UPDATE: I’ve been Slashdotted (not for this) and several other geektacular honors (of which I’ll spare you), but I got way more of a kick out of being linked to by Ellenfeiss.net for this article! That guy is WAY more picky about what he blogs. …And it was like, bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep. Go Ellen, go!
Those Intel-based MacBook Pros and iMacs will soon be in your hands. But before you open those boxes and fire them up, there’s a few things I think you should know.
OS X Looks Like OS X
Those days of customizing every last cosmetic detail of your operating system are over. The second you boot your new Mac, you’re probably going to head straight for the System Preferences to see what you can monkey with. The natural reaction to OS X is to start tweaking the GUI. As hard as you try, you will not, I repeat, you will not be able to make OS X look like a Star Trek control panel. I am not daring you to do this. I’m just saying that this is not easy to do.
LCARS Star Trek Theme for WinXP
Lavender… WOOF!
Want to see all the OS X themes you can play with?
Am I exaggerating? Not much.
Want to see those themes again?
You may be thinking that OS X users can’t re-skin OS X like you can WinXP using a program like WindowBlinds. This is only somewhat true, but not for the reasons you think. Sure, Apple definitely makes it difficult for users to change the look of OS X. But there’s a bigger reason why there aren’t countless OS X themes and theming applications: there just isn’t a big demand for them.
The standard look and feel of OS X is already pleasing. You want proof? Take a look at the lengths to which people will go to turn Windows into OS X. Now, how many OS X users do you think have removed their Dock and replaced it with something called a Start Bar?
Still want to make OS X look like something out of Star Trek? Knock yourself out.
You Don’t Need a Virus Scanner
You don’t need a virus scanner or spyware/adware removal tools… yet. Don’t waste your money on securing your system with off-the-shelf OS X virus protection. As of right now, those programs are snake oil – absolutely worthless to you as a Mac user.
I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
Am I naive? Maybe just a little. But as of right now, Mac users live in a world virtually free of spyware, adware or viruses. Really. It’s actually quite liberating. Go ahead and surf the net (even the dark corners) and know that not one pop-up or ActiveX control can touch your machine… yet. Also, what’s a pop-up?
Wil Shipley, who wrote the software for one of my favorite programs, summed this virus thing up best:
All, right, I’m sick of people reporting that Mac OS X is ‘mostly’ virus-free. It is, as far has been proven, ENTIRELY virus-free. Macs are not magical, and one day there will be virus that infects them. However, I don’t think it’s happened yet, and I think it’s time we, the Mac community, started saying, “No, we don’t have any viruses.”
Visit Wil’s site to read the entire article
Wil’s Delicious Library!
Your Mouse Moves Differently in OS X
The most elemental way you’ll interact with your new Mac is with your mouse. Mouse-tracking, how your physical mouse movements affect your on-screen cursor, is not just slower on OS X. It may feel weird to Windows users – like you’re mousing through mud. This is something that few people talk about and something few even notice. Most Mac users will actually deny that mouse-tracking in OS X is any different from mouse-tracking in WinXP. I was a switcher that noticed. If you’re a long-time Windows user, you’ll probably notice too.
I tried for a month to get used to my Apple Pro Mouse. No dice. The solution: eBay. I sold my Pro Mouse on eBay and bought an optical Microsoft – gasp! – mouse to replace it. However, a new mouse alone did not solve the problem. The issue isn’t the mouse. The issue is how OS X interprets the mouse’s movements. It’s not wrong, it’s just different and jarring to anyone who is using OS X for things like graphic design or video gaming. The key:
Microsoft’s Mouse Preferences
The software available on Microsoft’s website lets you turn off the culprit: OS X system tracking. This is less a pointer speed change and more of a pointer feel change. If you’re like me and can’t stand OS X’s mouse-tracking, here’s your solution.
UPDATE: HOLY CRAP! How did I miss this fine application? It’s called SteerMouse and it lets you disable OS X’s cursor acceleration. Unfortunately it’s not free, but at least I can get rid of my annoying Microsoft Mouse driver. Spread the word, switchers! This little app has made me so happy today! Just make sure you UNINSTALL your Microsoft Intellimouse drivers or SteerMouse won’t work. You’ll find the uninstall application in your Applications > Utilities folder.
SteerMouse has answered some prayers today! My current settings rock the house.
While we’re on the subject of mice: OS X is made for right mouse buttons and scroll wheels. No, I’m still not sure why Apple was making only one-button mice until last year. They had their reasons.
Most of Us Use Safari
If you’re net-savvy, chances are that you’re looking at this page through Firefox (you’re not still using IE, are you?). But if you’re on a Mac, I’m pretty sure you’re using Safari. Why do we use Safari? To be perfectly honest, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the same reason that most Windows users are still using IE, it comes preinstalled.
