
Hi
I snuck out and bought a mac mini in preparation for a conversion to mac in the house. There is no way I can start making the make the transition without first learning the basics of the OS.

I have played for about 8 hours and some things have me scratching my head.

1. when I install a program, say, from the web a pop up box with my user name comes up and I have to enter a password. Can I get rid of that?

2. does osx have a function similar to the start button in windows?

3. when an icon on the desktop is right click on, some offer the ability to send to trash while others don't? Why?

4. in windows I can click and everything is minimized giving me a clear view of the desktop. anything like that in the mac os.

Thanks for now I am off to play.

Scott
 
2. You can add the Applications folder to the right side of the dock if that helps.

4. Press F11.
 
1. when I install a program, say, from the web a pop up box with my user name comes up and I have to enter a password. Can I get rid of that?
Click to expand...
No, it's a security measure so that nothing is installed on your Mac unless you say so.
 
bruinsrme said:
1. when I install a program, say, from the web a pop up box with my user name comes up and I have to enter a password. Can I get rid of that?
Click to expand...
No, and you should be glad--the more consistent security framework is among the reasons that malware is so much less of an issue on the Mac than Windows. (This is in contrast to Win7's incessant and easy-to-ignore screen-graying popups, which are not a substitute; they don't work because everybody gets used to just clicking OK without paying attention.)

If you're talking about needing to authenticate when doing a drag-and-drop install into the Applications folder, you can set yourself as owner of the Applications folder, in which case you should have permissions to copy/move things into it, so you won't be prompted (though I personally wouldn't recommend this).

bruinsrme said:
3. when an icon on the desktop is right click on, some offer the ability to send to trash while others don't? Why?
Click to expand...
What isn't showing "Move to trash..." for you? So far as I can tell and have ever noticed, everything has that option in the right-click menu.

An exception would be mounted disks or your hard drive on your desktop, because you can't delete a device, only eject it. (And, indeed, you will see an "Eject" option on any ejectable volume, which is everything but the boot drive.)


Sounds like you already got the answer you were looking for on the other two questions.
 
thank you for the info.
very helpful. hopefully sharing resources with the server and other pcs will be easy
 
bruinsrme said:
2. does osx have a function similar to the start button in windows?
Click to expand...

That would be the :apple: menu at top left :cool:. Obviously it's not the same exact functionality.
It's easier said than done, but try not to reason in terms of "How can I do this thing that Windows does on the Mac?" Sometimes, there's just no clear-cut answer to that. Rather focus on what you need to do and figure out the Mac way of doing it.
I have a strong preference of Mac OS over Windows, but I acknowledge that there are some actions that are easier to do on Windows; however Mac OS is much more consistent and that makes its admin tasks absolutely intuitive.
 
I think all of your questions have been answered, but I'll add one more thing... try hyperdock, it will give you the screen preview feature when hovering over dock apps that are open and allow snap to screen along with some other nice features from windows 7
 
bruinsrme said:
2. does osx have a function similar to the start button in windows?
Click to expand...

Drag your 'Applications' folder onto the Dock (on the right hand side). If you right click on it you can change it to 'List' view. Then it works like a simple start menu.
 
I have to second Bernard's comments as someone who lives in both mac and windows worlds, rather than trying to make your mac behave like your windows machine (or vice versa) just concentrate on finding the "right way" to do what you're trying to do on that particular system, or else you end up with some dreadful kludge habits that, trust me, are very hard to unlearn.
 
bruinsrme said:
4. in windows I can click and everything is minimized giving me a clear view of the desktop. anything like that in the mac os.
Click to expand...

As mentioned before you can use F11, but at the moment I've got Expose set so when I bring my mouse down to the bottom left corner of the screen (which is a very rarely used portion of the screen) it minimizes everything and by repeating the action everything comes back up.
It has proved invaluable!
 
If I had a nickel for every mouse click of the back button and the use of the control key, I could buy a MacBook pro. :)
 
bruinsrme said:
If I had a nickel for every mouse click of the back button and the use of the control key, I could buy a MacBook pro. :)
Click to expand...
Am I reading correctly that you're implying you're using a 1-button mouse?

If you get a mighty mouse, you can of course set it to recognize right clicks (just lift your finger off the left side), and a two-fingered swipe left or right does a back or forward, in addition to 4-directional scrolling.

Or you can, of course, use more or less any 3rd-party USB mouse/trackball you like, most of which don't even require drivers if you don't want to use them--the OS recognizes a scroll wheel and up to 32 buttons without help.

I have a Logitech MX with 9 buttons, 4-directional scrolling and auto-free scrolling based on wheel speed, and have access to all of its features and by-app customization with Logitech's driver.
 
Makosuke said:
Am I reading correctly that you're implying you're using a 1-button mouse?

If you get a mighty mouse, you can of course set it to recognize right clicks (just lift your finger off the left side), and a two-fingered swipe left or right does a back or forward, in addition to 4-directional scrolling.

Or you can, of course, use more or less any 3rd-party USB mouse/trackball you like, most of which don't even require drivers if you don't want to use them--the OS recognizes a scroll wheel and up to 32 buttons without help.

I have a Logitech MX with 9 buttons, 4-directional scrolling and auto-free scrolling based on wheel speed, and have access to all of its features and by-app customization with Logitech's driver.
Click to expand...

I have an MS optical mouse with the wheel. I haven't played with it much nor do I know if the correct driver is loaded. due to my work schedule it wont be until wednesday before I get to toy around with it.
 
bruinsrme said:
I have an MS optical mouse with the wheel. I haven't played with it much nor do I know if the correct driver is loaded. due to my work schedule it wont be until wednesday before I get to toy around with it.
Click to expand...

While there is a driver for your mouse downloadable from the Microsoft website, you don't actually need it. Like in Windows. any mouse with two buttons and a wheel will be recognized as such and works out of the box. Right-clicking and wheel and all.

The driver can be useful, however, if you want to customize it further - like assigning keyboard shortcuts to a mouse button. But with an simple optical wheel mouse, there's not much to customize anyway.
 
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