This is old news to anyone who speaks with me regularly, but I’ve finally made the switch — to a Mac.
Yes, I know, apologies go out to my parents and everyone that I berated over the years for foolishly buying Macs – I just couldn’t resist any longer. I’m now the proud owner of a G4, with a diminutive 350mhz chip, new 80gb drive, 896mb RAM, OS X 10.2, and all the open source software I care to install. I was relieved to see that all my peripherals were easily installed, and I’m getting better at navigating the OS.
A couple of peeves, that I’m sure I’ll get over:
- + How do I minimize all windows to the desktop with a keyboard shortcut?
- + Working with files in directories is a bit weird — though I’m getting used to the column view.
- + It’s confusing distinguishing between “home” and “computer”.
- + window focus: why do you have to click on an inactive window first, and then select an item? That’s 2 clicks! In windows, you can click on a file in an inactive window, and it will select as it sets the window focus.
- + Safari renders type really really small — i don’t mind, but it worries me that my website has such tiny type.
With the complaints out of the way, I have to say that I’m beaming with pride… something new to evangelize on. And I’m not the only one.
- command-option and click on the desktop (or on the finder icon in the dock) to hide all apps.
- home and computer end up making more sense when you have more than one user on the machine. For instance , I set my parents up on their mac so they each have an account. it was much easier to do things like set up individual email accounts for them then. One thing a lot of people I know do is install all the third party apps they run in their home directory (they create a directory there called Applications). that way if you need to reinstall you just back up your home directory and you don’t lose anything.
- In the safari options you can set your default font and size, try bumping it up a point or two.
hope that helps!
yes!! i so envy you. i’m officially a mac convert, but i’m stuck here with a brand new pc laptop my dad got me for graduation. he tells me he’ll buy me a computer for college and i tell him i want a laptop….then about a week before graduation, i call him up telling him what i REALLY want is a powerbook because windows and microsoft suck ass. and he says, “too late.” goddammit. but congratulations on your switch to the truly superior machine. if only they’d make iTunes for windows, I might be able to live for a little while without hurling this p.o.s. out the window….
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