Mac users prefer Safari
Safari blocks pop-ups, has an integrated RSS reader and renders most pages quickly and perfectly. Also, I think Mac users are turned off by Firefox’s ugly forms and buttons.
Comparison of Safari and Firefox form elements
Sure, Firefox is extensible (I love Firefox plug-ins like Greasemonkey and Platypus) and fast, but Safari is still the most standards compliant browser available. Plus, there’s always those pretty buttons…
Sponsored link:
Installing, Moving and Uninstalling Apps
You install most applications by simply dragging and dropping them where you want them.
Want to move an application after it’s been installed? Move it. It won’t care.
Uninstalling an application is as easy as dragging it into the trash can. To PC users, this is a scary thought. What else is your trashed application leaving behind? In most cases, it will leave behind a harmless preference file or two.
How can an entire application be removed by just trashing the executable? OS X applications seem clean because the ugly is hidden deep within the application. OS X apps are actually a special kind of folder. To actually see what’s inside an application, right click it and select Show Package Contents.
Inside an OS X application
OS X Has No Defrag Utility…
… and for good reason. OS X (since ver. 10.3) automatically defragments every single file that you access (as long as it’s under 20MB). This fact, along with a bunch of other fancy-schmancy built-in processes, makes defragmenting your drive unnecessary. But you don’t have to take my word for it.
Is Your System Acting Strange? Repair Disk Permissions
Is a file not opening or an application not starting? An installer not working? Is your computer running slower than normal? It may be time to repair permissions. Repairing permissions is a harmless, non-destructive process that you can run periodically to keep your system in perfect working order. It’s like a free tune-up.
OS X is based on Unix and relies heavily on file permissions (user privileges). Sometimes these file privileges get mixed up because things like a file’s location has changed or an installer incorrectly sets the wrong permissions. A file you’re supposed to be able to overwrite may no longer let you. An application you should be able to launch may no longer launch. In each of these cases, a file permission may need to be reset to its default value – a quick and easy process:
Open Disk Utility found in Applications > Utilities. Select your hard drive. If you have multiple hard drives, you can do one at a time. Then, click Repair Disk Permissions
Repairing permissions is easy!
OS X Is Not Perfect
Programs crash in OS X. In fact, they’re nearly as crash-prone as Windows applications. However, only on rare occasions will a program crash and take your system down with it. If a program hangs, you’ll see what looks like a spinning beach ball. The kids call it The Spinning Beach Ball of Death.
The Spinning Beach Ball (of Death)
If you see the SBBOD, you may have to force quit the offending app. When your application hangs, you have three options: try to wait it out, right-click the application in the Dock and select Force Quit and, if that doesn’t work, you’ll have to perform our version of Ctrl-Alt-Del: Command-Option-Escape. Make no mistakes, though. This isn’t some namby-pamby end process that Windows users have to contend with. You know, the one where Windows decides whether or not it’s actually going to let you close the application that crashed.
Command (that’s the open Apple key)-Option-Esc. is the real deal. It’s going to take down that offending app instantly. No holds barred. Clean and jerk. Closed for real. Feel free to restart whatever just crashed, it should work fine.
You’re Going to Make Mistakes
Dan Warne has combined all the comments from a recent TUAW article to create a comprehensive list of mistakes made by new Mac users. Among my favorites:
- Trying to use the CTRL key rather than CMD key for shortcuts.
- Thinking the green “+†button maximizes a window to full screen (not realising that Apple’s maximize philosophy is to only make a window as big as it needs to be to comfortably fit the width of content currently being displayed)
- Closing an application window, thinking it has quit.
- Double-clicking a window thinking it will maximize it, but instead sending it to the dock.
Read all 30 of them on Dan’s site.
Yes, It Is a Cult. Welcome!
I know this last one is a bit of a cop out, but there’s something to it.
You may soon find yourself evangelizing to your Windows-loving friends or making frequent and unnecessary trips to the local Apple Store just to look around. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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Kent, of course the Mac can play windows media – did you think to have a look on the Microsoft site for the necessary software ? Or were you content to just waste your time posting vitriol here ?
Can’t chat with your friends ? What do you mean ? Skype (mac version available) or MSN (mac version available) ? Can’t read email ? How so ? Mail (comes with the Mac) works great for me and most everybody else too.
If you actually want to solve the issues (and most of them seem to be simple misunderstandings) then there is a very active and supportive Mac community out here that will give you tons of free support. Visit somewhere like forums.macnn.com or discussions.apple.com and you’ll get advice on everything from expert users.
