Welcome back to Mac 101; everyone please take your seats, and if you're chewing gum, I hope you brought enough for everybody! Today, rather than suggesting a feature or tool that you might use on your Mac, I'd like to discuss some things to avoid -- 5 common Mac-istakes that can stop you in your tracks.Some quick history: Back in 2006, our own Damien Barrett posted his short list of Mistakes Made by New Mac Users, which drew over 100 responses. Dan Warne did a lovely job summarizing the comments. Recently, Dan Knight at lowendmac.com did a meta-analysis of Dan W.'s list and parsed out what could be easily fixed or made less error-prone. All are useful if you want to avoid some of the most prevalent 'failure modes' for new Mac users, but most of them are simple UI missteps that don't do real damage.
For my part, I don't care so much if people end up with lots of untitled folders on their desktops, confuse the Safari search box for the URL address field, insist on starting every website address with 'www,' or if they refer to Apple Inc. as "Mac" -- OK, maybe those are kind of irksome -- but I do care if my friends, colleagues or clients put themselves in operational jeopardy with a simple mistake. Here's the list of not-so-smooth moves that cause headaches and aggravation:
- "Cleaning house." Sure, your Home folder may seem a little bit cluttered... maybe you like your Documents folder inside a "Work" folder, and "Library" doesn't seem that relevant -- let's put that in a "Misc" folder! Ah, much... hey, where did all my preferences go, and what happened to my email? Guess what: the default folders that come in a new user folder (might want to give them a colored label to keep track, if you're just starting out) are all there for a reason. Dragging "Documents" to the desktop will break quite a few programs, including Microsoft Office apps, which are looking for a particular "Microsoft User Data" subfolder. Moving "Library" will cause untold havoc. In summary, if you don't know why a folder is where it is, and you didn't put it there, and you don't know what it does, don't move it without consulting a Mac geek; make an alias instead (we'll cover "all about aliases" in future Mac 101s.). As some comments below note, the meta-mistake in this category is to rename your entire home folder; bad bad bad. Many system processes look for the specific paths to your user Library folder (/Users/myname/Library) and if your home folder is renamed or Library folder moved, chances are you'll have trouble logging in.
Update: A comment asks why it's so difficult to change your username (shortname) in Mac OS X, and shouldn't it be easier and less dangerous to do so? Yes, in principle, you should be free to change anything you want on your account; in practice, Mac OS X links the short account name to a user ID number and lots of other behind-the-scenes configuration bits that are not trivial to change, a legacy of the system's UNIXy and NeXT roots. Most best practice guides for changing shortnames suggest creating a new account and migrating your data rather than trying to change the settings... but if you must change your shortname, Dan Frakes' guide and utility are your best bet. - Device disconnects. The "Device Removal" warning sign may be pretty straightforward, but I've seen many iPod and external hard disk users ignore it at their peril. Be sure to eject (Command-E) or drag-to-the-trash any connected volumes before disconnecting your peripherals. Hard disconnects can lead to directory damage and unmountable drives.
- Hard shutdowns. Second cousin to the abrupt device removal is the hard shutdown, the nuclear option of troubleshooting. In many offices, I've seen Mac users who -- just one time -- saw a support person hold down the Mac power button to force a shutdown, and from that day forth assumed that the 'proper way' to turn off the machine was with the brute-force approach. Check your Apple menu... there it is... "Shut Down," your friend and mine. The hard shutdown doesn't allow for the regular cleanup and maintenance process of a graceful shutdown; sometimes it's the only option, but it should be reserved for emergencies.
- Moving Microsoft Office. Any application can be victimized this way, but the Office suite components are most likely to be relocated to the desktop. Don't do it! Aliases, or the Dock, are the best options to have a launchable shortcut for Word or Excel. Moving the actual application will result in a rough day for everyone. (Office apps are looking for other resources in the MS Office folder and will fuss if they can't be located.)
- Save over, man. It's the easiest mistake to make and one of the most depressing: start a new file. Hit Save. Click on the name of an existing file in the Save dialog, and that name replaces your "untitled" file name. Hit the Save button and (innocently) choose "Yes" when asked if you want to overwrite the existing file. Oops! There goes Mr. Graduate Thesis.
I would love to see this feature changed for safety,but in the meantime be aware that this is a great way to lose your equanimity and your remaining hair. Update: Many comments indicate that this is a favorite feature (and, for what it's worth, equally useful/dangerous on Windows). I'd still like to see the Save dialog add a version number or other string by default -- maybe an option-click on the filename for an exact match? -- but I grant that lots of folks find this more useful than hazardous.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
5-16-2007 @ 8:40AM
E Turner said...
Re-naming the home folder. Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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5-16-2007 @ 8:54AM
Able User said...
