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'It's sexy, it's cute, it's popular to boot!'

... Fill in the rest.


Anyway, got a MacBook today, mainly due to Praxis's mad pimping skills in the thread Stravo started, and I like it (so far), but I seem to hate Safari. Firefox runs on this right?

Also, what are the 'must have apps'? And this iChat thing ... it says I need a .Mac account, can it be used with other chating programs? And where the hell is my 'Delete' key?!?!?!

Anyway, Mac officianados watch this space, as the last Mac I had, was an Apple Macintosh Classic II!

I'll be asking a lot of these type of one sentence question/answer questions, and I'll try to keep bumping this thread, to try and not clog the forum up, so if it reappears after a while, please check in to see what my latest newbie-Mac question is!

Crown wrote:'It's sexy, it's cute, it's popular to boot!'

... Fill in the rest.


Anyway, got a MacBook today, mainly due to Praxis's mad pimping skills in the thread Stravo started, and I like it (so far), but I seem to hate Safari. Firefox runs on this right?

lol, I haven't pimped in a few weeks! Apple just released a new iMac and I didn't even start a thread on it

Welcome to the Mac world!

Yeah, feel free to dump Safari. I've been using the Safari 3 Beta and there's certain things about it that impress me; it loads pages far faster than FireFox, for example, and in Safari 3 (not the preinstalled version) the method of searching through text VASTLY beats FireFox. Also, Safari has Tab browsing that you can enable in preferences.

But I still use FireFox because I like a consistent interface across platforms and I can't live without Adblock and Greasemonkey scripts.

Also, what are the 'must have apps'? And this iChat thing ... it says I need a .Mac account, can it be used with other chating programs? And where the hell is my 'Delete' key?!?!?!

iChat defaults to .Mac, but there's a drop down box; just switch it to AIM. iChat is basically just AIM.

If you want others...there is MSN Messenger for Mac, but it sucks. Adium is a good chat app that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, etc, etc.

For the delete key...er...yeah. They've got them on the full size keyboards, but not on the laptops. If you hold Fn, the Backspace/Delete key becomes the regular Delete.

Anyway, Mac officianados watch this space, as the last Mac I had, was an Apple Macintosh Classic II!

I'll be asking a lot of these type of one sentence question/answer questions, and I'll try to keep bumping this thread, to try and not clog the forum up, so if it reappears after a while, please check in to see what my latest newbie-Mac question is!

No problem There is a couple-week learning curve, just ask your questions here.


I'll cover some applications you may care for below:



One of the strangest things you will encounter is that most freeware Mac apps are distributed in disk images (.dmg); when you double click the image, it mounts as a drive, then you drag and drop the application into your Applications folder (or run an installer if applicable) and unmount the disk image. It's probably the most confusing thing to newbies.


You'll want to download Flip4Mac; it's a 3rd party freeware app that actually comes RECOMMENDED by Microsoft. It's basically a plugin that allows QuickTime to play Windows Media Video.

There's also a Windows Media Player for Mac, but it's crap, it's still not universal so it's ridiculously slow (and it was slow even on a native PowerPC machine), and it's no longer supported by Microsoft (they recommend Flip4Mac), but it's worth downloading in case you run in to anything Flip4Mac has trouble playing.


Also, I HIGHLY recommend Handbrake. It's a freeware app that can rip any DVD, copy-protected or not, straight to MPEG-4 that'll play on iTunes, an iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, PSP, XBox 360, or PS3. I usually choose a Bitrate of 1500; that's about all you've got to fill in. It can rip and convert a 2 hour movie in 30 minutes

(alternatively, use MacTheRipper if you want to clone DVDs).

CyberDuck is a good FTP client.

Parallels is freaking awesome if you want a VM to run Linux or Windows in while still running Mac apps.

Macs can do stuff like mount disk images and unzip tarballs, zips, isos, etc natively, so don't worry about that. The DivX plugin for QuickTime might come in handy. Use Azureus/Vuze if you need a bittorrent client.


So you got the MacBook today, so it came with iLife 08, right? Apple's got iMovie 06 available for a free download on their website. Play around with both of them; the new iMovie, I personally prefer, as it's a LOT faster and easier to make videos with, but the old iMovie had more editing features, so there's a lot of complaints on forums by the hardcore editors. You can have both versions on the computer, so there's no reason not to download unless you'll never edit any serious video.

I can't get Parallels to work on my Macbook Pro for some reason. Something like "This is not a standard Windows XP installation".

But it's too late. I already registered my Win XP.

Gratz.

My apps atm, google to find:

App Launcher + Everything (MUST-HAVE): Quicksilver
Browser: Camino
Instant Messaging: Adium
IRC: Colloquy
FTP: Cyberduck
Movies: VLC player/Mplayer OS X
Bittorrent: Transmission
Office Suite: Appleworks/NeoOfficeJ, soon to be switched with iWork '08
.cbr viewer: Comical
Archiver/Unstuffer: Unarchiver
UPnP server: TwonkyVision
Ported *nix apps: Fink
Terminal: iTerm

A question from a longtime Mac user: how do I get Windows handling of rars etc (ie, show me the damn contents don't just extract it where the rar is)?

And Praxis, the standard Mac install is 'confusing' by which we mean 'so much better than Windows it makes me sad'.

I've got a RAR extractor, but I never looked to see if there was anything that would show the contents, actually. Durandel might know...

Destructionator XIII wrote:Crown, please post any newbie horror stories you happen to have too with your new Mac, for the enjoyment of us haters

'Safari sucks balls' and 'poor archive support' isn't good enough for you?

Guess who's getting an MacBook next week.....


Damn Crown, you beat me to it. I was hoping to be posting a newbie macuser thread at the end of the month. I don't know if they have the same deals by you but here in NYC if you buy a Mac as a college student you get a discount AND a free nano. Guess who's bringing one of his college student friends along for his first purchase.

Stark wrote:A question from a longtime Mac user: how do I get Windows handling of rars etc (ie, show me the damn contents don't just extract it where the rar is)?

You can use Zipeg for that.

(Why?)

Xisiqomelir wrote:

Stark wrote:A question from a longtime Mac user: how do I get Windows handling of rars etc (ie, show me the damn contents don't just extract it where the rar is)?

You can use Zipeg for that.

(Why?)

Maybe he doesn't want everything out of the archive file, or maybe he just wants to look and see what's inside - listing files could potentially be far faster than extracting them all.

Because I save downloads to my desktop, and I don't want it blowing it's load of files (which I have no idea about organisation or numbers) all over the desktop? It's like opening a fricking jack-in-the-box - is it properly arranged, is it in a nested folder, or is it eighty-seven thousand files that will fill up my desktop and I'll never be able to sort the fucking things out? If I think about opening them IN A SPECIAL TEMP FOLDER, that's like fucking BOMB TESTING. I mean, open a file, see a list, select some files, drag and drop to a destination anywhere on my filesystem? NOT A MAC YOU DON'T.

Well, except now. Thanks for teh linkzors.

The 'extractor' idea, where it just mindlessly unpacks archives, is FUCKING RETARDED. It's mindbogglingly stupid. It ASSUMES THE PERSON WHO MADE THE ARCHIVE HAD A CLUE, which is totally unacceptable.

Also, I hate stuffit, it's hopeless. Slow, too.

D13, I know what you mean. It's a part of being jaded, I think, that the little flaws are the most important attributes of even things you like. And if you didn't like them so much, they wouldn't bother you so much!

Here's my experience with applications, for what it's worth to you.

I know I'm somewhat echoing Xisiqomelir on this count, but I happen to agree with him. So.

I use Camino mostly for web browsing. It's essentially a stripped-down and faster version of Firefox. If you like your extensions though, Firefox works just fine.

For word processing/etc., I use NeoOffice/J, which is basically OpenOffice ported to OSX.

As for IM, use Adium - it can handle multiple IM services.

For quick-launch and such, Quicksilver is just sexy. The only time I close it is when I want to play Heroes 3 in Classic, as the two don't like one another, for some reason.

...Why don't you have a Delete key? I've one on my (now-aging) Powerbook.

Is there anything like quicksilver for Windows? I mean, if anything Window's explorer/start menu/crap search functionality makes it WORSE than spotlight/finder/dock, so you'd think such a useful tool would be available?

Will all y'all stop getting MacBooks? You and your fancy Core 2's make my Core Duo MacBook feel old... :'(

Rule of thumb; don't buy RAM from Apple, you can buy the same RAM from a third party for literally 1/3rd the price.

For word processing/etc., I use NeoOffice/J, which is basically OpenOffice ported to OSX.

Actually, NeoOffice is OpenOffice ported to Java, which is cross platform.

Java is also slow. But probably not as slow as Rosetta, so it's probably faster than Microsoft Office for Mac.


The best-performing choice is probably iWork, but unlike NeoOffice it's not free, and it probably has less compatability cross platform (complex Word documents might not appear identical on machines running Office). But if you want to print out newsletters or anything with fancy layouts, iWork blows away Microsoft Office or anything else. For business/school reports, though, I'd recommend NeoOffice of Microsoft Office just because of better compatability.


In short:

If you're printing, buy iWork.

If you're sending lots of specially-formatted documents to lots of people, get Microsoft Office for Mac (if you can wait till January, Office 2008 will be MUCH better, as it's Universal).

If you're just getting something to casually open Word documents once in a while, and don't want to spend money, get NeoOffice, it's free and it works.

Also, I hate stuffit, it's hopeless. Slow, too.

Everyone hates stuffit.

rhoenix wrote: ...Why don't you have a Delete key? I've one on my (now-aging) Powerbook.

The keyboard on Apple laptops say Delete, but they function as Backspace does on a Windows PC.

By holding Fn down they function as Delete does on Windows.


EDIT: On the subject of Safari, has anyone tried the Beta of Safari 3? I'm irritated by it. It was buggy, but updates fixed the crash bugs I was having. It's SO MUCH FASTER than FireFox though, and I absolutely love the text search function.

I search through lots of text, and it makes a huge difference.

I've been having these short term lockup problems with FireFox (it'll lock up for fifteen seconds or so and then just keep working) that irritate me. Add to that the fact that Safari launches quicker and loads pages quicker. Add to that the fact that the text search makes a world of a difference.

I'm actually considering switching back to Safari, but I much prefer FireFox's interface, and I don't think I can live without SearchStatus, Adblock, and GreaseMonkey. Safari can't compare to that...

First of all, thanks to all of those who posted useful apps/suggestions, I'm at work at the moment, and I will try them out when I get home, and play around on my MacBook a little, but there will definately be more questions! So thank you all heaps, and I'll be responding to each of you, when I get a chance to play around with your suggestions.

Stravo wrote:Guess who's getting an MacBook next week.....


Damn Crown, you beat me to it. I was hoping to be posting a newbie macuser thread at the end of the month. I don't know if they have the same deals by you but here in NYC if you buy a Mac as a college student you get a discount AND a free nano. Guess who's bringing one of his college student friends along for his first purchase.

Motherfucker! They do have that here, and guess who forgot to bring his college student housemate with him?!?! GRRRRR.



Oh well, them's the brakes really.

Mate, one suggestion; when you feel like buying a MacBook, ask the store these two questions; when is Leopard coming out? And if you wait for that date, will the MacBooks ship with Leopard or Tiger.

I bought mine, and it didn't occur to me to ask until the very end. The answer I got was October, and yes, if I waited until then the MacBooks would ship with Leopard, and there wouldn't be a change in price. I was a bit torn, really, but then, I realised that I have been 'waiting' to buy this thing for 3 months now (just making sure that I had my rent/living expenses covered for until November before I made the purchase, honestly I got my rent covered, but my spending cash are a bit ... sensitive, but I couldn't wait anymore!), and well, I would go crazy waiting to October, so I said 'fuck it', and bought it.

Although, I'm sure that Leopard will come out earlier in the States, so for you, it might be only a weeks wait - rather than a month and a half for me. Just something to keep in mind.

Also, hehehe, suffer, I win!

Seriously though, please feel free to use this thread as well, as I'm sure we'll both run into similar, but most especially, different problems, thus allowing us to speed up the learning curve a bit!

Destructionator XIII wrote:
Crown, please post any newbie horror stories you happen to have too with your new Mac, for the enjoyment of us haters

I have forgotten the Mac short cuts (like I said, Apple Macintosh Classic II was the last Mac I had), and when Safari just staaaaaaaallllllllled (tried playing an imbeded DiVX movie), I couldn't remember how to force the quit (I shit you not, I tried Ctrl+Alt+Delete ... but no Delete button don't you know? ), so I had to Restart the laptop. This, among the fact that I love FireFox so much, led me to conclude that Safari sucks serious balls (although the people mentioning that it loads pages faster than FireFox are right), even though it wasn't entirely Safari's fault.

Oh, yeah, I also forgot how the hell you Ctrl+Copy ... Couldn't stop laughing when I realised how things used to be on my old Apple Macintosh Classic II!

Meh...my used IBM S50 I just bought can pwn your MacBook, not in terms of performance, but rather, because of its easy opening case and toolless design.

It also runs Linux, for additional awesomeness.

Wow, two attributes irrelevant to the Mac laptop market, how apt!

RThurmont wrote:Meh...my used IBM S50 I just bought can pwn your MacBook, not in terms of performance, but rather, because of its easy opening case and toolless design.

It also runs Linux, for additional awesomeness.

So... checked out the magnetic latch on the macbooks lately? Rawr, magnets.

LP

He means opening the case to dick around inside, not opening the lid to use the laptop.

Who cares? I've got freekin' magnets!

Supposedly the design to open the macbook is pretty slick, the four screws on the outside of the case, then it hinges upwards, but I haven't done that yet... I've got a 7200rpm drive sitting around, I really ought to toss that in.

LP

EDIT: Wait a minute! I just realized what an S50 is... Why would anyone bother to get into an S50?

The magnet can also be used to attach all kinds of things, which is neat - even the silly remote it comes with.

Crown wrote:
I bought mine, and it didn't occur to me to ask until the very end. The answer I got was October, and yes, if I waited until then the MacBooks would ship with Leopard, and there wouldn't be a change in price. I was a bit torn, really, but then, I realised that I have been 'waiting' to buy this thing for 3 months now (just making sure that I had my rent/living expenses covered for until November before I made the purchase, honestly I got my rent covered, but my spending cash are a bit ... sensitive, but I couldn't wait anymore!), and well, I would go crazy waiting to October, so I said 'fuck it', and bought it.

Although, I'm sure that Leopard will come out earlier in the States, so for you, it might be only a weeks wait - rather than a month and a half for me. Just something to keep in mind.

Actually, October is the release date of Leopard here. You picked a good time to buy; iLife 08 came out less than a week ago and comes with all new Macs. If you'd bought last week you'd have gotten a MacBook with iLife 06

(I assume yours game with 08 preinstalled; if not, you can get it for free from Apple since you purchased after the release date. Is your iMovie icon a star, or a director thingy?)

Destructionator XIII wrote:
Crown, please post any newbie horror stories you happen to have too with your new Mac, for the enjoyment of us haters

I have forgotten the Mac short cuts (like I said, Apple Macintosh Classic II was the last Mac I had), and when Safari just staaaaaaaallllllllled (tried playing an imbeded DiVX movie), I couldn't remember how to force the quit (I shit you not, I tried Ctrl+Alt+Delete ... but no Delete button don't you know? ), so I had to Restart the laptop. This, among the fact that I love FireFox so much, led me to conclude that Safari sucks serious balls (although the people mentioning that it loads pages faster than FireFox are right), even though it wasn't entirely Safari's fault.

Oh, yeah, I also forgot how the hell you Ctrl+Copy ... Couldn't stop laughing when I realised how things used to be on my old Apple Macintosh Classic II!

Hehe...


Command is the key with the Apple logo on it. Option is the Alt key.

Command-Option-Esc is the equivilant of Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

Also, it's Command-C, Command-X, Command-V, etc, instead of Ctrl.

Keyboard shortcuts:

(⌘: Command, ⌥: Option, ↑: Shift, ^: Control, ⌫: Delete)

⌘-O: Open file
⌘-W: Close window
⌘-⌥-W: Close all windows
⌘-Q: Quit
⌘-I: Get information
⌘-⌥-I: Get information (multiple files) in one window
⌘-N: New window
⌘-↑-N: New folder
⌘-⌫: Move file to Trash
⌘-↑-3: Take screenshot
⌘-↑-4: Take selective screenshot

All modifiable in the Mouse&Keyboard pane of System Preferences.

Just a quick question; is there a notepad/wordpad somewhere? It will help in drafting a megapost reply, rather than replying individually to everyone.