So at work, they allowed me to use a PC for much of my time here since I was mostly doing client correspondance and work in excel spreadsheets. Now, however, the biggest part of my new role is doing site audits, which are done as presentations. Since the folks here HATE Powerpoint, they've just switched me to a Mac so I can use Keynote.
I've barely ever used a Mac before in my life, and while I'm slowly getting the hang of things (I'm usually pretty quick in adapting to new technology), I'm still fairly sluggish on things.
Therefore, might y'all Mac experts have any advice on the best way to learn and adapt to this thing (besides, you know, using it)? ;)
Thanks!
The Missing Manual book gets a lot of praise for covering the basic need-to-know stuff very well.
Is there a specific topic you're having trouble with or want more info on though? I don't know how helpful it would be to just start babbling about random OS X stuff... :)
Nothing specific, just wanna pick this all up as quickly as possible so it doesn't slow down. I'll take babbling random OSX stuff. I wanna learn. :)
Thanks!
The Missing manual is pretty good and was on offer for $13 on O'Reilly the other day as en electronic download; as a still reasonably recent Mac convertee I've learned a bucket load from it, especially keyboard shortcuts and plenty of "oooh, never knew you could do that" moments just in the first couple of chapters.
I'm with your company on Keynote vs Powerpoint, but don't have much in the way of words of wisdom except that it just takes a bit of time to adjust to the Mac way of doing things. While they are pretty basic, the Apple tutorial vids aren't that bad.
The two main things I wish I'd figured out sooner are:
Spotlight (magnifying glass in the top right of the screen) is awesome
Hit the spacebar on any highlighted file and it opens as a preview, generally much faster than whatever the actual application that's required to run it takes to load.
Random tidbit: When you hold down the Option key, some menu bar items change.
Wow, I didn't even notice that magnifying glass thingy! Awesome!
Okay, this brand new mac is ticking me off. Today it took 90+ minutes for myself and two other people to install certain fonts for Keynote. It also doesn't recognize my external monitor until I plug in the adapter maybe 4-5 times. Very frustrating.
Two words: Genius Bar. It's a new Mac, so it's still under warranty. They'll fix it for free, or maybe even just swap you a new one, as it sounds like you got a lemon.Originally Posted by Brian Rubin
But it's not mine, it's my company's. :/
Apple Store won't care. Just as long as it's not stolen.
You just never know what kind of people Brian Rubin is working for. For all you know he might be using his new Mac to bust knees.
K, so for the monitor thing...it was the monitor itself, which is weird. Connected to a PC without a problem. With a Mac, 1 in 5 times. Switched to another monitor, works every time. Weird.
starting to wonder now whether the monitors sat behind me might actually be fine and not destined for the skip after all. They're both several years old though and worked fine on both PCs and Macs for a while before playing up, I just figured they'd run their useful life.
Hey guys, any way to make Finder more explorer-like with trees in a sidebar and what not? Even with the hierarchy button on the toolbar, it's kinda driving me batty.
There's PathFinder: http://www.cultofmac.com/161521/path...ll-the-finder/
(main page at cocoatech.com not loading for me at the moment)
Wow, looks sexy. Thanks!
Hah, in reading about PathFinder and TotalFinder, I found something built into Finder that helps IMMENSELY, the Path Bar. This is a HUGE step in the right direction. YAY!
Thanks!! :)
I'd recommend LaunchBar for easy access to files, folders, and websites. It really is genius!
QuickSilver, Launchbar, Alfred, Butler, Dragthing.
With Spotlight, I honestly don't get the appeal of Quicksilver. Dragthing I still have a hate-on from the pre-OSX days, when I had to fix developers' broken Macs after they had invariably installed a bunch of crap that made the already-unstable OS even less so; as a result I've never given it another chance, even in modern OSX times. Perhaps unfairly, I will admit, but grudges are grudges.
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