If, however, you’re more interested in bad mouthing the platform because you’re a windows fanboy, then please do a little basic research first because you’re just making yourself look stupid…
Hi
It would be extremely funny if somebody wrote the “Win-Switcher Guide”.
10 tips to consider when you move from Mac to Windows…
1. Windows seldom loook like windows ? There are 19000 tweaks, all of them ugly…
2. Windows huh? What version ? CE Me 95 98 NT3.51 NT4, Win 2000, XP Home, XP professional
3. Make sure to save every install CD you got. Now you need them.
4. if something can be complicated, it will be
5. You will need AntiVirus Software, 2 Firewalls (one Hardware, one Software)
6. You will need Spyware/Adware removers, run them constantly
7. You will have to defrag your disks regularly
8. Never touch an installed program, when not even the installer can cope with removing the application, then, why do you think you can handle this …
9. You will get many friends and all you keep talking about is how to fix your computer instead of talking about what you DO with your computer…
10. Welcome to the Dark side….
(please excuse grammar errors, English is not my first language)
Jeremiah
I too am thinking about switching, and I have been finding that there are bad things to go along with good things of switching. Right now, the cost is my largest distraction. I have seen OSX in action on someone’s non Apple Laptop, and the speed is amazing. I have been having a hard time understanding some of the quirks, but generally, it appears to a fun OS to work with especially as a geek and Unix admin. You can never go wrong with the command line. I have even started a blog about making the switch to OS X. http://www.geekster.org/maketheswitch
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I have been a windows user for a long time (actually, was a DOS user before that) and recently “switched” to mac OS X (I still use my pc for games, mostly) and have been very happy about the move.
Concerning Nick’s reply to Jasm and Scott Frazer…
“If you wish to merge folders in Mac OS X simply open one of the folders, select all (CMD A) then drag the lot into the destination folder.”
That might work if the folder you are moving only has documents in it, but what if it has folders and subfolders with the same names as those in the destination folder? Then you’d have to do everything manually which is really annoying. That’s one feature I miss about the way Windows works.
I love OS X, it really rocks. I find it to have a much better workflow, looks better and is much more secure.
There is one thing though that I am a bit disappointed of in OS X Tiger. When I decided to make the switch, I had been working on OS X Panther for some time and I REALLY liked the way you could search for files by their filenames. But now, in Spotlight, except when using it in mail.app, I can never seem to find files I am looking for, wether they are in a sub-sub-subfolder or on the desktop.
By the way, good work with the article Scott, except for the part about Force Quit ALWAYS working, this was a really good read.
Nobody mentioned Camino, my favorite browser. http://www.caminobrowser.org/
It runs off mozilla/gecko engine and is like a firefox for osX (sorta). It has tabbed browsing, is nice to look at, and integrates well with keychain, spotlight and address book, etc.
Also, to get rid of the remnants of uninstalled programs you can get this thing called appZapper.
http://appzapper.com/
i hear it’s good but have not tested it.
thanks for posting the great article. I am a 4 year switcher and am still learning new ways to make OSX work better for me.
As a potential switcher, lists like this one are a great help. Thanks Scott.
Switching???????????
Is this a corporate thing spread on the web by apple?
There seems an awful lot of switching blogs at the moment
(or subliminal advertising, better than pop-ups tho)
(scene: ironically writing this on the laptop PC, while the Mac does other stuff — but in Firefox with the pretty buttons, running FlyakiteOSX — and can’t switch completely because of 3D Studio Max)
The one thing that was the biggest and most horrible mistake — and something I think should be configurable in OS X, too, i don’t care what their HIG and philosophy states –
Dragging a folder into another folder where a folder of the same name already lives.
For instance:
Folder A
Folder C
File 1
File 2
Folder B
Folder C
File 2
File 3
Scenario:
I drag the Folder C inside Folder B into Folder A
If you do this in Windows (any version) OR KDE or Gnome on Linux OR CDE on Solaris 9, the contents of the two folders will be merged, and you’ll be prompted for what should be overwritten (CDE on Solaris isn’t as friendly, it’ll just replace the sub-files without asking by default).
Thus the results would look like this (if you say Yes when it asks if you want to overwrite same named files):
Folder A
Folder C
File 1
File 2
File 3
Folder B
(empty now)
The copy of File 2 that was in Folder C inside Folder A to start with has been replaced with the one from Folder C in Folder B
A Mac is the ONLY system I know of that will screw this up bigtime and do things differently than everyone else. Now, USUALLY when a Mac does something differently than everyone else, this is a good thing because it’s doing something better.
In this case, it’s being more literal and doing *exactly* what it says. However, it’s also being more retarded, and not doing what any non-Mac user expects. And the end result is unfixable — not even relegated to the Trash. You get a prompt that sounds like the same sort of thing on other systems, but the end result is actually this:
Folder A
Folder C
File 2
File 3
Folder B
(empty now)
The PC user will ask ‘what the hell happened to File 1?’
