A whole load of newbie mac questions!

DarkShadow

DarkShadow

DarkShadow

Soldato
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Hi guys,

Had a Mini Mac delivered yesterday and having never used one before I'm in the process of learning!

I'd greatful if anyone could help and answer the following questions:

1) I have Firefox (FF) on XP and FF on the Mac. How would I import my bookmarks, passwords and so on? The Dir looks very different!

2) I have the Mac wireless mouse, I'v changed the mouse options via 2 method and it feel REALLY sluggish, it barely moves unless I make quick moves of direction. Comapred to my MX900 it really is painful :( Would anyone care to shed some light on this? I have viewed Mac Help paes, still no joy.

3) When double clicking a window, me being used to xp, it maximizes, whereas in mac it minimizes. Is there a way I could change this? Again is there a way where I could swap the X-+ buttons to for viewing options?

4) Is there a way to make windows maximize at default everytime? I have to resize it every time I open a window, which is painful with that mouse!

5) Does objectdock get in the way of everyone? Where I maximize a page, object and wallpaper show, I have tried hidden but that's just plain annoying!

Thanks :)
 
1) I have Firefox (FF) on XP and FF on the Mac. How would I import my bookmarks, passwords and so on? The Dir looks very different!

You should be able to export your bookmarks as a HTML file in Firefox. Then you can re-import this HTML file into the Mac version.

2) I have the Mac wireless mouse, I'v changed the mouse options via 2 method and it feel REALLY sluggish, it barely moves unless I make quick moves of direction. Comapred to my MX900 it really is painful :( Would anyone care to shed some light on this? I have viewed Mac Help paes, still no joy.

Mac OS X uses a different mouse algorithm to windows. If this is your first time using it then it will feel horrible. But you'll soon get used to it. There may be a utility program out there that alters the speed - someone else may be able to help you with that.

4) Is there a way to make windows maximize at default everytime? I have to resize it every time I open a window, which is painful with that mouse!

I think this is one of the shortcomings of the Finder. It doesn't really "memorize" window settings as people want it to.
 
You are making the classic mistakes that all switchers do after working with WIndows. Try to not think like you are using Windows but Mac OS X, the classic symptom of this is the old maximize/minimize issue. The individual windows will be optimized to work with your resolution and will automatically be at a usefull size to work with without blocking access to the rest of your screen. Try resizing manually to whatever you want by using the tag in the bottom right and dragging.

Mouse movement is very different on a Mac but you will get used to it, you can use Preferences, located in the Dock, to adjust the pointer speed etc.. You can also use it to adjust the size of your Dock and also the trun on/adjust the magnification of the Aliases (Icons). I have mine set small so that it doesn't interfere but I have large magnification to make it easy to find apps. You can move the dock around as well.

Check out these useful guides that may help, my best advice is to ignore anything Windowsy and get your head into an OS X mode, before long you will realise the Mac way is the best way. :)

http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/
http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/
 
AJUK said:
You are making the classic mistakes that all switchers do after working with WIndows. Try to not think like you are using Windows but Mac OS X, the classic symptom of this is the old maximize/minimize issue. The individual windows will be optimized to work with your resolution and will automatically be at a usefull size to work with without blocking access to the rest of your screen. Try resizing manually to whatever you want by using the tag in the bottom right and dragging.
Click to expand...

When I first got my mac, I did that. Now I cannot understand why and have realised that OS X is a really, really cool OS to use.

It just takes some time to get used to.
 
I'm sure if you click the green + (aka Maximise) then position or stretch the window to your liking it would be memorised..

..I could be imagining it though :rolleyes: :p :D
 
Global View setting for finder windows is something that MacOSX does not have. Hopefully 10.5 Leopard will fix this - and if the rumours are true that Apple have completely built a new finder from scratch then I would like to hope that this will be true.
 
For the mouse issue try installing the Microsoft mouse software, it should work with non-microsoft mice, and it makes them move much more windows like.
 
Hamish said:
For the mouse issue try installing the Microsoft mouse software, it should work with non-microsoft mice, and it makes them move much more windows like.
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I doubt it will work for an Apple mouse under OS X. ;)
 
I have been using the cheapest microsoft wireless mouse since I got my mac mini at release and the speed is fine? Its no different from windows.

Maybe try your other mouse and see what thats like?

Mac OSX does take a bit of getting useto but once you are you will see its much better than XP, don't get me wrong I'm a big XP fan but if you could just buy OSX and install it anywhere I would anyday over XP!!

You will learn to love it, they all do ;) :p :)
 
AJUK said:
I doubt it will work for an Apple mouse under OS X. ;)
Click to expand...

