Learning My First Mac

This weekend I was trying to play some Divx/Xvid files and Quicktime couldn't get the job done. More than a few people pointed me to VLC Media Player as the all-in-one solution for my video player needs. VLC Player plays just about every type of media file you can come up with, though I'm going to stick with Quicktime for now as my default when it's capable. So now I'm up to 2 browsers and 2 video players on the Macbook, though I'm trying to tread slowly and keep the installs light.

From the beginning, I've been trying to break from my old habits and learn the primary offerings of the Mac. I didn't install Picasa to handle my photo needs (as much as I love it), and I didn't download an alternative browser to replace Safari. For the first few weeks I've been using Safari OK, and especially with this being a brand new computer the speed of the browser feels just as good as any other. I haven't missed the myriad of browser extensions on Firefox primarily because I prefer not to use them; after years of crappy computers, I've learned to love bookmarklets as an alternative light-weight way to provide the value of extensions, and bookmarklets work as expected in Safari. I've had some trouble learning the keyboard shortcuts, just like with everything on the Mac, but once I discovered [control+tab] for quickly sliding through tabs I wasn't horribly disoriented. So why did I download Firefox last night? The Awesome Bar. After years of using Chrome and Firefox on PC's, I fully expect the URL window to act as a smart bar that can handle partial URL's, keywords, and searches seamlessly. Seriously there's no reason why this shouldn't be in Safari also, but it isn't and it drives me crazy. I'm constantly putting searches into the URL form, and getting redirected to a broken page that asks "did I mean to search", with the words now filled in to a search box. It's easy to move forward from there, but I shouldn't have to. And until Safari does something about this, I'm now splitting my time between Firefox and Safari on the Mac. That is until Chrome comes out, which will probably win me over from all browsers just like it did on the PC.

Something I needed to learn quickly in order to put together this blog - how to take screenshots in Mac OS. It turns out Mac has a lot of native screenshot capability built right into the operating system. Depending on whether you want to take a full screenshot, a screenshot of an active window, or of a custom selection, there are hot keys for all choices. Each will save the selected screenshot to a ".png" file on your desktop:

• Command-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then select an area: Take a screenshot of an area and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screenshot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop

The very first software I looked to download that didn't come pre-installed is a Twitter client. Between my home desktop PC and my work laptop PC I've played with Seesmic Desktop and Tweetdeck but for the most part I've avoided the power features and found the interfaces unattractive. For my Macbook I decided to stray from the Adobe Air apps and go with a Mac native client: Tweetie. A week later and i'm pretty happy with the choice.

It may be superficial but the number one reason I like Tweetie is its slick appearance (and really aesthetics is one of the reasons people love Mac, no?). It behaves like and iPhone app, sliding gracefully from window to window. It also has a clean interface for accessing your @replies, DM's, and managing multiple Twitter accounts seamlessly. It's not a power tool - you can't build custom groups, and you can't make columns - but I am much happier on Tweetie so far than I was in the overwhelming information stream of Tweetdeck.

Improvements I desperately want from Tweetie: There is no easy way to retweet people's messages with 1-click, and when you do it from the top navigation menu it defaults to the (Via @....) method rather than the more common "RT @...". We should have the option to choose which we want, and RT in 1-click. Also, I definitely want an easy way to pop to the top of Tweetie to see the most recent messages rather than it fixing to the last place I read - at some point when you return to your computer after a while you give up on catching up and want to go to the most recent. Hopefully Tweetie keeps up with the app and rolls out improvements, while keeping with what makes it great - the clean, pretty, and simple.

One of the first differences you notice when switching to Mac is the missing right-mouse button. And if you switch to a new Macbook Pro, the difference is even starker - there are no mouse buttons - just one big clickable multi-touch surface. Right-clicking, or secondary clicking, initiates easy access to common needs such as copy, paste, save, etc. On Mac without a two-button mouse, the right-click menu can be brought up by holding Control when you click the mouse button, and on a multi-touch trackpad it can also be brought up by clicking simultaneously with two fingers next to each other.

Since I learned to use a computer without a mouse, I rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts for moving around. Probably the most helpful windows shortcut of all time is Alt+Tab, which if you're for some reason not familiar with enables you to switch easily through all of your open application windows. The first thing I tried of course after opening a few applications on my new Macbook was Command+Tab (hold the Command key first and hit the Tab key), which I expected to replace the familiar windows action. Unfortunately, Command+Tab is only half functional. On the Mac, Command+Tab does switch from application to application, but if you have multiple instances of the application open (say, two Safari windows), then Command+Tab only brings up the most recent window of that application that you were in. Instead, if you want to switch between various application windows, you first have to switch to the application window you want using Command+Tab, and then switch between application windows using Command+"~" (the ~ key). This action will let you switch across various browser windows or from your IM list to your IM windows, etc.

My name is Kevin. I've been using PC's exclusively for over 13 years, and as a techie my lack of knowledge about Macs is embarrassing. Finally I've decided to go all in, buy a new 13'' Macbook Pro, and begin my journey into the cult of the Mac.