So, I uh... bought a mac. WTF do I do?

[Remak]

I bought a mac recently too. First thing I did was buy and install Lion (the new os). It's only 30 dollars and worth it. The swipes make life + using it so much easier and faster  .

(click to show/hide)

The best thing is now I use chrome with three windows in full screen and use the swipes to switch windows. So much faster than clicking tabs with the mouse.

- Three fingers sideways to switch programs/applications/windows
- Two fingers sideways to go back for forwards in browsers/finder windows/etc
- Three fingers up to show all programs (if you get lost and are trying to find an open application with the just normal three sideways)
- Four fingers pinched brings up a screen filled with application logos and names like on the ipad. Use two fingers to move between screens

(click to show/hide)

(Each screen looks like it holds 40 logos. This might be able to be changed in settings if you want more per page. But I don't want that)

 and you can start up a new application from anywhere if you want to do something. No need to go back to finder and open the applications folder. 
- A bunch of other cool swipes that I haven't bothered to use. There's something for zooming in on any content, I don't remember it since I never use it.

Then I installed chrome and rearranged my appbar.

Next installed, xCode, Adium (all-in-one im client), Colloquy (irc).

Then I opened chrome and imported my bookmarks + settings.

Then I opened bootcamp, and set up windows with 180gb of space.

Did my usual stuff for windows (I used ninite to install most of my programs, and then downloaded a few that wern't on the installer).

Went back to osx, and installed microsoft office, eclipse, handbrake (file converter), skype, silverlight (for netflix).

Then I went to wallbase.cc and downloaded ~50 wallpapers and set osx to switch backgrounds every 30 minutes.

Oh, I changed the default language to japanese, I think you probably wont want to do that. 

Then I connected my mac and windows through ethernet and transferred over my itunes library and a few other important documents and set up/organized those in finder.

I think I did a few other things as well. And some of those are completely out of order, but.. it's a good enough idea.

To install a file, download the dmg and then open it and the os will "mount" it. You'll see a drive icon appear on your desktop, open that drive and drag the application to what ever folder you want to install it in. (I always use applications folder).

Now I have my mac and windows set up to replace my old computer. . I think this was what you were looking for. If it's not ask where I messed up at.  . Or if you are confused at anything I said, ask that too. 

Err edit, just realized that the first thing I did was set up the network so that it could connect to the internet.. but that doesn't count, right?

[Ultra_Magnus]

so if you're not retarded you'll find your way around really fast and realize that the OS is way better. . .

OS's primary function is to be intermediary link with an interface between applications and the hardware on which they run. Thus the quantity of the programs capable on running using an OS is directly proportional to the usefulness of an OS. I am sure you are familiar with the fact of how few applications a Mac OS can run in comparison to it's main competitor, so please don't spread blatant lies like that. Maybe your words will hold any truth to them the day when I can run all my games, CAD/CAM and JTAG applications on an Apple made OS.

The are OSX programs for most things these days, sure a few extremely niche things aren't catered for like FPGA development, but they are certainly the exception rather than the rule. 

And your logic is rather flawed, if that were true we would all still be using MS DOS.  The operating system is as much about the user interface it provides and how it blends applications together as just running them.

[Bob2004]

(click to show/hide)

so if you're not retarded you'll find your way around really fast and realize that the OS is way better. . .

OS's primary function is to be intermediary link with an interface between applications and the hardware on which they run. Thus the quantity of the programs capable on running using an OS is directly proportional to the usefulness of an OS. I am sure you are familiar with the fact of how few applications a Mac OS can run in comparison to it's main competitor, so please don't spread blatant lies like that. Maybe your words will hold any truth to them the day when I can run all my games, CAD/CAM and JTAG applications on an Apple made OS.

I will admit mac has many "compatibility" issues, and I know that if all those games/programs had enough support for mac the mac would run them even more efficiently than windows. . .

from what I know (and feel free to correct me) the deal with MacOS (based of unix) is the way they manage the RAM memory
Windows fragments it as it goes along, MacOS keeps defragmenting it as it goes along, taking more space than required per program (so you could say it can run less programs if you were to saturate it) but the problem on windows systems is that the excess of fragmentaion in the RAM memory eventually causes that fatal crash, program not responding and ultimately OS freeze. . .which to this day I havent seen MacOS freeze (i've seen programs freeze but not the "I have to hold down the power button to shut it down" freeze

(click to show/hide)

Windows:
open word (requires 1 kb of RAM) (Windows grabs 1 kb of RAM)
open winamp (requires 2 kb of RAM) (windows grabs 2 kb of RAM)
open IE (requires 4 kb of RAM) (windows grabs 4 kb of RAM)
open new word file (requires 2 kb of RAM) *Windows now has fragmented Word RAM into 2 parts*
open new IE tab (requires 2 kb of RAM) *Fragmented IE RAM usage*
so your RAM looks like this:
(NOTICE RAM IS FRAGMENTED INTO 5 PIECES)
WORD 1KB| WINAMP 2KB | IE 4KB | WORD 2KB | IE 2 KB | etc. . .

