Mac culture shock
Through a circuitous sequence of events, I now own a Core2Duo Power Book Pro.
I have been a Windows user since the beginning and and am quite proficient with it, even 'under the hood'. And, I haven't had security problems since I began hiding behind a router and switching to FireFox.
So I turned on the Power Book and it was easy to get working. Found my wireless networks registered the machine with Apple, took my picture, seemed to be excellent finding peripherals etc .. all quite nice.
Now the initial surprises.
1) I can only find a Delete Key. Is there a Backspace key hiding in plane sight? I'm terrible at typing.
2) I immediately looked for a right mouse button .. not there.
3) Believe it or not, I have never used a touch pad. I adjusted it for max sensitivity and still need to stroke the cursor around the screen. I discovered two finger scrolling which seems OK; overall, I don't like that touch pad.
4) The default screen font requires my higher power reading glasses.
Included software:
Does Safari have a Go button to click upon when you type a URL. The return key works fine. Haven't delved into much else yet.
OSX:
1) All of this mention of mounting disks reminds me of mainframes of the 70's. Ejecting disks? Downloaded and installed FireFox then and had to 'eject' an icon to clean things up.
2) Shortcut keys.. I thought the Windows shortcuts were knuckle busters. I think OSX will hasten the onset of arthritis. What's wrong with a simple press of the Delete key?
3) Immediately felt I had no 'under the hood' control of things. Maybe that's good for less geekish users.
Now I realize I'm embarking into a different culture here so I'll just have to conform. Maybe someone can also recommend a good OSX book (not an idiot's book) that can help.
--- CHAS
I have been a Windows user since the beginning and and am quite proficient with it, even 'under the hood'. And, I haven't had security problems since I began hiding behind a router and switching to FireFox.
So I turned on the Power Book and it was easy to get working. Found my wireless networks registered the machine with Apple, took my picture, seemed to be excellent finding peripherals etc .. all quite nice.
Now the initial surprises.
1) I can only find a Delete Key. Is there a Backspace key hiding in plane sight? I'm terrible at typing.
2) I immediately looked for a right mouse button .. not there.
3) Believe it or not, I have never used a touch pad. I adjusted it for max sensitivity and still need to stroke the cursor around the screen. I discovered two finger scrolling which seems OK; overall, I don't like that touch pad.
4) The default screen font requires my higher power reading glasses.
Included software:
Does Safari have a Go button to click upon when you type a URL. The return key works fine. Haven't delved into much else yet.
OSX:
1) All of this mention of mounting disks reminds me of mainframes of the 70's. Ejecting disks? Downloaded and installed FireFox then and had to 'eject' an icon to clean things up.
2) Shortcut keys.. I thought the Windows shortcuts were knuckle busters. I think OSX will hasten the onset of arthritis. What's wrong with a simple press of the Delete key?
3) Immediately felt I had no 'under the hood' control of things. Maybe that's good for less geekish users.
Now I realize I'm embarking into a different culture here so I'll just have to conform. Maybe someone can also recommend a good OSX book (not an idiot's book) that can help.
--- CHAS
Comments
1) Use the regular backspace key (labelled "delete" on US keyboards) for deleting everything that is left to the cursor. To delete things right to the cursor, use the "fn" plus the "backspace" keys.
2) Right mouse button: you'll almost never use it on the Mac, promised! If once you'd really need it, tap the trackpad with two fingers. Or press the "ctrl" key ("option" on US keyboards) when clicking the button below the trackpad.
3) So get any USB mouse of your choice.
4) Go to System Preferences --> Appearance --> lower right corner: Font smoothing style and switch it to "Standard - best for CRT", then restart your computer. This will remove some of the fuzziness around the characters on the screen (I don't like font smoothing at all - and I can't stand M$'s ClearType stuff!).
Also be sure to use the correct brightness of the display. Indoors, you should not go over 1/2 of the brightness (use the F1/F2 keys to adjust).