When i bought a microsoft mouse it comes with the Intellimouse software which works under mac, it makes the mouse feel like it does in windoes i.e. not crap
 
Hamish said:
When i bought a microsoft mouse it comes with the Intellimouse software which works under mac, it makes the mouse feel like it does in windoes i.e. not crap
Click to expand...
Yes, but the OP is using an Apple Wireless mouse.
 
... it could be the surface you're using the mouse on.

Before you post back with "but my old mouse worked fine", check the resolution of the Apple Wireless Mouse and your older mouse

Hope that helps :)
 
Thanks for all the help guys.

AJUK, That Mac guide is superb, thanks :cool:

The mac mouse is set to the highest speed, still a little sluggish, I'll just give it time to grow on me :)

Out of interest, am I doing this correctly? To install an app, I drag over the dmg files to application folders (it doesn't usually install at this point) I then double click the app in the folder and proceed to install. At times it mount the images, which I assume is normal?

To uninstall is it really as simple as deleting the application? Isn't there any 'registry' as such that it leaves dirty add ons around and so on?

Also, based on assumptions . . . I don't need firewalls, spyware removers or AV as such do I?

I'll be firing it up again tomorrow as I miss my dual windows set up whilst using them simutaneously!

Have to say that it's to good to be using both different OS's as it gives you an insight into both. The Mac is really starting grow on me :D
 
Don't drag the dmg files into your application folder. What you need to do is just double click on them and they will mount (I usually keep them on my desktop until I have installed and then I burn them to disk or store in my backup file). On the mounted disk you will see an application folder and that is what you drag into your Application Folder, you may need to click on the oval in the top right to display the App Folder. Unistallation is really that simple, just drag the application to the Trash. To set up an ALias (icon) for the program on your Dock just drag it from the Applications folder. :cool: Some applications have a traditional style installation process, especially of they have a lot of referenced data and in these situations the process is the same as Windows, there will be an unistall file in the folder in these cases.

Don't worry, there isn't a registry and although there may be the odd file hanging around, unlike a Windows registry, they cannot do any harm at all. It is always good practice to Repair Permissions using the Disk Utility (located in the Utilities folder in Apps) after unistalling applications.

Now, onto the real bonus of Mac OS X. There are NO, I repeat NO viruses or spyware for Mac OS X. :cool: \O/ :) Therefore, you do not need any anti virus or anti spyware software. Safari, or Firefox can delete any tracking cookies periodically but that is all you need to do. If you connect to Windows machines (awh, bless the poor little things) then you may think it is necessary to protect them from anything that piggybacks on a file under Mac but my opinion is it is their responsibility to protect themselves.

OS X has a firewall built in, Sytem Preferences > Sharing > Firewall and you can stop and start it or set up your own rules for internet and print sharing etc. There is also a lock that is password protected to prevent fiddlin'.
 
Now, onto the real bonus of Mac OS X. There are NO, I repeat NO viruses or spyware for Mac OS X. \O/ Therefore, you do not need any anti virus or anti spyware software.
Click to expand...

It still might be worth getting if you use your mac professionally - passing infected files onto colleagues and clients could be very embarrasing!
 
E1mo said:
It still might be worth getting if you use your mac professionally - passing infected files onto colleagues and clients could be very embarrasing!
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It's going to be used as a HTPC in the living room :)

I find everything REALLY slow on the mac. For example . . Web browsing it was seriously slow. I mean the concept of one click and browsing multiple pages wasn't doing any favours, I had to move the slow mouse to the top corner to view the page behind it and that didn't get rid of the 1 web browser. If I had used Command + Q it would just completely exit FF :(

Don't get me wrong, I really like the interface and so on, but surely there must be quicker ways around everything?
 
Odd. Web browsing is fast for me :) My FF setup is the same as on my PC too, and the mouse is fast enough for me. You are using tabs in FF aren't you? :p
 
Matt said:
Odd. Web browsing is fast for me :) My FF setup is the same as on my PC too, and the mouse is fast enough for me. You are using tabs in FF aren't you? :p
Click to expand...
Yup.

I have very similar extensions to that I have in windows and it acts pretty wierd, for example when I select home page certain times it'll give me a new tab and other times it loads a normal page. I might try a re-install tbh.
 
I know when I switched for six months, I found my productivity went down whilst using OS X. It did seem to take much longer to do things - sometimes twice as long - but this is obviously down to software rather than the operating system itself.

I did find web browsing and Microsoft Word horribly slow though on my dual 1.8GHz G5 with Panther. Since going back to Windows, things have been much better. The only thing I really liked was the nice user interface of OS X. I think Apple have done a very good job of making computers accessible to everybody but for a bit of a techno-geek like me, it just wasn't happening.

Be interested to try it again though now the Intel switch has happened and when Leopard is released with Intel versions of the big apps.
 
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