Macbook pro & OSX questions

Willis · 26 Dec 2007 at 11:42

1) When using safari or firefox the screen looks washed out and the writing and icons dont look as crisp as in IE in windows :confused:

i've messed about with the appearance tabs but still can get it looking right.

2) Also is there no right click on mac's as in firefox to check spelling i would right click on the word and it would give me a list of spellings.

3) Can i play my movies from my windows pc as it seems to have trouble playing them with quicktime with the divx codec installed.

4) How do i get a full screen page for safari/firefox to open automatic

5) why when i use msn it sends a icon to the desk top

will have some more question in a mo

PardonTheWait · 26 Dec 2007 at 11:51

1) That's just how macs handle text - it looks a little different but you'll get used to it.

2) Put two fingers on the track pad and click - there's your right click. Or hold ctrl and click. Or get a mouse

3) Grab the perian codec

4) You can't. Just drag the window to how big you want it and it'll remember next time. Again, you'll get used to it.

5) I'm not sure what you mean by that... are you sure you're not just unpacking the program? Drag that icon to your applications folder, then drag it also to the dock and delete the disk image file thingy for it, should be sorted.

Willis · 26 Dec 2007 at 11:57

Mohinder said:
1) That's just how macs handle text - it looks a little different but you'll get used to it.

2) Put two fingers on the track pad and click - there's your right click. Or hold ctrl and click. Or get a mouse

3) Grab the perian codec

4) You can't. Just drag the window to how big you want it and it'll remember next time. Again, you'll get used to it.

5) I'm not sure what you mean by that... are you sure you're not just unpacking the program? Drag that icon to your applications folder, then drag it also to the dock and delete the disk image file thingy for it, should be sorted.

Thanks for the info

Should my mighty mouse not have a right click

** EDIT *** Sorry sorted that one out in the mouse settings

electric ant · 26 Dec 2007 at 12:04

In addition to mohinders tips:

1) you could try calbrating your screen using Supercal http://www.bergdesign.com/supercal/
as for fonts and text, its the way OSX renders it differently to windows. OSXs method makes it more true to how text looks when its printed out hence the smoother look. Windows uses cleartype which renders the font so it looks better onscreen but may look slightly different when printed out.

2) you may need to enable the option to put two fingers on trackpad to right click. its found under Preferences>mouse and keyboard>trackpad

3)Also get Flip4Mac which lets you play .wmv in quicktime http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv_download.htm

For really troublesome files, use VLC to play them.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

4) OSX behaviour is to only maximise as big as it needs to fit whats on the page.

Willis · 26 Dec 2007 at 12:47

Ok another silly question

how do i change the colour from gray to another one on the task bars etc

PardonTheWait · 26 Dec 2007 at 13:04

System Preferences > Appearance

You don't get many options though. Programs like Candybar give you a load more options but I've not used them so shan't try and pretend I know what they do

Sic · 26 Dec 2007 at 15:08

Willis said:
Ok another silly question how do i change the colour from gray to another one on the task bars etc

depends if you mean taskbar as in the one at the top, or the taskbar as in the dock at the bottom (by default)

as Mohinder said, you can use Candybar to change the dock colour. You can also use an app called Shapeshifter to change the theme of the taskbar at the top of the screen (I've never used this)