First Mac and Power Book shipped today! Any Tips?

F

FrgMstr

Registered
Hi all,

As the title says ive finally made the jump to the Mac platform ( after many heated arguments on here as im sure one or two may remember :D )

My new Power Book 12" should be arriving soon and was just wondering if you guys could list any important tips to get me started?

i.e. placing shortcuts in the dock (I cant quite remember was it applications folder?) etc etc.

Thanks
 
1. Download the following very useful programs:

WireTap (or WireTap Pro)
Snapz Pro X
iPodderX
GIMP
Skype

2. You can cycle your digital pictures as your desktop picture.

3. If you don't already own one, buy an iPod, iSight, RadioShark and digital video camera :)

Kap
 
Haha ok guys, thanks for the tips but im now broke following my purchase and and hence tips telling me to buy more stuff arent appreciated ;-)

Config and usage tips are really what im after.

Thanks
 
Tip Nr. 1: Keep programs running. I have 10 programs running right now.
Tip Nr. 2: Let your PB sleep at night if you use it daily. It wakes up instantly from sleep and that is a lot faster than starting it up. Moreover, if you keep all your apps running, you're instantly in your working environment.
Tip Nr. 3: Get a free maintenance utility, like "Mantain your Mac" to do the daily/weekly/monthly routines, empty cache, etc.
Tip Nr. 4: Put Home, Applications and Desktop in your Dock for instant access, right click, no need to switch to the finder.
Tip Nr. 5: Learn to use the Terminal. It can be very useful indeed.
 
1) turn on Exposés hot corners and get used to them.

2) keep Activity Monitor in your dock (you can find it in Applications/Utilities). It's good to see what eats the processor and what not.

3) My favorite shareware/freeware applications:
iComic (to read daily comics), Playlist player (to play movies and such), Temperature Monitor (keeps your pbook temp in the menu) and USB monitor (gives nice looking feedback when you plug in USB stuff).

4) good sites: www.macupdate.com, www.versiontracker.com, www.macosxhints.com
 
My tip is to just enjoy the experience. You'll know you've made the right choice after you open the box and take out that sexy, sleek powerbook. Just caress... um, wait a minute...
Whatever.
Just enjoy it. I am going to find a nice iPod to admire.
 
I'm going to go on a limb here and suggest doing a clean install, and installing every option possible, including the kitchen sink. Reason? The full install includes all sorts of goodies like printer drivers, X11 and all the localizations. The printer drivers are quite up to date, so if you just plug any printer in it just works off the bat. Very impressive. X11 allows you to use cool UNIX apps that are free. Localizations help if you are bilingual or are keen to learn languages.

Install the developer tools with all options selected. This allows you to use fink, which provides access to all sorts of free(gratis and libre) UNIX software.

Other software you should install that are free and cool:-
a) Adium for multi-protocol IM.
b) VLC for playing literally any media file and for playing DVDs from other regions.
c) Cyberduck for FTP transfers.
d) Firestarter FX for more CD over burning. The tools that ship with OS X don't support over burning.
e) Handbrake for encoding all your DVDs so you can take them with you on you Powerbook :)
f) NetNewsWire Lite for RSS feeds that should tide you over till Tiger arrives.

That's about all I can think off right now.
 
1 handy 'formation' on the dock is to first make a Downloads Folder (and direct Safari downloads to this folder, when using safari press Apple + comma to get preferences), and then drag the Downloads, Docs, Pictures, Apps, Music (and maybe movies) folders to the dock next to the trash bin. I find it extremely handy.

Congrats on the purchase.
 
Some options:

1. Assign Exposé function to mouse buttons on a multi-button mouse. You can really fly doing it that way.

2. Use labels for organizing files.

3. To put your Powerbook to sleep on the run just close the lid. There is no reason to ever shut that thing down.

4. Learn the keyboard shortcuts. (and for extra power use iKey or similar to launch apps and files and lots of other cool stuff)

5. At least play with voice vontrol. You'd be surprised what you can do with it.
 
Congrats on you buy! I'm no Mac specialist like the other guys here but as just a everyday user, I'll offer my advice.

1. Be sure to read your manual about the best ways to charge/use your Power Books battery. There are several tips that will let the battery last longer.

2. Have your internet connection info ready. When you turn that pretty Power Book on for the first time you'll have do a few steps before you are fully ready to use the computer. For example, setting up your language, time zone, and such. One other thing you'll be be able to do is set up you internet account right away. Though you can always do this stuff later, having it ready before hand saves you the time and you'll be able to connect to the net instantly after you OS set up is finished.

3. Icons! Nothing major here but the fun about about having a Mac is to make it YOUR Mac. There is lots icons, screen savers and wallpapers out there. After your all set up go on the net and find ways to express yourself.

4. Desktop Calender. It's free, it's nice and customizable.
 
Get used to putting EVERYTHING except applications in your Home folder (/Users/username/ or ~).

The idea about leaving programs open is a good one. OS X, in my experience, often takes its own sweet time opening applications. Keep them open, and they'll pop up almost instantly when you need them.

BUT, watch out for a few programs that can be processor hogs. HP's printer drivers, for example :( also Photoshop Elements 2.0--sometimes.

Right-click on a folder in the Dock and you'll get a hierarchical menu of what's in it. Drag frequently used applications to the Dock.

More later.

Doug
 
Hey, thanks for the replies guys. I can see some of the tips really being useful!

Please keep em coming :)
 
Make a folder on your desktop, call it Applications. Create different genre's of programs such as: Web, Media, Programming, Utilities etc. Make aliases of all the programs in your app folder and move them into the Applications folder you made on your desktop. Put this folder on the right side of your dock next to the trash. Now you can right click, control click or hold click and bring up the contents of the folder, you then can launch all your apps from there.


If an App is in a folder like say Microsoft office make an alias to the folder not the apps inside. I would do the same with the utilities folder.
 
Being a fairly new Mac convert. I am going to offer some little preventative maintenance that will keep any OS X machine running in tip top shape. This will prevent future situations.

1. First thing to remember OS X is based on a Unix code called BSD. Now, since BSD is the subsystem, and Unix has been around for a long time, OS X needs to be maintained. So, the first example, Tentano suggested a very good step in trying to help a sick OS X machine. This Apple article explains Permissions and Disk Utility pretty good. I personally use Disk Utility and Repair Permissions before every/all big software install and right after the install. This helps keep my Mac on the straight and narrow (software wise).

Now there are two different ways to use the Disk Utility to Repair Permission. One is open your Hard drive icon->Utilities->Disk Utility and highlight your startup drive and then select Repair Permissions. The other way is boot from you install disk and then use Disk Utility to do the same thing. Apple has very good article about how to do that.

2. Secondly, there are some routine maintenance scripts that run in most Unix variants, OS X is no exception. These maintenance scripts are called CRON jobs. Now, these scripts run on a running computer late at night (via your local time) and most people either sleep or turn off their computers at night (Unix was designed to run 24 hours straight). So, OS X users must force these jobs to run. Apple has provided a very good article about this. I personally like small one trick pony pony programs + freeware to run small tasks so I use MacJanitor. There are other programs that will do the same exact thing. So just go to VersionTracker and do a search for cron and you will see them.

3. OS X is not perfect and it is safe to say all computer operating systems are not perfect and some suck worse then others. :) So third party developers developed disk (CD) programs that fix OS X machines (unless a piece of hardware is toast). The two top programs I use (and most Mac users use) are Alsofts's DiskWarrior and/or Micromat's TechTool Pro 4. Both programs are very good in fixing OS x system and find bad hardware in your computer. One warning though, stay far away from from a discontinued product. It will hose up an OS X machine.

4. As a fairly new OS X user, maybe you should invest in a good OS X book. I personally bought David Pogue's OSX: The missing Manual. He is very good it breaking down OS X so anyone can take full control over an OS X machine. It was well worth the book price.
 
Thanks Satcomer,

Hmm, that is interesting, I didnt know you had to repair permissions like that?

I have been developing on UNIX systems for a few years now so the jargon wont scare me if you care to explain? I take it you are refering to Read/Write/Execute permissions?

Is this a big problem if I dont do it?

Thanks
 
The other way is boot from you install disk and then use Disk Utility to do the same thing.
Click to expand...

You never boot off the OS CD to Repair Permissions. You always repair Permissions from running Disk Utility on the hard drive.

Yasu is a very good free program to run the Cron scripts, remove cache and various other things.
 
Well, it wouldn't be a huge problem per say, it will just chip away at good health for a Mac. This article explain why Repair Permissions is needed better then I could. To me is all boils down to bad written installers and such messing with a OS X system. I Repair Permissions after every big software install, including OS updates and after around every 2 weeks. I know that sounds paranoid but I have been fairly clean running from OS X beta to the present (on my old Ti Powerbook).
 
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