It’s gone. Erased. Overwritten. Sayanorah. Kiss it goodbye. Was it important? Tough toenails.
It might seem like a minor thing, but someitmes you wan to move a whole complex heirarchy of folders without obliterating the other stuff.
If you’re ever used Curious Labs Poser program and installed new content., you get a ZIP file with tons of stuff in a complex, sometimes five-level deep folder heirarchy starting at Runtime, which is analogous to the Runtime inside your Poser content folder. On a PC, you drag the new Runtime to your Poser content folder and viola, things are installed. Try it on a Mac, and all your old stuff is *gone*. Buhbye. Worse, since some of that is required for Poser to run, and you just obliterated it, you broke your Poser install. Have fun. Reinstall.
There is a way to do a folder copy like in Windoes, KDE, Gnome, CDE, and so on. It can be done. Except you have to do it from the command line.
cp -i -r /path/to/new/Folder /path/to/old/Folder
Why doesn’t Mac allow this? The world may never know. But they finally have three-button mice, so don’t give up hope yet.
my 2c.
mac os X is definitely way way better than windows..
having said that the classic mac os sucked..i learnt how to use a comp on a windows system and had no problem navigating basic daily programs like word, excel and surfing the web..doing all of the above and more was so much easier to learn and do on a PC than on the classic Mac OS…
simply put this is the reason windows rules the world…
now however system X onwards, PC users didnt find the switch hard bec it feels and looks more like a Windows system…
i
Maybe this has already been posted in the 206 replies, but the Mighty Mouse can easily be set to use a standard two button setup. Its right there in the mouse properties, under system prefs. I didn’t realize that for about 3 months. Now I just like to click the right side of the mouse and watch menus open. Which is my segwey into this warning to any who come across this page: the cult aspect is pretty real. Maybe its because you have to mortgage your house a second time to buy a Mac. I even have an Apple logo bumpersticker. I think my devotion to Apple is pathetic but I can not stop.
Nice site, thanks for the tips. I was having trouble re-configuring my mouse, but problem solved!
Useful info and nice design. Well done!
google documents for one does not work yet on safari, i have run into this and other sites/services that aren’t safari-compatible. camino has solved all of my problems, it is IMO the best browser for apple computers
Some other things you’ll notice as a windows switcher. Apple will try to grab more of your hard earned money, immediately after you buy your mac.
Unlike windows media player, the apple media player (quicktime) is a reduced functionality version. But you can upgrade to pro for a measly $29.99. which you are bombarded with everytime you open up quicktime.
Open up safari and it launches Apples heavily product for sale laiden website to buy a nice shiny new ipod or other apple product. You can obviously change your homepage, but that’s the first thing you see.
Open quicktime and you can pay for as much content as your heart desires on itunes.
They’ve got the revenue streams down to a science……..
Apple viruses do exist and apple security doesn’t…..
This article sums it up pretty well
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mac-OS-X-Security-Is-a-Joke-Switch-to-Vista-While-There-039-s-Still-Time-50056.shtml
Here’s a quote:
“Apple advertising conveys the message that Mac OS X does not have the same security issues that face other operating systems, but upon examining the first 90 days of their most recent release Tiger (v10.4), here is what I found. At the end of the 90 day period, there Mac OS X v10.4 still had 17 publicly disclosed vulnerabilities that did not yet have a patch from Apple,†Jones stated.
As well, the Month of Apple Bugs (moab) recently showed that there are a significant number of vulnerabilities to the OS, it’s just the market penetration is so low,
i myself switch between 4 web browsers actually. i switch between Safari, Camino, Firefox and Shiira. Of all of them, Shiira seems to load web pages the fastest but is slim on features. I primarily use Firefox but for no particular reason other than the “restore session” feature. camino seems to have the least amount of bugs. safari’s brushed metal look gets old after a while.
“making frequent and unnecessary trips to the local Apple Store just to look around.”
Dang. I already do that, and I’m a windows user.
FUCK APPLE!! fuck steve jobs PC’s FTW!!
The reasons why MAC PC’S are NOT infected with Viruses is because Majority of the people has Windows (OS) and will stand behind Microsoft 100%. Thats why, hackers and those people out there creating these infections dont care about mac’s!
Great thread, man ! Everything you said was true! And, hell yeah, I always find myself going on an unnecessary trip to an Apple Store
@Dan: I have never had a virus in the 28 years I’ve run personal computer systems. Must be where your friends are going.
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As I mentioned in another of your post, I can use all the info on the Mac’s as I can before I buy one. Thanks again.
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