Top Mac Tips Please

lee634

Take a look at these 2 websites

https://www.screencastsonline.com

http://www.apple.com/iwork/tutorials/#numbers-two-23


The first is an excellent site about all programs and feature of a mac these are available to download in podcadst format, whilst it is a members site, there is a lot free podcasts to download as well,

The second site is apples iworks video tutorial very handy if your normally used to that horrible windows stuff (lol)

Then as a previous poster said enjoy you Mac and make it your mission in life to convert everyone you see

Nelski

thank you folks have printed this off for a good read - who needs apple training eh:A

Marty_J

I recommended these in another thread, but they're relevant here:

iSquint - an iPod video converter

Camino - a Mac only browser from Mozilla (I use Safari myself, but Camino is nice for when something doesn't agree with it)

Doug's Applescripts for iTunes - a collection of AppleScripts for doing lots of cool stuff in iTunes

Windows Media Components for QuickTime - allows QuickTime to play Windows Media files

ScummVM - allows you to play classic point-and-click adventure games on your Mac (available for other platforms too). The site has free (and legal) downloads of Beneath a Steal Sky and Flight of the Amazon Queen, which are both excellent

DosBox - allows you to run DOS programs (available for other platforms too)

Adium - instant messaging client. Supports many different protocols and can use several at once (i.e. you can sign into Yahoo and MSN at the same time)

SuperCal - for calibrating your Mac's display

Don't worry about the smug sense of superiority, it came in the box.

marklar_2

DotComBoyUK wrote: »

Right mouse button equiviliant by tapping the touchpad while already having 1 finger on the pad

This doesn't work for me - What am I doing wrong? I have to use ctrl whilst clicking.

Tiddler_2

I would also look at downloading handbrake (www.handbrake.fr) very useful for converting dvds for use on an ipod.

M4RKM

marklar wrote: »

This doesn't work for me - What am I doing wrong? I have to use ctrl whilst clicking.

try 2 fingers on touchpad, and then click...

M

lee634

markymoo wrote: »

try 2 fingers on touchpad, and then click...

M

Doesn't work for me either any of it is is some pref setting in Keyboard & mousev ?

Edit sorted yes its it prefs if only i realised that 12months ago

DotComBoyUK

marklar wrote: »

This doesn't work for me - What am I doing wrong? I have to use ctrl whilst clicking.

Sorry this has to be configured under system preferences - Keyboard & Mouse - Trackpad - Tap trackpad using two fingers for secondary click

Leopard

Nelski,

Mac Tips, eh? Well, I’ve been using Macs for over twenty years: here are mine.


The Apple Way.

To appreciate your Mac fully, you need to understand the philosophy of its design. Apple thinks different. What you’ve bought, what you get, is Steve Job’s and Apple’s solution to the problem of how to do things. It’s elegant, ingenious and it works better.

Your MacBook is a thing of beauty but if you want to understand where it's coming from - and Jobs and Apple, too - you only have to look at its charger for a moment.

Every laptop (at least with current technology) has to have a charger; it’s a nuisance but it’s a necessity. So, what is a charger? At one end, it plugs into the wall; at the other end, it plugs into the computer. But look at how Apple does it. Look at the way you get both a power lead and a slide-in plug, so you can choose whichever means is the most convenient for the location in which you find yourself. And then look at the other end, the end that plugs into the computer with a Magsafe connector. Pure genius, executed with sheer elegance.

And does it last? You bet. One of my Macs is over twenty years old; it’s cute and it still runs happily. I’m writing this on a Mac that’s eight years old and hasn’t been upgraded for five years. It’s cute, too, and it runs Apple’s latest operating system happily. So, of course they’re worth the extra money when you buy one.


Owning a Mac.

1. Enjoy your Mac - neither flaunt it nor be embarrassed by it. You bought it for you, not for anybody else: what does it matter what other people think about it? There’s nothing more pathetic than people who go through life trying to impress other people instead of enjoying and fulfilling themselves. If a man buys a Ferrari because he loves it for what it is, I respect him. If a man buys a Ferrari to try to impress other people, I have contempt for him. It’s the same with a computer.

2. Don’t try to covert other people to the Mac. First of all, they think they know better - why disillusion them? They won’t thank you for it, they’ll resent you for it. Secondly, the more of them that buy a Mac, the less of them you’ll have an advantage over. Let them battle and struggle with their wretched machine every day. Remember; they "know" a PC is better than a Mac because they've never been "dumb" enough to try a Mac. In the meantime, you’ll have your email dealt with and be on to something else while they’re busy posting lines of computer code to MSE, trying to fathom out how to just get it up and running. And, thirdly, if too many of them buy a Mac instead, the sewage that write malware will stop concentrating on the Windows platform and turn their attention to the Mac platform. That’s the last thing we need.

If you have any lingering doubts about whether or not you should have turned your back on the Microsoft Mob, just look at how they reacted to your posting. I’d never buy a PC myself but I’d happily celebrate, with someone who did, their elation on the day they bought it. Everybody’s entitled to their day in the sun; but they just tried to p1ss on yours. Who needs people like that? You’re well rid of them.


Your MacBook.

I know neither your budget, your profession nor your lifestyle. All I can tell you is what I’d advise if you can afford it. This is in order of immediacy rather than ultimate priority.

1. Call the insurers of your house contents. Advise them of the purchase; give them its serial number and ask them to keep a record of it. Confirm or negotiate cover for it on a new-for-old basis, for loss or accidental damage, at home and away from home. Be honest about your use of it for work and for study. (Bear in mind that insurers aren’t necessarily averse to you working at home if it means that the house of which they’re insuring the contents is occupied instead of vacant and the laptop they’re insuring is somewhere safe instead of being out and at risk of felony.)

2. Register your Mac (online) with Apple.

3. Find and befriend your local/nearest Apple dealer and Apple Retail Store.

4. Go to the Apple Online Store and examine all the various bags, cases and protective sleeves that they sell - with particular reference to those designed specifically for the MacBook. Make a list of those that appeal. Then go to PC World, Staples and any other similar outlets that are handy and take your Mac with you. Check out what these particular bags are actually like. Then buy one from the cheapest source.

5. Max its RAM. Probably 4 GB. Only costs about £50, including shipping, from Crucial. Sooner or later you’re going to need that much anyway, so you might as well buy it now and enjoy it for the whole life of your Mac. You don’t know what it may cost in the future. Ignore those who tell you you don’t need 4 GB. Most of them don’t realise that your Mac is 64-bit and so is its operating system. If you give it 4 GB of RAM it will make use of it: it will run faster, cooler and use its fan less - this will be quieter and extend its battery life. For complicated reasons, I have recently run one of my MacBook Pro (2.4 GHz) on 1 GB, then on 2 GB and finally (like my other one) on 4 GB of RAM. Believe me, your MacBook will find and use its fourth GB of RAM if you provide it.

6. Your MacBook (like an Air) has a brilliant little 13.3” screen. It’s great for when you’re on the move but you’ll find it restricting for long periods or complicated tasks. You’ll be scrolling a lot and wanting to look at other pages that are behind the one that’s taking up the whole display. “Spaces” helps but it’s not enough. Usefully, though, your MacBook can run an external monitor, up to the size of an Apple 23” - and run it in “extended desktop” as well as in “mirror”. So, the whole of an external monitor comes as extras space to the display on your MacBook. Get one. Then you’ll have the best of both worlds - a compact screen to travel with and two screens (one big) to work with at home. Remember also that to work hunched over a 13” laptop is one of the fastest ways known to man to cause long-term, irreversible spinal damage. What’s that worth? Right.

7. Buy an external hard drive, of at least 250 GB, with a Firewire port. (See following.)

8. Decide whether you really do need to pollute and clutter up your Mac with Windows as well. Remember that the Mac version of Office can read and write to documents and spreadsheets written in Word and Excel on a PC.

9. Partition the hard drive in your MacBook. Do this to keep your data in a different partition of your hard drive to the partition which contains the operating system and applications. This means that if you do suffer a system disaster, or even just want to carry out some maintenance, your data is in a different partition and is not involved nor at risk from what you are doing. You could even, for example, decide to erase the whole of your system and reinstall it: your data would be safely insulated from that.

The optimum size of the partitions will depend upon whether or not you have decided to keep Windows. The external hard drive will be of major assistance in performing the partitioning.

(Essentially, you boot the MacBook off its supplied OS X system DVD; run Disk Utility and use that to “restore” the contents of your MacBook’s hard drive on to the external hard drive. Then boot the MacBook off the external hard drive, just to check that that is working properly! Then boot it off the system DVD again and this time use Disk Utility to partition the MacBook’s hard drive. WIthout Windows, the first partition need only be 85 GB. Then use Disk Utility to “restore” all your stuff back from the external hard drive into the first partition of MacBook’s own hard drive. Start up the MacBook from its own hard drive again; then drag and drop all your data file into a partition of their own. Sounds horribly complicated but actually it’s very simple and straightfoward - just takes a long time to perform the two “restore”s, but you can go and have dinner while its doing that!)

10. Buy an Apple cordless Mighty Mouse. You’ll never want to be without it again.

11. Buy from Apple a full licence for the “iWork” suite supplied to you in trial form (with your free “iLife 08” suite) and also subscribe to Apple’s “Mobile Me”. Both are very useful and well worth the money.

12. In the eleventh month from new, buy an AppleCare two-year extension to your original 12 month Apple warranty. Look out for one on eBay; it will cost you half what Apple charges you for it. If anything goes wrong with your MacBook when it's two and a half years old, you'll think that was the best £80 (or whatever) you ever spent!


Right then, go in search of a bag to protect it and a 22" DVI monitor to let it show you just how brilliant is the little MacBook you've bought and how marvellously well its software works. Enjoy!

And remember, those guys with their macho PCs know best; don't tell them what they're missing. :shhh:

lee634

Leopard

That was a very interesting read.


Great post