I'm not sure what the author was talking about on number 4. You can move the Microsoft Office Folder from Applications and not have any problems. Yes, you shouldn't do it because applications should live in the Applications folder but it won't "result in a rough day for everyone". I just tried it and all the programs ran fine when the folder was moved to my desktop and from an external drive.
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5-16-2007 @ 9:00AM
Arne Martin Aurlien said...
Renaming the home folder and running applications from disk images is definitely the most common perils.
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5-16-2007 @ 9:06AM
William Laughlin said...
I think a good explanation of why you shouldn't do these things would also be good, and not just "Don't Do this"
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5-16-2007 @ 9:18AM
Michael Rose said...
#2: If you move the entire MS Office application *folder* you'll probably be OK, but moving individual apps (Word, Excel) will cause problems. The programs look for resources within the MS Office folder.
#1, 3: I'll add home folder renaming to the 'Cleaning House' list.
#4: In Mac 101 we've been trying to stay away from too much technical explanation, but I'll add some details on the 'why' to the problem lists.
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5-16-2007 @ 9:23AM
Mary said...
I agree with William Laughluin. I know that I should never do points 2 or 3, but I've always wondered why. Can anyone explain what problems these would cause? I'd rather not find out the hard way...
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5-16-2007 @ 9:24AM
tommy said...
Ok, I know it's funny that new users make those mistakes, but you can't blame users for making mistakes, if those mistakes happen often, than it's a design fault...
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5-16-2007 @ 9:27AM
Gerald Buckley said...
@2... Wonder what will happen when it's time to update the apps you just moved to the Desktop? Will it error out (as many apps will)?
While your applications can run just fine from lots of directories. There are some good reasons to just leave them where they were intended to be. One of the few gotcha's of OS X that we didn't have to worry much about in 7, 8 or 9.x.
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5-16-2007 @ 9:30AM
racco said...
Dont. . . call your Mac a 'PC'
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5-16-2007 @ 9:57AM
greatslack said...
Point #5 will be solved by Time Machine in Leopard, won't it?
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5-16-2007 @ 10:13AM
jyunderwood said...
If you don't want "Microsoft User Data" to clutter up your Documents folder, move it to ~/Library/Preferences and Office will find the folder and not create a new one in Documents.
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5-16-2007 @ 10:28AM
justin said...
Careful... www. isn't 100% gone in our society. Sure it's correct to have a CNAME record pointing www.tuaw.com -> tuaw.com and an A record pointing to IP_ADDRESS, but that doesn't mean you have to.
I have quite a few friends with personal domains that use the www. extension for their public site (resume/blog etc) and save the domain.com URL for the direct connection to their server.
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5-16-2007 @ 10:32AM
mark said...
@william and mary
re: #2 - removing a device the right way (tragging to trash or ejecting) tells your OS that you don't need that device anymore so it won't go looking for it. I do that all the time (and i know better) with my ipod(s) and haven't (yet) experienced any problems. i HAVE however destroyed a hard drive through accidental disconnect - excited dog w/ furiously wagging tail pulled the cord out of the drive - a 160GB drive now thinks its 2TB and I can't convince it otherwise (formatting the drive doesn't change things) not sure if the drive was actually in use at the time. I wasn't saving anything to it, but the OS was probably reading or writing to it when the dog did his deed. if i had ejected it, the OS wouldn't even try and I'd still have a working HD.
#3 - shutting down properly (via the menu) gives the machine a chance to "wrap things up" - it performs several tasks during the shut down process. hard shut down is (as the author stated) for emergency situations only - ths OS doesn't get a chance to perfrom it's shut down taks.
@tommy: most of the points listed are not design faults:
#1 - do you go yanking wires out of your car (or rearranging them) w/o knowing what they're for? I suppose OS authors could make it more difficult for you to do stupid things, but it's common sense. if you don't know what it does, don't touch it. why don't you go remove/rename some of the larger files in you /usr directory and see what happens?
#2 physically disconnecting a device w/o ejecting it first isn't really a design fault - how would you expect hardware manufacturers fix this "fault"
#3 hard shut down is there for EMERGENCIES. sometimes you have no choice - it's definitely better than yanking the power cord out of the wall - while a hard shutdown might cause software issues, sudden loss of power could damage hardware.
#4 apps that need to be in their default locations isn't a design fault either, it's a software designers "fault" more apps should be portable, but I don't see MicroSquash leading the way. portable apps are the way to go.
#5 ok. this is a design fault.. BUT can be mitigated by frequent backups.. which should be a topic if you haven't covered it already in Mac101 (Michael?)
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5-16-2007 @ 10:48AM
Phil said...
How is #5 specific to MacOSX? Forgive me if I am wrong, but it will work the same way on Windows. If you try to save over an existing file, it will warn you. How would they improve it? Add another warning? "Are you really really sure?"
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5-16-2007 @ 10:58AM
Michael Rose said...
#12 -- Justin, thanks for raising the point. I'm not especially concerned with the www.somedomain.com vs. somedomain.com browsing problem, but more with the webmail.mac.com vs. WWW.webmail.mac.com problem -- when an uncalled-for triple-dub gets prepended to a URL. It's a common hazard of phone support, and sometimes I ask people to read verbatim what they see in the address bar to verify that they're not putting in the extra www.
#14 -- It's true, this works just the same way on Windows, however it seems that the Windows save dialog box (with filename on the bottom, next to the save button) is less prone to the click-in-error failure I mentioned. Maybe that's just me, but I have seen this happen more often on Mac OS X.
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5-16-2007 @ 11:05AM
Davidlow said...
Here's a good tip. It's something I do with every OS X system on which I have an account.
Step #1: In your Home folder, create a folder called "My Documents".
Step #2: Change the default save locations in your various document apps, like Office or Pages, to use My Documents instead of Documents.
Step #3: Remember to always put your files in My documents and never use "Documents" again.
Why is this a Good Thing? Because now you'll always know that the files in "My Documents" were put there intentionally by you and you'll have total control over it's contents.
Meanwhile, the "Documents" folder will fill up with random stuff that you never need to look at. Lots of applications just love to keep settings files in there, which makes no sense but they do it anyway (eg: "Microsoft User Data") or folder structures that act as databases for transaction records or other random crap.
This works better and is more convenient than giving the do-not-touch folders a special color or keeping everything in a submenu within the Documents folder.
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5-16-2007 @ 11:27AM
Donald Burr said...
The reason why it's bad to just forcibly unplug a device is because of something most modern OS's (including Mac OS X) does: Caching. To improve read-write performance, especially on slower USB devices (slower in comparison to the built-in internal Serial ATA that internal devices use), Mac OS X keeps pieces of filesystem data of removable devices in memory. When you use the "proper" method for ejecting a device (clicking the "eject" icon in iTunes, or dragging a disk icon to the trash or using Command-E to eject), Mac OS X then makes sure all changes are written out to the device before it releases control of it.
If you don't do this, there is a slight, but definite, chance that some piece of data, which is still sitting in your computer's memory, doesn't get written back to the disk. Like, for example, the song that you just finished loading onto the iPod. Or, even worse, a crucial piece of filesystem data that keeps track of which areas on the disk are in use and which ones are free. Which could potentially royally screw up the filesystem on said device.
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5-16-2007 @ 11:31AM
ThunkDifferent.com said...
Thanks for the tips, i wasn't sure about some of them, now i will take better care of my mac and others too.
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5-16-2007 @ 11:35AM
Joshua Ochs said...
#1 - A definite problem that Apple should probably warn about, since permissions and such will do nothing to proect you.
#2 - This is an Apple bug as far as I'm concerned. Since Windows 2000, Windows will automatically disable caching to removable devices like iPods and USB sticks, allowing you to yank them any time you want. The fact that Apple doesn't is just stupid and lazy on their part.
#3 - A problem on all systems, for all time. Not exactly "Mac" 101, more like "idiot user on any system" 101. Only so much you can do, really.
#5 - WTF? How exactly is this a problem? You have to make it through a multistep process and acknowledge a well-written warning. I've never seen a new user click the name of a file in the dialog to set the save as name - it's very much an example of an advanced feature that helps if you know about it, but doesn't get in the way of new users. And even if they do stumble on it, again, there's a warning. What exactly is the beef here?
So... Apple should fix 1 and 2, user should be kept away from all computers for 3, and 5 I just don't believe is a real problem. Which leaves number 4 - yeah, people will do that, and it does suck. But that's what happens when /Applications is so friendly and inviting - lord knows people don't go rooting around in C:\Program Files\ (*shudder*).
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5-16-2007 @ 12:24PM
DBL said...
"This is an Apple bug as far as I'm concerned. Since Windows 2000, Windows will automatically disable caching to removable devices like iPods and USB sticks, allowing you to yank them any time you want. The fact that Apple doesn't is just stupid and lazy on their part."
I completely disagree with this. There is a reason for removable device caching -- it can substantially increase performance, especially when copying over many similar files at once (MP3s? Hello?). I do not want my iPod's performance compromised because some idiot can't read a plainly written warning. All you have to do to avoid the damage if you mistakenly decide to pull the jack without dismounting is to plug the device right back in when the difficult-to-dismiss modal dialog tells you to. Apple, DO NOT CRIPPLE MY HARDWARE IN ORDER TO CODDLE IDIOTS, thank you very much.
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