Guess what I just ordered...
- Thread starter CDailey
- 48 comments
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Evolution.
(Banned)
- 3,722
[jealousy]
You suck. Go die.
[/jealousy]
You suck. Go die.
[/jealousy]
- 7,965
Nice find, bud. Enjoy the Mactasticy. 
Sage
Staff Emeritus
- 12,533
- United States
- GTP_Sage
It’s not necessarily a big guide – just a cheat-sheet of tips that I think are particularly helpful for people new to the Mac world. Anyway, this is what I send (I’ve recently made some changes to it, so to anybody who has received this PM from me, you might want to read this):
----------------------------------------------------------
Hello,
Every time a GTP user switches to OS X, I like to give a rundown of tips and useful apps. Without further ado:
TIPS
APPS
WIDGETS
Well, that’s about it for now. Good luck, and have fun!
– Sage
Anyway, this is what I send (I’ve recently made some changes to it, so to anybody who has received this PM from me, you might want to read this):----------------------------------------------------------
Hello,
Every time a GTP user switches to OS X, I like to give a rundown of tips and useful apps.
Without further ado:TIPS
- MacUpdate.com – Like VersionTracker, but better. By the way, when I get to the Apps and Widgets sections, just use MacUpdate to find all the apps – it has everything.
- The System Preferences app will be your best friend for the first couple weeks – one of the best ways to learn how OS X works is by fiddling with System Prefs as much as possible. Seriously, fiddle with every little setting, and set things up the way you want them.
- Pin your Dock to the right side of the screen (you’ll figure out how if you fiddle with System Prefs
), instead of leaving it at the bottom. Keeping it at the bottom steals valuable vertical pixels; remember, you have a widescreen display, so horizontal pixels are plentiful. Thus, keeping the Dock on the side is a much more efficient use of space. - Calibrate your display. The default calibration that Apple ships is all washed out and terrible. To change the calibration, go to System Prefs (there’s that app again!), click on Displays, then click on the Color tab (or “chiclet”, as they’re called), then click on the Calibrate button. Once the Assistant comes up, make sure you select Expert Mode, then go on with the directions. Trust me, your display will look a hundred times better once you have it properly calibrated.
- Speaking of displays, try to drop the habit of maximizing your windows. You’ll find that it’s way way way more efficient to keep windows at a “reasonable” size, and to overlap them so that you can see several at a time.
- OS X uses RAM in a much different manner than Windows does. Windows tends to use a set amount of RAM for whatever it’s doing – that is, there’s a certain point where adding more RAM doesn’t do much good. However, OS X always uses as much RAM as it can (which makes sense – if you have it, why not use it?). Thus, max out your RAM if possible. I just installed 2GB of RAM in this MacBook, and it just flies now. RAM is far far more important to OS X than CPU speed.
- Use Finder’s Column View. It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.
- See all of those items on the right-side of your menubar? The battery, clock, Bluetooth, etc.? If you Command+Click them, you can drag them around to different spots.
- Speaking of that, Shift is used for contiguous selection, and Command is used for non-contiguous selection. For example, double-click on a word in this PM. Now, holding the Shift key, double-click on a word several lines down. Now, repeat those steps, but use the Command key. Nifty, huh?
- A fullscreen shot is taken by pressing Command+Shift+3; it will be made into a PNG on your desktop. If you also hold the Control key, it’ll be sent to your clipboard instead. If you want to take screen shot, but not the entire screen, then press Command+Shift+4; again, if you hold down the Control key, it’ll be sent to your clipboard instead of being made into a PNG. And, if you want to take an exactly perfect picture of a window, press Command+Shift+4, then let go, then hit the Spacebar, then move your mouse around the screen. Neat!
- There are billions of other nice keyboard commands (for example, hold down the Command key, then quickly tap the Tab key while still holding down the Command key; now, use the Tab key to switch between apps). Make sure you learn as many keyboard shortcuts as you can.
APPS
- Adium – if you only use AIM, then iChat is perfectly sufficient (great, in fact). If you also use MSN or Yahoo IM or whatever, then Adium is the way to go.
- Camino – Safari is great, especially because of its built-in RSS features, but on rare occasions you’ll run into a website that isn’t designed for Safari. In those cases, use Camino. It uses Gecko, Firefox’s rendering engine, but it looks nicer than Firefox and runs way faster. Firefox may be all that on Windows, but it’s a turd in OS X, because it’s a port.
- Flip4Mac – WMVs in Quicktime. Nuff said.
- Growl – gives you floating notifications for an almost infinite number of things (for example, if a friend signs onto AIM).
- MenuMeters – allows you to monitor network traffic, CPU use, disk use, and RAM use in your menubar.
- Quicksilver – Spotlight is the cheese, but it’s terrible as an application launcher (too slow). Instead, download Quicksilver, then limit its Catalog to just Applications. Now, you have an ultra-quick way to launch applications.
- The Unarchiver – OS X has a built-in program that can un-zip files; however, you normally would have to download Stuffit Expander to open .sit (or related) files. The Unarchiver is a new program that replaces all of those and can basically expand almost any compression format, and it’s small and unobtrusive.
- VLC – if you can’t get something to play in Quicktime (even with Flip4Mac installed), then try using VLC. It basically plays anything.
WIDGETS
- App Update – does exactly what it says.
- CharacterPal – shows you how to type in special characters (™, é, etc.).
- Gas – if you drive, this widget is awesome. It tells you the lowest gas prices within a selected radius of where you are.
- Harmonic – imports lyrics into iTunes.
- iClip Lite – I was never big on multiple-clipboard applications, but this one works incredibly intuitively. 👍
- Widget Update – same as App Update.
- Wimic – if you read comics, you’ll never need to find the newspaper again.
- YahooTraffic – again, if you drive, this is very useful.
Well, that’s about it for now. Good luck, and have fun!
– Sage
- 1,681
Great tips Sage 👍
Alternatively, you can keep the dock at the bottom of the screen and set it to autohide. I prefer this method, but it all depends on the user.
Also, take full advantage of the Exposé feature. At home, I have it set to the two side-buttons of my mouse. However, we use a generic mouse in one of my math courses, but I found out that setting one of the "hot-corners" to Exposé is also very useful. (You can find the hot-corners settings in the System Preferences.)
For the notebook users, remember there's the two-finger right-click and two-finger scrolling. (Right? Someone should verify this, as I've never owned an Apple laptop.)
Alternatively, you can keep the dock at the bottom of the screen and set it to autohide. I prefer this method, but it all depends on the user.
Also, take full advantage of the Exposé feature. At home, I have it set to the two side-buttons of my mouse. However, we use a generic mouse in one of my math courses, but I found out that setting one of the "hot-corners" to Exposé is also very useful. (You can find the hot-corners settings in the System Preferences.)
For the notebook users, remember there's the two-finger right-click and two-finger scrolling. (Right? Someone should verify this, as I've never owned an Apple laptop.)
True, but then the stuff you have saved to your desktop gets covered up by the dock. And it looks pretty stupid.TIPS
- Pin your Dock to the right side of the screen (youll figure out how if you fiddle with System Prefs
I've found that on some pages (like on Gamespot's "On the Spot" player), Firefox renders things even better than Camino. Plus, Firefox has a better Bookmark system and Find function. IMO, Camino doesn't have the refinement of Safari or the functionality of Firefox. It's a mishmash of things. Plus, for cosmetics, I found that this guide made Firefox much better looking.
The only thing I needed Camino for was to register at a forum which needed to use IE6, and the CamiTools user agent switcher helped me with that. But then again, Firefox has an extension for that type of function, so that's pretty obsolete.
I could never get it working properly. Some functions it does fine, but for others that are supposed to work don't.
Damn, I need to try those out. 👍
Sage
Staff Emeritus
- 12,533
- United States
- GTP_Sage
Then dont save stuff to your desktop.
Its an easy habit to break.Really? Ive never heard of anyone having trouble with it in fact, this girl sitting in front of me today in Cultural Studies had a PowerBook, and I saw a Growl notification pop up on her screen. Try re-installing the latest version, and make sure the plugins you use are up-to-date and Intel-compatible.
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I want a Mac Book but I wish they came in a different color, like aluminum the silver one you have, but I'd have to get a MBP for that.
