New to Mac

[BlaYde]

Hi all,

I have had a big day today. Not only did I buy myself a new Mackbook Pro, I also talked my parents into buying a new 27in iMac. Always wanted to get a Mac, however, now that I have it, I'm kind of lost in OS X as I have always been a Windows user.

I'm finding my way around slowly but where would you guys suggest I look to learn how to do things in OS X. In other words is there a website that is friendly to new users moving from pc to mac? So far I noticed that OS X doesn't have a right mouse click with options, option so I need to learn some basics of how to copy and paste etc.

Anyway, I would appreciate if someone could point me to a place on the net where I could learn about OS X and how to do things etc on these Macs.

Also is there an equivalent to MS Office that I can download/buy for the Mac? Mainly after Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

help is greatly appreciated guys,

cheers

[Jazper]

Woah, did you miss the welcome stuff that came with the Mac?

If you prefer video tutorials:

http://www.apple.com/au/findouthow/mac/

If you prefer text based:

http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/

http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/


That should give you everything you want, and mac users can right click. The default is control+click but I have it set up for a two finger tap..

Oh and there is office for the mac
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/product...8/default.mspx

and iWork (apple's equivalent - keynote is miles better than powerpoint by an order of magnitude):
http://www.apple.com/iwork/

Or if you prefer something that's free:
http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

[robertgd]

Microsoft have Office 2007 for OSX, that's what I'm using. You can also get iWork package, or an open source suite such as OpenOffice.

You'll find OSX is pretty similar to Windows in the functions. Yes there is a right click. If you're on your MacBook you'll probably want to go to Mouse settings and set up the two finger tap for right click, very handy. Or just plug a Windows mouse in.

Enjoy.

[BlaYde]

Don't know how but I must have missed that, Jazper...thanks for the links though and thanks for the info robertgd. I found a 30 day trial of iWorks on Apple site so I'll download that and check it out.

[0restes]

Go into your track pad settings, you can set up a right click function so that when you click the right side of the trackpad it acts as a right click or choose any of the other options.

As for getting around, you might find it handy to drag your applications folder to the other side of the side walk on your dock if it's not there already and then right click it, set it to folder and list... this will give you a windows like "start" menu for all your applications.

When you want to install a program its generally a process of opening up your applications folder and draging the app into there. If you don't like it anymore unlike windows you don't have to "uninstall" you just drag it to the trash.

Originally Posted by BlaYde

Don't know how but I must have missed that, Jazper...thanks for the links though and thanks for the info robertgd. I found a 30 day trial of iWorks on Apple site so I'll download that and check it out.

Office 2007 is pretty good, if you have anyone in your family that's a student you can get it for cheap as well through "its not cheating"

[[KEi]SoVeReIgN]

Originally Posted by robertgd

Microsoft have Office 2007 for OSX, that's what I'm using. You can also get iWork package, or an open source suite such as OpenOffice.

Office 2008. The Mac releases are 1 year behind the windows releases (or one year newer, depending on how you look at it)

The subtle differences in OSX make quite a difference in practice, once you get used to the OSX way of doing things, you can be more efficient than windows (IMHO). They're fairly subtle so you can obviously just sit down and work, but it takes some getting used to to change your way of thinking slightly.

[Jazper]

The big thing I've noticed about using a Mac, is the very slight learning curve.

I find (having used PCs for about 25 years) that just having the inclination to do something, for example, put together a photo album or write a script to run something at a particular time, put together a playlist.. etc etc then attempting it is enough to do it. Whereas with a pc you have to figure stuff out.

You can do the same stuff, but it takes a lot longer to do it.

[0restes]

Yes and no, some things are annoying [right click being turned off] Opening folders to get at apps when you don't need to, not having a proper tree view when it comes to looking at folders, etc... most of these things can be switched on but the folder view is sometimes cumbersome in OS X. Don't get me wrong I have a PC which has been left with the sole duty of playing TV. A nice big 22" screen as well, but I'd rather sit on the couch with my MacBook.

Originally Posted by Jazper

The big thing I've noticed about using a Mac, is the very slight learning curve.

I find (having used PCs for about 25 years) that just having the inclination to do something, for example, put together a photo album or write a script to run something at a particular time, put together a playlist.. etc etc then attempting it is enough to do it. Whereas with a pc you have to figure stuff out.

You can do the same stuff, but it takes a lot longer to do it.

It's annoying that the Mac doesn't have a decent media player, itunes is cumbersome to use, VLC is good for movies, etc and plays all formats with codecs including WMV but I've yet to find a media player that is equivelant to foobar2000 for MP3's, although there is MacAmp I believe if you want a winamp clone... for photos download yourself a copy of Graphic Converter which is pretty much the Mac equivelant of infranview for quick previews of pictures/pdf's just use preview, for album viewing use iphoto.

[Jazper]

It's annoying that the Mac doesn't have a decent media player, itunes is cumbersome to use, VLC is good for movies, etc and plays all formats with codecs including WMV but I've yet to find a media player that is equivelant to foobar2000 for MP3's, although there is MacAmp I believe if you want a winamp clone... for photos download yourself a copy of Graphic Converter which is pretty much the Mac equivelant of infranview for quick previews of pictures/pdf's just use preview, for album viewing use iphoto.

http://sbooth.org/Play/ <-- Foobar equivalent.

Perian will allow you to play almost all videos on MacOSx through quicktime
http://perian.org/

When you are ready for something more advanced - www.rudix.org

[lawrencep93]

Boot camp windows 7 when you want to do something :P then use OSX to play with until you learn how to use it. Me personally worked out how to use OSX at school in about 2 hours, but i find navigating around a shit load of windows is a nightmare you have to press f11 then you get a crap load of small windows then you have to guess which one you want, also in the options you can get right click, but the mac mouse gives you the $h!ts because it's not a clear second button. Playing halo in class and trying to right click is annoying.

[xcalibur]

lots of threads with useful information have been posted. might nee to change ur settings to more than 3months of posts.

here are a few

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...d.php?t=790961

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...d.php?t=767074

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...d.php?t=671719

[xcalibur]

Originally Posted by Jazper

http://sbooth.org/Play/ <-- Foobar equivalent.

Perian will allow you to play almost all videos on MacOSx through quicktime
http://perian.org/

When you are ready for something more advanced - www.rudix.org

niceplayer is a good lite quicktime alternative. and vlc does it all in one.

[0restes]

forget quicktime just use VLC and quicktime runs like crap with codecs anyway.

[BlaYde]

Thanks to all for the helpful advice. I have spent the last 5hrs on my MBP and I feel I'm becoming comfortable already on how to do things.

I have enabled the right mouse click which is good and have installed perian which enabled me to watch movies. I have set up safari and email. Changed many of the system preferences to suit me.

I have setup dashboard with many cool and useful widgets.

I couldn't believe that just plug-in my brother printer to the MBP was all I had to do for it to work. I have never experienced that sort of ease of hardware installation under Windows environment.

I have always used Firefox as my web browser but I do like the clean looks and operation of the safari web browser and love the "top sites" feature and how it’s displayed etc.

As I mentioned before I wanted to get a MBP for some time and when I got it yesterday, for a short time I was starting to doubt the purchase, however, spending more time with it today I can't help but to feel very impressed with OS X, MBP and in general the ease of use.

[Jazper]

Originally Posted by BlaYde

I have always used Firefox as my web browser but I do like the clean looks and operation of the safari web browser and love the "top sites" feature and how it’s displayed etc.

As I mentioned before I wanted to get a MBP for some time and when I got it yesterday, for a short time I was starting to doubt the purchase, however, spending more time with it today I can't help but to feel very impressed with OS X, MBP and in general the ease of use.

You can get firefox (and now chrome) for OS X if you prefer.

give it more time and you will learn to love it.