Mac, where have you been all my life? (1 Viewer)

[Carl Miller]

It has only been 11 days, but I can't resist writing a partial review of my first Mac experience...Why? Because I'm enjoying using a computer for the first time in several years. I doubt I can offer any new information here yet, so this is pretty much just going to be a sharing of my experience transitioning from the PC to the Mac.

Setting up my iMac was just a breeze. Unlike the last time I purchased a PC, when I spent a really long time waiting for XP to setup for the first time, OSX presented me with the setup assistant, and in 10 minutes I was rolling. My internet connection was setup, my wireless mouse and keyboard were working fine, and most importantly my peripherals such as my Pixma printer and my external HD were up and running. I was a bit skeptical that I'd be able to simply plug these things in and they'd just work, but they did..No need to install drivers, grab installation CD's or deal with XP's "new hardware found" nonsense.

I was used to using Firefox and IE, and for comfort sake, I installed Firefox and ran into my first transitional problem which was figuring out how to install Mac software. I figured it out quickly though, and am now totally comfortable installing software the Mac way. It's faster, and easier and I like the concept of dragging and dropping to install.

Originally, my plan was to use Boot Camp so I could ease my way into the Mac and transition slowly by continuing to use the Windows software I felt I'd need to retain. This plan changed quickly though as I found myself enjoying being Windows free and I wasn't rushing to spoil that feeling.

Using the software recommendation thread here, I started to explore available software for the Mac and picked up a few inexpensive programs, starting with SpamSieve. I operate a web site that is fairly busy and like Ron, my e-mail address is everywhere and I'm subjected to a hefty amount of spam...about 100 junk e-mails per day. SpamSieve is simply an amazing program. I'm still "training" it, but it's incredibly accurate and extremely easy to use. I think it's a bargain at $30 and would willingly and happily pay twice as much for it.

I picked up Toast 8 which is far superior to Nero in my opinion and again, easy to use. Ease of use is a constant theme popping up for me as I go thru this experience with the Mac as everything seems to be easier...installing programs, learning to use the operating system and programs etc.

I got Office 2004 for Mac when I purchased the computer because that's really the one product I can't live without and needed to take with me to the Mac. I don't know if I'm imagining things or getting carried away, but I can't help but think they did a better job at Office for the Mac than they did on Office for Windows. I love that there is a formatting palate sitting next to the document window as I don't have to go looking for anything because it's all right there.

Finally, I'm evaluating Transmit and Fetch for FTP and while both are good, Transmit is more like what I'm used to after years using CuteFTP because it has seperate panes for local and server side file display. I don't know why Fetch doesn't have that, unless I'm missing it.

What I'm most looking forward to is getting the copy of Photoshop I ordered. It was a mild splurge on my part but it gets daily use and I decided to order it rather than run my current copy via boot camp.

I've enjoyed learning some of the little keyboard commands. Expose is both cool and sensible and I'm slowly discovering ways to accomplish certain tasks thru these commands, but I've got a long way to go...I only learned of control+right click to bring up a contextual menu yesterday and this has come in handy since I haven't gotten around to customizing my mouse for right click features.

What I like most about OSX are some of the little things I either couldn't do with XP or wasn't aware I could do. Tops on this list is assigning different colors to folders within various elements of the Finder. This may not be a big deal to many people, but for me it has greatly enhanced my ability to keep my files organized and easily identifiable. For example, I've got all my web site files in various colored folders since they are frequently updated, and divided by type and color for .docs, .pdf and images. All easily organized by giving these folders different names of course, but the color coding actually helps me work faster.

There are many other things that I like so far....Mail is good enough for me, though I miss the integration of the calendar as found on Outlook. iCal is doing what I need it to do which is primarily serving as my bill reminder and it was simple enough to set up. I've started to use iPhoto to organize my pictures, family photos and so on but haven't used it enough yet to decide whether I like it or not. Having file information in such great detail utilizing "get info" in the Finder is also wonderful.

I find it interesting that the help system with the Mac is far superior to that of Windows. A help search provides more relevant results yet fewer of them, and better still the information provided is simpler, better written and easier to follow.

There are a couple of down sides...I'm uncomfortable with iTunes to manage my music collection thus far, and War Pigs by Black Sabbath (I blame Ozzy for this) caused a computer crash which sort of freaked me out. 30 seconds into the song, I got a spinning color wheel which wouldn't stop and couldn't figure out how to get out of this situation. Following the instructions to force quit a non responsive program resulted in a weird screen of multi colored lines which reminded me a little of the blue screen of death, only it was more colorful and it eventually seemed to resolve itself after a few minutes of me not being able to do anything to resolve it.

I have a ways to go yet before I'm fully up to speed with the Mac and knowledgeable enough to consider myself qualified to really talk in depth about OSX, but I'm already convinced that I should have made this switch a long time ago...I'm computing Windows free and loving every minute of it. It's exciting to have rediscovered the enjoyment of personal computing because Windows had quite simply tired me out after however many years it took to get from Windows 3.0 to XP.

Count me in as a convert, because I'm not going back to Windows either.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

Awesome! I used VMware Fusion to run XP for a few days, but I rarely even use it anymore. I had ditched Windows years ago when I switched to Linux, but I love the Mac more than either of them.

Get yourself a copy of Quicksilver, and learn how to use it. You'll love your Mac even more.

CJ

 

[Todd H]

Congrats and welcome to the club!

I installed Bootcamp strictly for my wife. For some reason she just didn't like using her OS X account. Lately, however, she's been using Windows less and less. I believe in another couple of months I will probably be able to finally delete the XP partition.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Carl, I was waiting for this moment. I knew sooner or later
that you would post a message like this. I was that confident
that you would fall in love with your Mac.

I feel the same way about my Mac....where the hell has it been
all my life? Why was I brainwashed into thinking that Mac was
the inferior computer?

What surprises me most about your post is you have gone far
further than I have with OSX. I haven't figured out how to organize
my folders by color. Wouldn't even know where to start. I suppose
that I spend so much time using my Mac for HTF that I don't have
the time to really get my hands dirty.

I'm just really tickled by your post. The reason I put MAC in my
HTF signature and profile picture is that I believe in this brand
so damn much that I am doing everything I can to inform people
that there is something much better out there than a PC.

I love those "Hi I'm A Mac - I'm A PC" commercials. They are the
best commercials on TV. I really think, as somewhat exaggerated
as they can be, are really showing people how messed up the PC
experience can be.

Well...you got me started again. I'm all wound up about this
and I can keep typing forever. I'm just happy that YOU are happy.

Now let's make more and more people happy!

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

Ron, the next time you are in the Bay area, you have got to get down to the Mothership in Cupertino. The perfect (and only) place for Macophiles like us to pick up officially licensed Apple apparel and merchandise to show off your favorite company. Here's the one I picked up in January during Macworld...

 

[Carl Miller]

Christ, thank you for the Quicksilver recommendation...looks interesting and potentially very useful. I'm not ready for it yet, but will absolutely give it a try soon.

Todd, thank you. At this point, I'd like to take the Mac to work with me rather than work with my XP machine in the office. I found myself looking at the PC at work today and thinking I'd rather be using a Mac.

Ron, it has been a pleasure...and having this forum in here has truly been invaluable to me. There's a lot of great information in here and I owe you and everyone a big thank you for participating here and sharing the knowledge and info.

The colored folders I mentioned are actually colored labels and I didn't do a good job describing that in my prior post...The folders stay the same color, but the label below them where the folders are named, can be assigned specific colors....Very easy to do, just Control+Click a folder you want to assign a color to, and select the color you want to use from the color label choices in the contextual menu that pops up.

Michael, I like that Cupertino shirt!

 

[Oren]

Carl, if you like folder color labels, you should check out smart folders, too. Define some criteria, and the Mac will gather up all the matching files into a folder for you - the files are NOT moved. The contents of these smart folders just point to the actual files. So, in addition to using the folder color labels, you can search on criteria, even comments you've added to individual files (using command-I).

Using your sites example, you could have index.html files for each site in their own color coded folder with all the other site contents. Then, create a smart folder that finds all you index.html files. Open the smart folder to see all your index.html files. And, yes, smart folders are updated live. Create another site in another folder, and drop in your first index.html file, and it will then show up in your smart folder too. Sweet! Create smart folders for whatever you constantly look for - items created today, large files, dmg files, etc.

Then discover smart mailboxes, smart photo albums, and smart play lists. Oh, yeah, and smart address book lists. They all work the same way.

Then in the calendar subscribe to some published calendars (sports games, local weather, etc., etc.) just for fun.

Then on to folder action items. Tag a folder with actions, drop a file in it, and the actions are automatically done on the file. File conversions, etc.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Oren,

How do I get started with all the above?

Michael,

Do they do mail order? I just spent $40 for a damn Mac
Polo shirt from The Missing Byte. Awfully expensive
but options are rather limited.

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

Ron, unfortunately they don't do mail order. Perhaps if any of our forum visitors here live in the Bay area they can pick something up. The Company Store is open weekdays to to public. I think places like The Missing Byte and RedLightRunner are located in the Bay area and resell stuff at a significant markup that they pick up in Cupertino. I know the polo shirts and baseball cap that TMB is selling are the exact same ones I bought in person and I didn't pay nearly what these companies are asking.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Oh my God! What a dream come true. I would shop till
I drop and certainly, I'd have to buy APPLE underwear as
I would need a change.

Living here in NJ that stores comes at a real disadvantage.
It looks to be an hour outside of SanFran. Perhaps in a year
or two I'll fly into the area and take a 2-day drive down to LA
via route 280.

 

[Oren]

Well, let's see. In the Finder, select File:New Smart Folder, define some critera, and then save the search. Save it to your Sidebar (the left side list in any Finder window) for one-click access.

One way I've used this is to create a color label (Preferences:Labels) for "Essentials." I would then mark individual key data files (Command-I, select the label, or Control-click/right-click, and select the label) as "essential" and create a smart folder of all my essentials (Find based on label). That way, I could open the smart folder, all my "essential" items would show up and I could drag them to another drive to quickly back up just my essentials.

Smart mailboxes work the same way - in Mail, click on the gear icon in the bottom left, and select New Smart Mailbox, name it and define some criteria. Under Mailbox:New Smart Mailbox Folder you can create a folder to group smart mailboxes.

In iPhoto you can create smart photo albums and in iTunes you can create smart playlists. Remember, a regular folder, mailbox, photo album, or playlist lets you manually add items to it and, except for the playlist, actually moves the item. For example, out of your Inbox and into the folder. A smart folder, etc. only shows search results, so the items aren't actually moved.

In iCal, select Calendar:Subscribe to subscribe to various calendars published by others. You can even publish your own it you want to. For example, do you calendar various events for a club or whatever? You can publish it and then others can subscribe to your calendar (not the whole thing, just that particular one). Then, as you add, remove, or change events, their calendar is updated too.

Adding folder actions is a little more complicated - best thing to do is google "folder actions." You can download folder actions that others have created.

Mmm, come to think of it, I'll have to explore creating a folder action so that any video I dump into the folder is automatically converted to H264.

By the way, while I'm waiting for the new iMacs to come out to create a coffee-table media center, I hooked my laptop to my projector and use quicktime to "present" the video to the projector. Sort of a proof of concept. It's pretty neat to see the backlit keyboard of my laptop in the dark.

 

[Carl Miller]

Oren, the smart folders look like they have a lot of potential for when my computer begins to get cluttered...I'll have to give it a try.

Ron, we need to bribe an HTF member to do some shopping at the Company Store for us. I want a t-shirt...and a hat.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I love My Mac Mini, I've had it a couple of years and it's the computer I use mainly at home. Itunes is a great front end for music, I'm using it extensively now to serve my Apple Lossless files, Photos and Movies and TV Series to 2 Apple TV's in my Basement and Living Room HT's. The whole system is a joy to use. It's Replaced Cable and Satellite and has become my primary form of Entertainment

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Oren,

When I have a few minutes next week I'll look into
your instructions. Thank You for providing them.

Carl and Michael

If you do a search for Mac Apparel, you will come up mostly
empty-handed. Many sites that did sell clothing shut down and
what is left is mostly Ebay sellers, which have a great
assortment of stuff, but I'd rather not deal with.

Seems like Apple doesn't readily license their logo to companies
to offer clothing and such.

The one place I did stumble upon is The Missing Byte, which has
a pretty decent selection of Mac apparel, but at complete highway
robbery prices.

I just ordered and received a black polo shirt with while apple logo
on chest. Very nice shirt, I must say, but it cost me $40 plus shipping
which brought it closer to $50. These web shops realize how difficult
it is to get Mac clothing and absolutely take advantage of people with
their exorbitant pricing.

 

[McPaul]

I have seen this blog, have played with Quicksilver before, and I'm just not getting it. I really WANT to get and like it, but I just don't know what this is for. Christ, what do you use your Quicksilver for?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I also looked at Quicksilver and just didn't get it, either.

Everyone raves about this software, but really, OSX presents
me with no particular effort in launching a program or getting to
the things I need. I also don't need another program taking up
precious resources just so I can launch something seconds faster.

I would, however, love to read someone's take on this software.
Perhaps you can convince Paul and I to give it a try.

 

[Christian Behrens]

Have a look at this, this should give an insight into what Quicksilver is capable of, besides being a great app launcher.

-Christian

 

[Christ Reynolds]

Wait, I thought that is why your bought your Mac Pro, so you COULD launch applications as fast as possible? You have plenty of resources, and Quicksilver uses very little anyway. Watch the video Christian posted, and actually try to use Quicksilver for a few days. I didn't "get it" at first either. Now, it's the only way I ever launch or find anything.

CJ

 

[McPaul]

I watch MacBreak (large) religiously on iTunes, and remembered Quicksilver when you mentioned it. At the time it wasn't anything I was really interested in or 'getting' but that made sense. I will give it a shot for a week. Come on, Ron... peer pressure, you've got to try it too now!

What unique uses do YOU have for it, Christ?

 

[Joseph S]

Wow! Weren't the "Think Different" posters free or next to free? I've got two sets apparently worth $500 plus on their site.