Safari) Well, I have never seen a Go button in Safari and I honestly don't know why anyone would really need the Go button present in Internet Explorer. While you're inputting an URL into the address bar, your hands are already at the keyboard, so pressing the return key is the only logical action that would follow the URL input, IMHO. And if you're following links, they will open automatically...
OS X 1) Well, ejecting disks (or disk images, in this case) have a very long tradition on the Mac. You'll get used to that very quickly, don't worry.
OS X 2) What do you want to do? The basic keyboard shortcuts in OS X are (Command = "Apple" key):
Command-A: select all
Command-C: copy
Command-V: paste
Command-X: cut
Command-O: open
Command-N: create new (in applications: file, in Finder: new Finder window)
Command-Shift-N: create new folder
Command-D: duplicate file/folder
Command-W: close window
Command-Q: quit application
Command-M: move window to Dock
Command-H: hide application and all its windows
Command-P: print
Command-I: get information about file/folder/disk
Command-E: eject (disk or disk image)
Command-K: connect to server
etc. All in all, I think this is much better arranged than in windows where you have to press the ctrl key (most lower left key) every time. That's a matter of preference, though.
OS X 3) Well, the System Preferences give you pretty much control over every important aspect in OS X. PLUS there is the Terminal application where you can do whatever you want "under the hood" - if you know Unix. Otherwise, be careful!
I know harcore Windows users need a few days to get used to certain things in OS X (or rather to get rid of much of the bad habits Windows taught them...) but you'll see in one week you'll love it!
I now own a Core2Duo Power Book Pro.
I know it's a horrible name but the new laptops are called Macbook Pro to distinguish from the old PPC powerbooks. I personally prefer the name powerbook but it may confuse some people if you call it that.
1) I can only find a Delete Key. Is there a Backspace key hiding in plane sight? I'm terrible at typing.
That is the backspace key (it's maybe labelled delete though). In order to do a delete as in a Windows delete, you can hit alt-backspace.
2) I immediately looked for a right mouse button .. not there.
If you go into system prefs and the mouse options, there is an option to enable right-click. To use it, you put two fingers on the trackpad and click. This is also where you enable two finger scrolling etc.
3) Believe it or not, I have never used a touch pad. I adjusted it for max sensitivity and still need to stroke the cursor around the screen. I discovered two finger scrolling which seems OK; overall, I don't like that touch pad.
The mice have acceleration curves so if you move your finger quickly, it moves the mouse further than moving the same amount slowly.
4) The default screen font requires my higher power reading glasses.
It may take a while to get used to system-wide anti-aliasing. It can make text look a little blurry. There are 3rd party programs that let you turn off anti-aliasing but it doesn't look as nice.
Does Safari have a Go button to click upon when you type a URL. The return key works fine. Haven't delved into much else yet.
You can use the reload button.
1) All of this mention of mounting disks reminds me of mainframes of the 70's. Ejecting disks? Downloaded and installed FireFox then and had to 'eject' an icon to clean things up.
Disk images are like zip archives that Windows apps sometimes download as. Instead of decompressing, you mount it and take stuff off it. This is the preferred distribution format for OS X stuff.
2) Shortcut keys.. I thought the Windows shortcuts were knuckle busters. I think OSX will hasten the onset of arthritis. What's wrong with a simple press of the Delete key?
I think some combinations are designed to prevent accidental keypresses. For example, if delete-key deleted a file, then you may accidentally delete the file instead of maybe deleting it's name not realising the name wasn't selected.
3) Immediately felt I had no 'under the hood' control of things. Maybe that's good for less geekish users.
That's exactly it but it depends on what you want to control. OS X is a full unix system so it has nearly the same level of control but OS X likes to discourage you from modifying stuff that will harm the system.
Now I realize I'm embarking into a different culture here so I'll just have to conform. Maybe someone can also recommend a good OSX book (not an idiot's book) that can help.
The quickest way to learn is really to use the system and post here if you get stuck but there are guides like this that may help you:
http://www.amazon.com/Switching-Mac-...970803-0875862
--- CHAS