while doing the same thing on a mac would look like this:
(NOTICE RAM IS FRAGMENTED INTO 3 PIECES)
WORD 3KB used (10 KB available) | WINAMP 2KB USED (10 available) | IE 6KB USED (10 available)

and as those 10 kb are filled, the RAM is defragmented and allows for more memory than its required

thats what I've understood

GoGeta, that's not really how it works (and quite honestly, UNIX doesn't really handle it too much differently to Windows anyway). And even if it was, fragmentation is irrelevant, since RAM is direct-access - it doesn't take time for the drive head to move back and forth to read from different locations, like a hard disk, so fragmentation doesn't have any effect on speed at all. And any gaps in between files aren't wasted space, since data can just be split up into several parts, so it can all be filled up if needed.

From my perspective, OSX is basically just Linux, except you have to pay for it, and it isn't customisable (so if you don't like, say, the Desktop environment, well, tough, you're stuck with it - Unlike Linux where you can switch to KDE, Gnome, whatever, as you like. Also, am I right in thinking it's impossible to get root access in OSX? Or have I misremembered that? It's been a while since I've used it).

Macs themselves just seem to be slightly shinier PCs with an irrational hatred for right mouse buttons (I know many newer Macs have two-button mice now, but none of the ones I've ever used do, and seriously - they are really irritating to use).

Macs and Mac OS aren't particularly bad, as such, they just don't do anything that something else can't do better, and since Macs tend to be about double the price - why bother?

[Ultra_Magnus]

Also, am I right in thinking it's impossible to get root access in OSX? Or have I misremembered that? It's been a while since I've used it).

Macs have sudo.

Macs themselves just seem to be slightly shinier PCs with an irrational hatred for right mouse buttons (I know many newer Macs have two-button mice now, but none of the ones I've ever used do, and seriously - they are really irritating to use).

OSX always feels like linux (well, its actually BSD, but meh) with a nice shiny interface, which isn't a bad thing to me at all.  One of the things I love about my macbook pro is the touchpad, to right click you just tap with two fingers, its ambidextrous too.

[AceHigh]

And your logic is rather flawed, if that were true we would all still be using MS DOS.  The operating system is as much about the user interface it provides and how it blends applications together as just running them.

At present time Windows can run more programs than MS DOS, so it's better. In the past when Windows 1.0 was first released, hell yeah MS DOS was better! The day when Apple OS can run more programs than Windows, I will pirate it immediately without any fanboy reservations. However if things running on Apple's OS could also run on Linux, I guess I would grab that one first because of it's flexibility towards the hardware.

[GoGeTa006]

I know the fragmentation wont reduce speed (noticeably) but the fragmentation is what causes programs to crash (in windows) I know the RAM still works (almost) instantly and the more fragmentation you have it wont necessarily affect the speed, my point is that the fragmentation is the cause of the temporary (or permanent) freeze, when the computer has to browse a whole catalog for all the fragments to "word.exe" the more fragmentation there is the higher the chance of (at some point) leaving a blank space of instructions (iono how you call those bubbles in the processor tubes) that can cause a crash or a temporary slow-down

GoGeta, that's not really how it works (and quite honestly, UNIX doesn't really handle it too much differently to Windows anyway). And even if it was, fragmentation is irrelevant, since RAM is direct-access - it doesn't take time for the drive head to move back and forth to read from different locations, like a hard disk, so fragmentation doesn't have any effect on speed at all. And any gaps in between files aren't wasted space, since data can just be split up into several parts, so it can all be filled up if needed.

From my perspective, OSX is basically just Linux, except you have to pay for it, and it isn't customisable (so if you don't like, say, the Desktop environment, well, tough, you're stuck with it - Unlike Linux where you can switch to KDE, Gnome, whatever, as you like. Also, am I right in thinking it's impossible to get root access in OSX? Or have I misremembered that? It's been a while since I've used it).

Macs themselves just seem to be slightly shinier PCs with an irrational hatred for right mouse buttons (I know many newer Macs have two-button mice now, but none of the ones I've ever used do, and seriously - they are really irritating to use).

Macs and Mac OS aren't particularly bad, as such, they just don't do anything that something else can't do better, and since Macs tend to be about double the price - why bother?

I dont know much about UNIX, but at least when I was learning about how OS's work in high school, the marvelous things I learned about OSX were justified (by the professor) because it was "UNIX based"

[fohfoh]

Mine is 10.5 that makes it... leopard?

Nah, I still have that button. So no point.

[rathoriel]

Things I have learned thus far:

- Swiping doesn't seem to exist on this older version of OSX
- Right clicking involves two fingers on the touch pad and pushing the click button
- Installation uses .dmg files similar in nature to how we use .iso in daemon tools.
- Many programs look fucktardedly different from the windows version (Skype, VLC, Word, Quicktime)
- The bottom is totally enclosed with plastic. Thus, unlike windows laptops, slides on a lap easily.
- Supposedly, a mac battery lasts longer if you never turn off the laptop. Or at least don't turn it off on a regular basis. I just remove the battery on a regular laptop
- Internal fan spins like crazy when going to youtube... flash no likey?

I am in the same boat. I got a G4 about 6 years ago cheap. Macs are showing up in my workplace now and I have to deal with them. (I am the IT guy)

Try Loading about 2000 Fonts on them to see some interesting crashes.
Good luck trying to move files. (you have to copy then delete from the old location)
draging files from a CD just creates shortcuts

Is there anything like the task manager in windows to see what process are running and how much memory they are using for the mac?

[Remak]

Is there anything like the task manager in windows to see what process are running and how much memory they are using for the mac?

Yea, called "Activity Monitor". Search for it in finder and add a link to your dock if you think you will use it often. . Otherwise just search for it when you need it. 

[rathoriel]

(click to show/hide)

The best thing is now I use chrome with three windows in full screen and use the swipes to switch windows. So much faster than clicking tabs with the mouse.

- Three fingers sideways to switch programs/applications/windows
- Two fingers sideways to go back for forwards in browsers/finder windows/etc
- Three fingers up to show all programs (if you get lost and are trying to find an open application with the just normal three sideways)
- Four fingers pinched brings up a screen filled with application logos and names like on the ipad. Use two fingers to move between screens

(click to show/hide)

(Each screen looks like it holds 40 logos. This might be able to be changed in settings if you want more per page. But I don't want that)

 and you can start up a new application from anywhere if you want to do something. No need to go back to finder and open the applications folder. 
- A bunch of other cool swipes that I haven't bothered to use. There's something for zooming in on any content, I don't remember it since I never use it.

does the middle finger do anything

[rarely_upset]

Useful Apps:
$ - Blotter - Similar to Rainmeter, puts 7 days of your iCal calendar over your desktop.
$ - CleanMyMac (clears caches/plist (preference) files that don't get deleted if you drag-to-trash to get rid of programs)
Free - MPlayerX on the App Store - Media player, works a charm.
Free - Skype
Free - uTorrent - UI is worse for skype and utorrent.
Free - Appfresh checks all your installed applications for updates.
Free - Caffeine stops the computer from automatically dimming the screen or going to sleep if you want it to stay lit for something
Free - Colloquy - IRC
Free - F.lux (also available on windows) changes screen lighting temperature or something, much easier on the eyes at night.
Free - Stuffit Expander - the native archive utility only does ZIPs.
Free - Seashore - basically MS Paint.
Free for 10.6 and earlier, $ for Lion - Growl - notifies you when things happen. works with pretty much everything, definitely worth checking out.
Free - Quicksilver - launches applications. You can use cmd+spacebar to launch from spotlight, but quicksilver is much more powerful if you take the time to learn to use its modules.
Free - Cloudapp - Cloud sharing. useful.
Free - Perian is the only good codec pack for quicksilver that I've found.
Trialware - NTFS for Mac OS (by Paragon) - allows you to write on NTFS partitions.

There are also a lot of free dashboard widgets - iStat Nano or Pro are must-haves, Stickies Plus is also great.

Multitouch is really neat, different apps handle it differently so experiment!
Two finger slide is usually scroll, moving them together/apart zooms. Three fingers is forwards/back. Four fingers is in the OS - Sideways is like alt+tabbing (or cmd+tabbing now), upwards goes to your desktop, downwards shows you all your windows.

cmd+shift+3 takes a fullscreen screenshot
cmd+shift+4 lets you click and drag over what you want - you can then hit spacebar to take a shot of a window or widget, shift and alt let you move what you've dragged.
cmd+alt+escape lets you force kill applications that have become unresponsive.
cmd+h hides the application - the only evidence that you're using it is the dot that appears on your dock.

Go through the system preferences and check everything out, there are some cool things. I really like the 'active screen corners', expose, and spaces.

[metro.]

To whomever said they have to click to change tabs on Chrome, ctrl+tab

[rarely_upset]

ctrl+shift+tab goes in the other direction!
ctrl/cmd+[1-8] takes you to the corresponding tab, ctrl/cmd+9 takes you to the last tab (far right), ctrl/cmd+0 resets the page to 100% zoom.

[Remak]

(click to show/hide)

The best thing is now I use chrome with three windows in full screen and use the swipes to switch windows. So much faster than clicking tabs with the mouse.

- Three fingers sideways to switch programs/applications/windows
- Two fingers sideways to go back for forwards in browsers/finder windows/etc
- Three fingers up to show all programs (if you get lost and are trying to find an open application with the just normal three sideways)
- Four fingers pinched brings up a screen filled with application logos and names like on the ipad. Use two fingers to move between screens

(click to show/hide)

(Each screen looks like it holds 40 logos. This might be able to be changed in settings if you want more per page. But I don't want that)

 and you can start up a new application from anywhere if you want to do something. No need to go back to finder and open the applications folder. 
- A bunch of other cool swipes that I haven't bothered to use. There's something for zooming in on any content, I don't remember it since I never use it.

does the middle finger do anything

.:|:.

[fohfoh]

Def may look into it when I have time to toy with the mac.

[Freedom Kira]

Good luck trying to move files. (you have to copy then delete from the old location)
draging files from a CD just creates shortcuts

Is there anything like the task manager in windows to see what process are running and how much memory they are using for the mac?

Using a terminal, assuming the commands are the same as Linux commands, type "mv <filename> <location>" to move files, "cp <filename> <location>" to copy files, and "top" for a task manager-like tool that only shows as many processes as will fit in the terminal window, with the most CPU-intensive processes first. Type "q" to quit the top tool.

I'm pretty sure cp and mv will work in Macs, as they are very common commands, but I'm not 100% sure about top.

[kitamesume]

I know the fragmentation wont reduce speed (noticeably) but the fragmentation is what causes programs to crash (in windows) I know the RAM still works (almost) instantly and the more fragmentation you have it wont necessarily affect the speed, my point is that the fragmentation is the cause of the temporary (or permanent) freeze, when the computer has to browse a whole catalog for all the fragments to "word.exe" the more fragmentation there is the higher the chance of (at some point) leaving a blank space of instructions (iono how you call those bubbles in the processor tubes) that can cause a crash or a temporary slow-down

i dunno which age you're from but hyperthreading seems to fill up those bubbles you call without much issues at all =P

When execution resources would not be used by the current task in a processor without hyper-threading, and especially when the processor is stalled, a hyper-threading equipped processor can use those execution resources to execute another scheduled task. (The processor may stall due to a cache miss, branch misprediction, or data dependency.)

[rarely_upset]

Good luck trying to move files. (you have to copy then delete from the old location)
draging files from a CD just creates shortcuts

Is there anything like the task manager in windows to see what process are running and how much memory they are using for the mac?

If you're moving files, there's always click and drag. Have the files in one window and the destination in another, and then click and drag.

[mgz]

I know the fragmentation wont reduce speed (noticeably) but the fragmentation is what causes programs to crash (in windows) I know the RAM still works (almost) instantly and the more fragmentation you have it wont necessarily affect the speed, my point is that the fragmentation is the cause of the temporary (or permanent) freeze, when the computer has to browse a whole catalog for all the fragments to "word.exe" the more fragmentation there is the higher the chance of (at some point) leaving a blank space of instructions (iono how you call those bubbles in the processor tubes) that can cause a crash or a temporary slow-down

GoGeta, that's not really how it works (and quite honestly, UNIX doesn't really handle it too much differently to Windows anyway). And even if it was, fragmentation is irrelevant, since RAM is direct-access - it doesn't take time for the drive head to move back and forth to read from different locations, like a hard disk, so fragmentation doesn't have any effect on speed at all. And any gaps in between files aren't wasted space, since data can just be split up into several parts, so it can all be filled up if needed.

From my perspective, OSX is basically just Linux, except you have to pay for it, and it isn't customisable (so if you don't like, say, the Desktop environment, well, tough, you're stuck with it - Unlike Linux where you can switch to KDE, Gnome, whatever, as you like. Also, am I right in thinking it's impossible to get root access in OSX? Or have I misremembered that? It's been a while since I've used it).

Macs themselves just seem to be slightly shinier PCs with an irrational hatred for right mouse buttons (I know many newer Macs have two-button mice now, but none of the ones I've ever used do, and seriously - they are really irritating to use).

Macs and Mac OS aren't particularly bad, as such, they just don't do anything that something else can't do better, and since Macs tend to be about double the price - why bother?

I dont know much about UNIX, but at least when I was learning about how OS's work in high school, the marvelous things I learned about OSX were justified (by the professor) because it was "UNIX based"

might you be thinking about memory leaks in software that causes them to exponentially bloat and eventually crash?

[datora]

.
Actually, I got nothing.

Since I'm pretty up to geek on a lot of tech, people usually call me when they have an issue.  Macs have driven me nuts a lot over the years, mostly because I've never had one to play with myself.  And, frankly, not interested.  If I had that sort of time, I have a list of about 100 other things to do in networking, 512 flavors of linux, ten flavors of windoze, 7 or 10 PCs to rebuild, etc. etc ....

However, if you've not seen it yet, kinda sums up a lot of my mac experiences: