Top 10 Mac hints for the ex-Windoze user.

as someone who hasn't embraced services (but thanks for the comments on them - I'll try them out now that I have a better idea about them), my solution has been Quicksilver. with a couple keystrokes you can do much of the same stuff - though services seems to offer a great deal of additional options.

quicksilver is a different beast altogether, but a sweet app in its own right.
 
Umm, don't push the CD-ROM drive button on a Mac expecting the CD to eject. You have to drag the volume to the trash in the dock. Or right-click > Eject. You did pick up a 2 button mouse, didn't you?
 
A few more tips for the Windows Switcher (that means you, DanTekGeek) that I quite like:

- Translation: This is about the best thing about the program "Sherlock". You can open it into a "Translation" channel. From here, it's possible to highlight and drag in a whole lot of Japanese text (or several other languages) and instantly have it translated into shoddy but readable English. There is a limit of a page or two of text, though. This makes browsing international sites quite fun.

- Dragging & dropping: Highlight text and drag it to the desktop or a folder, and you'll create a "Scraplet" of that text. You can view it by double clicking, or drop it into a document to paste it in. In this way, by simply using a bit of space on your desktop, you can have several levels of copy-paste going on at once. This makes doing complicated documents quite fun.
You can drag an image straight from Safari to a folder to save it.
You can drag a file onto a folder icon, and either wait a second or just hit the space bar for that folder to spring open, allowing you to navigate through several levels of folders before you "drop" the document. This is called "Spring loaded folders".

- Print to PDF: Any program supports a "Save printout to PDF" option in the print dialog. This means you can store webpages, word documents, or anything that is printable as an Acrobat PDF file. This is a very convenient file format.

- Getting serious with Unix: There's a lot of neat terminal tricks that make life easier for the Unix guru. You can drag-drop a file or folder onto the terminal window to "type" its full path and filename into a terminal. You can also use the "open" command in the terminal to open files or applications, even when you're logged in remotely via SSH. Then, there's also the "osascript" command that lets you run AppleScript commands from the terminal.
This is really quite neat. I can logon to my Mac remotely and open any application, issue any command, retrieve any file ... the uses are limitless.

- AppleScript Folder Actions: When you get a little more confident with your Mac, check out AppleScripts "Folder Actions" feature, which lets you automate tasks when something changes in a given folder. Want to be alerted when a friend uploads something to your Public DropBox folder? Would you like scanned photos dropped into the "incoming" folder to automatically call up GraphicConvertor and generate a preview icon, then launch in PhotoShop? All this and more is possible with a bit of research and playing around.

- In finder, use the Cmd-Shift-G shortcut to type a folder to go to.

- If you have a server you like to connect to EVERY time you sign-on, such as your Windows box, then just connect to it as normal, then drag the icon for it into your "Login Items" in system prefs. Now it'll connect every time (you can even save the password in Keychain so it won't prompt you).
You could also drag the icon to your Finder toolbar, or to your Finder Favorites, for easy access.
 
nice app, I'm going to have to check it out. i need to use my Services area more. I haven't unlocked its full potential.

*The Google search is useful in services too.
 
Grab options are only available in programs which would accept the image it captures. Mail does, TextEdit might, Photoshop would.
I use Apple+Shift+4 then drag a selection for my screengrabbing just as I have since System 7 or thereabouts.


Back on topic:
- Play with Stickies
- Get LaunchBar
 
- Get used to putting the computer to sleep instead of Shutting it down. OS X, using the power of UNIX, cleans up after itself every night, using a thing called cron, which are scheduled maintenance events. So, unlike on Windows, the computer doesn't get any slower after four months or four years. I restart shockingly little these days. If you're getting a PowerBook or iBook, know that Apple keeps power in the RAM when it's asleep, so you can just open and close the display and it'll snap instantly back into life.

Sleep is a beautiful thing that, if you get used to it, you'll find that you use ALL the time.
 
Sorry, I phrased that weirdly - I meant, that PC users should get used to just leaving their computers on. When they are taking them places, use sleep.

Not to sleep every night. Screensaver/Display off is fine, especially with the Authenticate on Wake option on.
 
yeah.
the only time i ever shut this down is when it crashes (which according to a study is 13% of all sessions) the rest of the time i use hibernate, but i cant wait for the powerbooks sleep feature.
 
How come in the services menu "Send to sticky" tries to use the Stickies app for Classic?! I don't want to even bother with classic... :(
 
Most probably something is messed in your OS X system... :( BTW did you remove the Stickies application from inside your Applications folder or what?
 
When I go to edit and "select all" . . then to services to "mail" for example, nothing is highlited, it's all grayed out?? Bad news???? :eek:
 
patmcn1950 said:
When I go to edit and "select all" . . then to services to "mail" for example, nothing is highlited, it's all grayed out?? Bad news???? :eek:
Click to expand...

It all depends on what application you're "selecting all" from. It has to be either a Cocoa application, or an application specifically written to take advantage of the Services functionality.

Try it with TextEdit and see if it works.
 
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