New to Mac? Tips for the Mac Newbie

OS X Panther I’m going to start an ongoing series here for all of you Windoze users who have decided to switch over to the land free of the blue screen of death: the Mac. These will be quick mini tips to go along with your new Mac mini (or honestly whatever Mac you choose as your dearest new computer friend). Most Mac users have been liberated from Windows for so long that we overlook all the little differences between the two platforms which can drive a fresh switcher just a little batty.

My first bit of advice:
1. Don’t ever touch anything inside your Library or System folder (unless of course you happen to be a 1337 Linux user and find OS X to be oddly familiar; if you don’t know what 1337 means, then just don’t touch these two folders. Okay?)
2. Keeping in mind rule number one, don’t be afraid to tinker around. OS X is highly tweakable to your personal tastes and there are tons of free pieces of software out there to enhance your experience on a Mac. Don’t be afraid of the blue screen of death. We don’t have that on the Mac. Maybe once every six months to a year, you might get a kernel panic where the screen goes sort of sepia-shaded and asks you to reboot. After you reboot and to avoid this problem, get Cocktail ($15 shareware) and run it on autopilot about once a month. Cocktail performs all the regular maintenance to keep your Mac running smooth and fast. That’s it. Enjoy!

More tips to come soon…

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I’m going to start an ongoing series here for all of you Windoze users who have decided to switch over to the land free of the blue...

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Mark

I echo the comments made by the first poster. After 24 years in the IT biz I am sick and tired of constantly fixing my PC. So I bought a mac mini two weeks ago. After 1 week of running both PC and mac the PC destroyed itself in a fit of jealousy! So now I am using the mac full time. A G5 will be ordered shortly. However I do love my mac mini. I know it will cost a fortune to switch, it will be frustrating at times, at times I will curse this new machine but I also know it will be exciting! I look forward to reading more hints for switchers!

March 31 2005 at 5:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

C.K. Sample, III

Good question, JJ. I'm writing up an answer to your question as a post that will appear shortly on the main page. Stay tuned.

March 03 2005 at 2:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

If Microsoft is so bad, what do you guys use for a word processor? I switched at home primarilly to do video editing but some of my more mundane tasks came with out of necissity. The Appleworks that shiped with the machine is a joke, and I've tried both OpenOffice and Abiword (OO has lame X11 interface, clumsy integration with OSX, Abiword is unstable). I'd rather not go Microsoft Office but I'm running out of ideas...

March 03 2005 at 1:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

C.K. Sample, III

Mike, to answer your question: Because. ;-) Seriously, though, the most basic reason is because it keeps things running smoothly. What happens is when programs are installed on OS X, often they change the permissions during installation, because they need to (that's the whole prompt for your administrator password), but sometimes fail to switch these permissions back after installation is done, or switch them back improperly. This can cause problems and as a result repairing permissions is one of the most common troubleshooting magic incantations.

March 02 2005 at 5:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mike Christianson

I'm a switcher, as of two weeks ago... (though, I really wish there were a different term than switcher, it just seems harsh)... and I would really love to read an explanation as to why disk permissions need to be repaired.

March 02 2005 at 4:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dan

Tony, check out this thread on Mac OS X Hints (http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-16978.html) and the program one participant ends up recommending (http://iharder.sourceforge.net/macosx/winmacprinter/).

March 02 2005 at 3:04 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris K

I've repaired permissions quite frequently, actually. Rarely is anything wrong, but since I run the system 24/7, I make sure to keep up on the permissions. Hopefully Apple will make permissions maintenance a scheduled task in Tiger. Cmd-Option-Esc didn't work in this case... I'm glad OSX is more friendly about not corrupting stuff when power cycling than System 7 was! FWIW, the other lock happened when installing an app off a DMG living on an SMB file share. I'd leave feedback for Apple, but I really don't WANT to reproduce this problem! :) Eventually cycling power will cause SOMETHING to flake out, what with write caching and all. I don't want that trashed file to be my iTunes XML library file!

March 02 2005 at 1:33 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jeff

I switched back in 10/2004 and have been loving it! The only problems I have involve the occassional need to reinstall my HP All-in-one printer/scanner/copier drivers. Sometimes, the scanner portion of this all-in-one device can't be found by OS X. Aside from that one, small inconvenience, I absolutely LOVE my iMac G5!

March 02 2005 at 12:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Randy

So I gotta ask... how is a sephia screen of death better than a blue one? :D

March 02 2005 at 12:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tony Scida

I would love to hear tips for sharing a printer that is connected to a desktop PC with my new iBook.

March 02 2005 at 12:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply