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Mac

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The latest version of Mac OS X is Snow Leopard version 10.6.4.

Online Tutorials/Help/Tips/Tricks/Guides:

Basic System Info and Navigation:

  • Use the Apple logo in the upper left corner of the OS to manually check for system updates, change system preferences, see recent apps/files, shutdown, reboot, and more.
  • For information about your computer, click the Apple logo and select “About This Mac”. For much more detailed information, load the System Profiler, found in the Applications/Utilities folder.
  • To quit any application, select the application and click its title on the menu bar across the top of the screen, always located next to the Apple logo in the upper left. Also, you can hit CMD-Q, or right-click the Dock and choose to quit. Simply clicking the red “X” on a program window won’t completely close an app unless it is a single-window app by nature, which is kind of rare. (Mac System Preferences and Keychain are two such examples.)
  • Use keyboard keys F8, F9, F10, and F11 for Expose features toggling windows. F8 is Spaces (make sure you have Spaces turned on). F9 spreads and shows you all windows. F10 is like F9, but only shows windows for the application you have selected, F11 moves all windows out of the way. Try them all. With Spaces, you can hit F8, followed by F9 to show all Spaces in a spread.
  • F12 takes you do the Dashboard widgets. Once in Dashboard mode, clicking the white plus sign [+] at the lower left corner of your screen will allow you to add and remove widgets. I’ll provide links to some Dashboard widgets.
  • Screen captures: CMD-SHIFT-3 captures the whole screen. CMD-SHIFT-4 gives you crosshairs to drag a box around anything to capture. The captures are automatically saved to the desktop as a PNG file.

Basic App Information:

I’m assuming you have an Intel processor in your Mac. If so, when searching for Mac apps, pay attention if the program is listed as Intel-only or “Universal.” If so, you’ll probably see a Mac “Universal” logo (shown below). This means it is coded both Intel processors and the older PowerPC chip. Old programs written for the PowerPC chip had to run via the Rosetta emulator. Quicken 2007 and Office 2004 are two examples of the old code. Nearly all apps today are Universal. If they aren’t, seek an Intel-only version. Mac OS X 10.6 is in itself Intel-only.

Mac Universal Binary Logo

Apps are installed by dragging the software to the Applications folder. Most software comes in the form of a DMG file (disk image). Launch the DMG file, which will unpack and mount to the desktop. From there, you drag the app to the Applications folder. This will be made obvious when you “mount” the new software (via unpacking the DMG). Some programs have a package installer, showing not a DMG file, but a MPKG file. (Office is one). Apps are removed by dragging an application to the Trash from the Applications folder. That said, third party apps do exist for removing all particles of an application. I’ll mention one below.

For a list of Mac apps, one source (among many) is Apple’s Download page. Apple’s site is a good place to start. Others include MacOrchard and OpenSourceMac.

Google makes Mac versions of their apps. Google Earth, Picasa, a Gmail notifier, and more, can be downloaded directly from Google. Picasa will be redundant if you are going to use iPhoto.

Must-Have Installs:

  1. Growl. Desktop pop-up notifications that is compatible for a lot of Mac apps.
  2. Flip4Mac WMV Plugin. Play WMV format video files seamlessly in Quicktime. This company was apparently bought by someone else. It used to be flip4mac.com.
  3. Adobe Flash Player. Obviously a necessity. Make sure you have the latest version. A single Flash install will take care of Safari, Firefox, and Camino.
  4. Java is installed by the Mac OS by default. Apple handles this and you cannot download/install it yourself. You already have it within the OS. Don’t worry about this.

General Apps:

  • Web browsers. Safari (included on the Mac OS), Firefox, or Camino. Camino is a Mac-only offering from Mozilla. It is fast, but I don’t use it since it doesn’t support Firefox extensions. Camino is a very barebones experience. Opera is available for Mac as well, but it’s the least recommended of the browser bunch. Finally, Google Chrome has been released for the Mac!
  • Email. Use the Apple Mail program included with OSX. Other options are Thunderbird and Entourage (part of MS Office). I don’t recommend using Entourage. If you are a Gmail user, the best email notifier for the Mac is a program called Notify.
  • Calendar. Use iCal, included with OSX. Entourage can also be used if you have MS Office. Of course, Google Calendar is a great online solution.
  • FTP. Cyberduck. Open-source. My favorite. Others love FileZilla (cross-platform), or RBrowser.
  • Chat. Adium. Adium is open source, and arguably the best multi-protocol chat program for MacOS. Of course, you can use Apple’s iChat software as well.
  • Office Suites. Microsoft Office 2008, Apple iWork, or the free OpenOffice. MS Office has your usual Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Entourage. Entourage is a Mac version of Outlook, but not as full-featured. Microsoft has said that Office 2011 will finally replace Entourage with a full version of Outlook for the Mac. OpenOffice on the Mac runs a bit slow and clunky, but hey, it’s free. NeoOffice is a Mac port of OpenOffice, which is worth considering. Scrivener is also a fantastic writing and research tool, and worth checking out.
  • Disc burning. I prefer Disco. Not free, but simple, easy, and it works on a variety of projects. If you want something more than audio CD burning via iTunes, you’ll need a separate burning application. Toast is the most robust, and is made by Roxio. Toast is pricey and has more features than the average user needs, especially in the Titanium editions.
  • Photo editing. iPhoto (included with iLife), or Photoshop Elements Mac. Of course, Photoshop CS4 is available, but very pricey and hard to pirate these days.
  • Web authoring. Dreamweaver is the best, at a steep price. An alternative is RapidWeaver, a nice-looking application, but I have never tried it. iWeb is included in the iLife suite, but it is pretty much for novices. For the best HTML text editor, use Taco HTML Edit.
  • Advanced text editor (beyond TextEdit included in the Mac OS). TextWrangler. Top ranks in Macworld magazine. Useful for multi-file search/replace and whatnot.
  • Bulk file renaming. NameMangler. My favorite bulk file-renamer. Useful for music and photo file renaming, among others.
  • RSS readers. NetNewsWire and NewsFire are both great apps to choose from. Both free!
  • BitTorrent client. Transmission. The best. (Only necessary if you use BitTorrent file sharing.)
  • IRC chat. Colloquy. Others prefer X-Chat Aqua.
  • Banking/Finance. I prefer MoneyWell, this is the best on the Mac for my needs. iBank is a good program as well. Quicken has a new 2010 product for Mac called Quicken Essentials for Mac. Quicken is very expensive and missing important features. Cha-Ching and Moneydance are others. Moneydance is Java-based to be cross-platform, and will probably run slower than other programs. iFinance is extremely basic and does not impress me.
  • File decompression. The Unarchiver. The Mac OS handles zip files automatically, but for other formats (.rar, etc) you want this. There are others, and some may disagree with my selection here.
  • Clipboard tool. Jumpcut. Free and awesome.
  • File compression. Zip files are handled by the OS automatically, but for other formats and options, there are many programs. I like the free YemuZip and 7zX. Also worthwhile are ApiMac Compress Files, Springy Archiver, Stuffit, and many more. Stuffit is the most robust, but it’s also very bloated and installs stuff everywhere. It’s also very confusing. Personally, I don’t like it. I’d downloaded a hacked version once, but deleted it because I hated it so much.
  • Video player. VLC Player. This free cross-platform video player will play most any file you can throw at it, and it works in concert with Handbrake to rip copy-protected discs.
  • WiFi and Bluetooth Networking Tool. iStumbler.
  • Backup. Time Machine – included in the Leopard Mac OS. To tweak Time Machine with more options and backup intervals, try Time Machine Editor (not sponsored by Apple).
  • Online backup. Carbonite or Mozy Backup. Mozy offers 2 GB free.

Other Apps:

  • Anti-virus. ClamXav or iAntiVirus, both free. You really don’t need an anti-virus program, but you can scan for Windows viruses in files you send along to Windows users, for instance. Overall security on the Mac is a growing concern with their increased popularity, so such security tools may become more popular in the future.
  • Thorough uninstaller. AppZapper. Not free, but you are granted three free zaps at first, and only $12 to purchase the software. See if you like. If you have a new Mac, you won’t need this type of thing for a while. After some time, I bought this one, myself. The new version 2 of AppZapper has a fantastic interface.
  • System maintenance. Onyx. This is a great, free program, but you don’t have to use such a thing. You certainly won’t need this for a long time on a new computer.
  • File encryption. TrueCrypt. Open source and free. The Mac OS itself only allows you to encrypt your entire user folder, or not at all. I don’t know if you’ll need or want this.
  • Journal. MacJournal. The best of its kind, if you are into such a thing.
  • Video ripping. Handbrake. MactheRipper is another solution. Do a Google search for that app, as the authorities have disabled the official site due to piracy concerns.
  • DVD audio ripping. Audio Hijack Pro. This is the easiest and best solution to achieve this. Even better, you can use the program for free for captures that are less than 10 minutes!
  • Audio converter. (FLAC to MP3, etc.) Max is my personal choice. It is a free open-source Mac audio converter that works wonders. Another choice is Switch. If downloading Switch, be sure to grab the Intel version, assuming you are using an Intel Mac.

A Note About Using the Home/End Keys:

As a former Windows user, I have to address the issue I have with the HOME and END keys on the keyboard. On Windows and Linux when you are typing text, hitting the HOME key takes you to the start of the line you are typing on, and END takes you to the end of that line.

On the Mac, this doesn’t work the same. I should mention that in some programs it does, such as Microsoft Office and Dreamweaver. I think the Mac OS needs an explicit setting in the OS itself to address this potential situation. Today, I have to hit ALT-[RIGHT ARROW] and ALT-[LEFT ARROW] do to what I said above. This took some getting used to, and does work, but with one fatal exception–web browsing. Hitting ALT-left/right moves forward/backward in browsing history if you don’t have a text field selected on a web page. For switchers from PC to Mac, this can be frustrating.

page updated: 07.18.10