Bought Macbook Pro today...never used a Mac...NEED HELP!!!

synnack · Post by **synnack** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 5:19 pm

gomi wrote:
jesso wrote:oh, and u shud split your hd into 2. (say 40 gigs for programes) the rest for wotever.
why?

it's one physical hard drive, it it dies you just lose both partitions.
you will get no speed increase from partitioning it, it doesn't magically
enable new platter arms to read/write on the second partition at the
same time..

This recommendation is seen a lot in unix circles and in some ways it makes sense. You can format your OS partition and resinstall for example without much risk of losing your personal data. There are also different mount options for different partitions in unix (and mac) that seperating them like this gives you the flexibility to enable or disable them just for your personal data. or just for your OS drive.

Personally I don't, i just leave it as default.. but that is part of the reasoning why others recommend this.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 6:13 pm

The only reason to partition anymore is to to your audio data on the first partition, and thus closer to the outer edge of the HD for great throughput (and thus higher track count). In use though, I found this totally unneeded on my MBP, though I had tried it for a bit.

I'd recommend the book "The Missing Manual for OSX Tiger" personally, easy enough to find at any major bookstore. It's a nice and easy reference to not only OSX, but all the little apps you get with it.

Key commands are definitely much more intuitive on OSX, and huge time saves, so that's a good tip. Otherwise my best advice would be to NOT fight the way OSX organizes things. Keep your data in the folders OSX defaults to most of the time, and it'll all make sense in a couple weeks. Just keep using it day after day, and hold offf on any large project work until you feel a bit more confortable. That way if you do move something you shouldn't have (unlikely), or want to start fresh once you 'get it', it's very easy to just reinstall OSX and not lose any work.

Oh yes, installing applications on OSX is much different than XP, you typically just drag the new app to the applications folder, that's it

Brainstormer · Post by **Brainstormer** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 7:10 pm

You won't be disappointed, take a bit of time to get into it, get a few magazines (I personally prefer Mac Format) which you may find helpful resources. But there's not a great deal you need to know, it's not like a PC where you need to spend half your life tweaking it.

nylarch · Post by **nylarch** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 12:38 am

If you want to open a file in a program just drag it onto the dock - i.e. download an mp3 and just drag it onto iTunes. Email someone a file, just drag it onto Mail. Lovely once you get used to it.

Get comfortable with it for a few months and then get into Quicksilver:

http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/

yourmom · Post by **yourmom** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 2:21 am

the_planet wrote:My #1 advice: LEARN THE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS!!!

Pressing command+key is a LOT faster than using the trackpad and hunting for icons. It also makes you look like a super-hacker. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459

I just got that link by doing the following:
cmd+tab (opened new tab)
cmd+k (google seaerched "list of osx keyboard shortcuts")
cmd+l (to get the URL)
cmd+w (close the tab)
cmd+v (pasted the URL)

Quick as hell. Learn your shortcuts!

+10000000

the shortcuts is what makes osx what it is. and force yourself to use expose the first couple of days. (f9,f10,f11)... that, along with osx's version of alt+tab (where you can hit cmd+tab to sort through the open apps and then to quit every app that is open just keep cmd held down and hit q a bunch of times) really have a firm hold on me... dashboard is nice too. i really like keeping a weather radar and a calculator and stickes just a button press away (f12)..

another fun shortcut is ctrl+alt+cmd+8 --- it inverts the colors on the screen. great for night-time work.

OvertoneZero · Post by **OvertoneZero** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 3:31 am

Ableton macxhine?

The first thing you should do is download BootCamp and install XP.

dataspore · Post by **dataspore** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:07 am

the_planet wrote:My #1 advice: LEARN THE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS!!!

yes!
so much more efficient.

dataspore · Post by **dataspore** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:08 am

edit: goldurn neighbours wireless

Brainstormer · Post by **Brainstormer** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:12 am

OvertoneZero wrote:Ableton macxhine?

The first thing you should do is download BootCamp and install XP.

I'm wondering, if you have XP installed on a mac, would it then become prone to viruses?

Brainstormer · Post by **Brainstormer** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:21 am

yourmom wrote:the shortcuts is what makes osx what it is. and force yourself to use expose the first couple of days. (f9,f10,f11)...

Like the poster of this thread, I use a MacBook Pro too; to use these features you need to hold 'fn'+ F9/F10/F11 as those keys are used for the night-time keyboard illumination controls.

tricil · Post by **tricil** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 5:47 am

Brainstormer wrote:
yourmom wrote:the shortcuts is what makes osx what it is. and force yourself to use expose the first couple of days. (f9,f10,f11)...
Like the poster of this thread, I use a MacBook Pro too; to use these features you need to hold 'fn'+ F9/F10/F11 as those keys are used for the night-time keyboard illumination controls.

you can go into your keyboard preferences and reassign that to where fn +F# will do the speakers, brightness etc.

the command is called Use F1-F12 to control software features

then reassign expose to something like CMD F9-F12 with command held on each in the keyboard shortcut pane.

now your F1-12 keys can be used in live as they were on windows =)

ashuridesuyo · Post by **ashuridesuyo** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:24 am

Does anyone else use sticky keys? They're available in the System Prefs under Universal Access. Just love it. Maybe the first hour is tough when you're not used to it, but if you're going to start doing keyboard shortcuts this will save a lot of finger acrobatics.

Let me know what you all think about this. It seems to change lives for those that get into it.

Ableton, for some bizarre reason, is the only software I've ever used that doesn't always register shortcuts this way, though.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:54 am

tricil wrote: you can go into your keyboard preferences and reassign that to where fn +F# will do the speakers, brightness etc.

the command is called Use F1-F12 to control software features

then reassign expose to something like CMD F9-F12 with command held on each in the keyboard shortcut pane.

now your F1-12 keys can be used in live as they were on windows =)

+1, that's what I did too. Just makes more sense to me, it's the way every other laptop works too.

Bought Macbook Pro today...never used a Mac...NEED HELP!!!

Sticky Keys