David Alison, a self claimed “Mac Hater” wrote up a nice account of his first two months using a Mac. He states the Mac isn’t perfect like any piece of technology but he is finding he really likes using the Mac and in fact he doesn’t really use his Windows/Unix machines all that much anymore - “I’m having too much fun exploring my Mac and scheming to get a Mac Pro.”

Some Quotes:

“Before I got my Mac I was concerned about Right-Click mouse support. I remembered when all Mac mice were of the single button variety and it was something that seemed crazy to me, given the value of having at least 2 mouse buttons. Well, right clicking is very much available and useful on a Mac and in fact I use a 5 button Logitech mouse every day.”

“Over the last 2 months I have downloaded nearly 50 different applications and utilities, though that’s not even scratching the surface of what’s available. The range of applications is staggering and covers just about any category I could think of.”

“One of my favorite applications comes with OS X though and that’s Time Machine. Seamless hourly backups of my machine that took minutes to set up and just happens without me doing anything. I love it when computers do the work for you.”

Read David Alison’s full Article

 (UPDATE -  they’re done and they are live, you can get them here)

I wanted to give you a bit of a teaser preview of some Video Tutorials I’m working on, they’re part of a series I’m calling “Quick Start Your Mac”. There will be a total of approximately 40 or so short and informative videos shot using screen capture at a very crisp 1024 x 768 resolution so they look like I am sitting right there in person demoing them on “your” Mac.

Here is a preliminary list of what the end content should look like:

Navigation

• Finder Views
• Cover Flow & Quick Look
• Apple Menu
• Menu Bar
• Dock
• Red-Yellow-Green
• Opening Files or Applications
• Expose
• Stacks
• Spotlight
• The Trash
• Inserting & Ejecting Media
• Key Commands
• Quitting Applications
• Managing Open Applications

System & Settings

• System Preferences
• Power Management
• System Info
• Installing Applications
• Deleting Applications
• Setting up a Printer
• Change Desktop Images
• Sharing your Mac
• Right Mouse Click
• Changing File Names
• Time Machine

Extras

• File Management
• Contextual Menus & Items
• Force Quiting
• Save as PDF
• Zoom
• Target Disk Mode
• Recent Items
• Word Processing Options
• Web Browser Options
• Media Player Options
• Widgets
• Help menu
• Software Updates
• Windows on a Mac

I have not worked out the cost as of yet for the series but I do plan on making them available as an affordable download.

So take a look at a few samples and let me know what you think…

(Depending on your Internet connection the movies may take several minutes to load and play)

Turning the Dock 2D

There are people out there who don’t like the new 3D Dock in Leopard. Well if you are one of them, here is a quick and easy terminal command to make it 2D. In Applications > Utilities > Terminal, type:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

killall Dock

This will turn the Dock 2D. If you want to put it back to normal just type:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO

killall Dock Read the rest of this entry »

Some Tips and Ticks Leopard style, thanks to Wraith2021 from our S2M Forum.

Spaces

Application Binding In Spaces

To set up application binding, launch ‘System Preferences’ and select the “Exposé & Spaces” pane under the “Personal” heading. Switch over to the “Spaces” pane, and press the little plus button below the “Application Assignments” box. In the pop up, choose an application and select “Add.” Under the “Space” column, select which space the application is to be assigned to. Now, whenever you attempt to launch a bound application, OS X will immediately shift to the assigned space and launch it there.

Application Binding to All Spaces

Launch ‘System Preferences’ and select the “Exposé & Spaces” pane under the “Personal” heading. Switch over to the “Spaces” pane, and press the little plus button below the “Application Assignments” box. In the pop up, choose an application and select “Add.” Under the “Space” column, select “Every Space”. Now, whenever you switch spaces the application will follow you to every space you move to.

Moving Windows Between Spaces

If you want to move a window or application between spaces you can do this a number of ways. If you want to stay focused on a single window or application just drag it to the top, bottom, left or right of the screen while keeping hold of it with your mouse, this will switch to the corresponding space without having to let go. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t really need to say too much here, the graph says it all! Interestingly, Leopard is a big buying factor for PC users, 1 in 4 say Leopard makes them more likely to purchase a Mac in the future.

Get the entire story here.

Is it a coincidence that the MacBook Air, Time Capsule and the Apple TV 2 software update all come out in about two weeks time? I have a theory about this. There are definitely some overlapping technologies going on and in order to pull it all off I believe leopard is going to need that 10.5 2 update that we have all been hearing about to pull it all off…

The MacBook Air doesn’t have an Optical drive so it requires you purchase an External USB SuperDrive or you share another computer’s optical drive on your network. Strangely enough this feature would sure come in handy with an Apple TV since it also doesn’t have an internal optical drive, maybe this handy little Apple external USB SuperDrive could also be used with an Apple TV 2? Maybe an Apple TV 2 will allow you both options?

And then there’s Time Capsule! What gives here? What is so different about a drive being internal or externally connected to an AirPort Extreme’s USB port? I know people are talking about network drop outs and how they can affect transfers in mid process potentially corrupting or erasing data, but this is Apple we’re talking about, I’m sure they have this all figured out??

Basically what I’m saying is I think Apple has a few more ticks up their sleeve and it makes a lot of sense that the Leopard OS X 10.5.2 update will also play a big role in all of this. Stay tuned…

For those who are regulars on the Switching to Mac Forum, you already know that I have been putting off Switching my main Mac to Leopard. The reason being - it’s my main work machine, combined with starting my S2M Computer Consulting business and needing as few distractions as possible, some compatibility issues with my productivity software and syncing programs and the potential for some other Leopard bugs to get in the way of me actually getting stuff done.

I have installed Leopard on several machines, two other Macs in my home (iBook G4 & MacBook) but both of these machines where not mission critical being they belong to my Wife and Mother-in-law. I also installed Leopard on a few Customer machines. In most cases I simply used the Upgrade option but all the Macs in these situations had very basic software configuration unlike my main work Mac.

I really needed to get Leopard on my MacBook Pro, there simply is no better way to get to know an OS other than using it day to day. Kind of like when you get married, All that really good stuff from when you where dating is still good but now you get to see a bit more of the darker side… Read the rest of this entry »

Here are some interesting comments found in an Article on The Tech Talk Blog about Mac vs PC or should I say Vista vs OS X system bloat and how this affects Ram usage and Boot times.

CreativeTechs has a couple of really good Pocket Guides to keep handy for when you might need them.

Mac OS X Shortcuts - A Tiny Guide

My Mac Won’t Start - A Tiny Guide

These guides are in PocketMod format: Here are the instructions on how to fold and use them:

Thanks to Wraith2021 for the heads-up

Here’s a great visual comparison of Mac OS vs Windows OS found on gizmodo. It starts with Windows 95 vs Mac OS 7 and goes right up to Windows Vista vs Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. Kind of takes you back a bit but I think a shot of Windows 3.11 would have been nice too see also.