[Tom_Diola]

But what are you thinking?

You can run a PC on a Mac. . . So what's the question?



Best of both worlds

[dabigkahuna]

I may run windows on the Mac - but might not. I'd definitely prefer not to!

[mdawson]

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Tom_Diola wrote:

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You're better off buying a Macintosh and then asking questions.

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> dabigkahuna wrote:
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> While I don't expect to figure out everything with brief visits to the Apple store or getting answers here, I do firmly believe that it would be foolish to spend the kind of money I would be spending on a Mac without learing more about its pluses, minuses, and quirks.
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> After all, I am thinking about getting an iMac (24" preferrably). That ain't chump change!

No the 24-inch iMac is definitely not chump change, but as a longtime participant on these boards, Tom_Diola is coming from a perspective of having knowledge of something of which you are not aware. Back in 2005, Apple introduced the Mac mini at a $500 price point. Aside from being the ideal system for people that have very basic computing needs, a second Mac for the kids or the perfect PC for numerous specialty projects, the original Mac mini was finally a way for potential Switchers to test the waters without spending $1000+ to get a Mac. The Mac mini was even significantly less expensive than previous sub-$1000 Macs (e.g., the eMac) that never really got too far below the $800 price point.

Once the Intel transition occurred, Apple gained another means to allow Switchers to buy a Mac at minimum risk. Virtualization software such as Parallels Desktop and later Fusion allow Mac users to run Windows, or just about any other OS, in virtualization alongside OS X. For Mac users it meant being able to run any Windows-only software they had to use (e.g., for work) with a less than negligibly trivial performance hit (read: unperceivable in most cases) unlike in the PowerPC days where the only way to accomplish this was to use an emulator resulting in performance hits of 50 percent or more. For the Switcher, it provides a means to run legacy Windows applications until they can completely switch to OS X-compatible software. In the worst case, should a Switcher decide that switching was a bad idea, they could do much of there work on the virtual machine.

Apple soon jumped on the bandwagon, but instead of creating virtualization software, Apple added a feature to OS X called Boot Camp that allows you to boot your Mac directly into Windows as the primary OS effectively turning your Mac into a Wintel PC. People often refer to this as running Windows natively, but that is not completely accurate as, to the best of my knowledge, you cannot simply create a Windows boot volume, install it in a Mac and have it work; OS X must be present to facilitate the boot onto a Windows volume but performance-wise, Windows would operate as expected on a similarly spec?d Wintel PC.

So while it is true that spending $1800+ on a 24-inch iMac is no chump change, you can easily convert it to a Wintel PC should you in the long run decide that OS X is not for you. In the end though, as Tom_Diola and I stated, it is going to be very hard for you to get your inquiries properly answered if you are not on a Mac or at least providing detailed information about what your problems or features that confuse you.

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dabigkahuna wrote:

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My version of Word for a PC DOES have buttons for copy/paste. I don't know if they were there originally, but you can add buttons from a rather extensive set of options so either they already were there or I was able to add them years ago. My version is 2000. The one on the mac was, I assume, the most recent since I was trying it at the Apple store.

Office 2008 has been available since January, so it is most definitely what you were using on a Mac in an Apple Store. Microsoft chose to completely change the user interface in Office:mac just as they did in Office 2007 for Windows. The two latest versions of Office for both OS X and Windows are somewhat similar but different and both are completely different from their predecessors. If you have Office 2000 then you are three versions behind in Office for Windows and Office 2007 (Windows) would be as alien to you as Office 2008 (Mac). Office 97 through Office 2003 for Windows have user interfaces that would be familiar to you, as would Office 98 through Office 2004 for the Mac although the latter three in the Mac series had a more Mac-like feel to their UI.

In the case of the latest versions of Office, Office 2007 completely differs from Windows? user interface standards. Office 2008?s interface, while similar to 2007?s, has adopted some OS X UI styles that many, if not most Mac developers have chosen not to employ; such as document-attached toolbars. In either case, if there are no copy/paste buttons on the toolbar in Word 2008, which every screenshot I have seen would seem to indicate, and you cannot add them to the toolbar then that is a matter that you really need to address with Microsoft?s Mac Business Unit as it has nothing to do with the Apple, the Mac or OS X. While I prefer to use keyboard shortcuts, I do believe that the user should be able to customize the toolbar with buttons that they will use as every other Mac program that follows that type of UI style permits.

dabigkahuna wrote:
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What is the difference between minimizing a program and clicking the X icon? Without having a mac to experiment on, I don't see the difference or benefit of having both those options but not having a button to quit the program.

Even with little time on a Mac, I cannot understand why the minimize button would be beyond your comprehension given that it operates exactly as it does in Windows. The only difference is that the Mac has never had application windows, so it is impossible to minimize an application. So again, the close, minimize and maximize buttons on a Mac have no impact on an application; they are there to control the document window to which they are attached and not the application.

Clicking the ??? button closes the document; thus the document is removed from memory and you have to reopen it (read: have the application retrieve the stored file from some storage medium such as your hard drive) in order to access that file again. Just as in Windows, clicking ?-? button minimizes the document to the Dock. The document is still open and therefore still in memory. If you click on the document icon in the Dock, it will maximize; if the document is the only one open in its associated application, then it will automatically maximize if you switch into that application from another.

To a point I can understand that Windows very different Window management style can cause some confusion, as it has always been the case that people used to Windows close documents on Macs and erroneously assume that they closed the application. I would see this all the time in computer labs at my alma mater where a PC user would walk away after using a Mac and the application(s) they were using would still be running even though all of the documents had been closed. I also think part of the problem for you is that the Dock in OS X is as different as it is similar to Windows Taskbar, despite the fact that they are both based on NeXTSTEP?s Dock.

[dabigkahuna]

The Mac Mini may cost $500, but then you have to add the monitor, etc. Even $500 is nothing to sneeze at when you are trying to pay off a mortgage when I know, if I like the Mac, that I'd want something much better.

The ability of Macs to run windows is one reasons I'm looking seriously at a Mac (though I'd prefer to avoid having to throw more money in it for windows), but I'm considering many issues, hence my questions.

I probably won't get all the answers, but that isn't the point. I'll get SOME answers and I'll get some feedback which will lead me to check out things I otherwise wouldn't have even thought of. Already have a small list just from this thread that I'll follow-up on on my next visit to the store.

I understand the minimize button - that isn't the issue. I didn't understand what benefit there is to have a minimize button for a program AND the X button. However, some things you said about this in your latest post gave me something to check on next chance I get which might clarify it. I THINK I may understand it, but want to test my impression.

You are correct that the dock in OS X is different than windows taskbar. I'll definitely be persuing those issues a bit at a time (last visit I found I could hide the dock in OS X, just like my taskbar).

One of my big concerns is how much I can fit and how I can organize it. If I went with a laptop, that would be an even bigger issue.

As a comparison, on my 15" screen, I put the taskbar on the left side (auto-hide) and expanded it to cover about 3" of the screen when visible.

The top third shows open documents or applications. Because this is on the side of the screen, rather than the bottom, I can see a LOT at once. I'd estimate about 12 items, easy to read. If I get more, it splits into two columns - just a bit harder to read, but this is rare for me.

Below that, I have three sections (one below the other) that contain program icons (small with no text). Each section contains a different type of programs (games, online stuff, serious programs like Office). By dividing the sections and putting them in the order I want, it is easy to find what I want. With the space I allow right now, I can fit 50 programs.

Below those, I have more rarely used stuff, including text to remind me what they are since I could forget between uses - mostly utilities.

Since I can change the width of the bar, I can change it for pretty much whatever I need even on my small screen. I do wonder how flexible the OS X dock is in comparison. I've seen the icons get smaller as you add more and I've seen that the right side has a mark for separating programs from documents. But I haven't found out yet if there are other ways you can organize things. I assume you can drag and drop the apps to put them in a convenient order, but beyond that, I have no idea yet. That's on the list for checking too.

[loriwass]

Couple thoughts from someone who made the leap from Vista to a 24" Imac at home in May, but still use XP at work.

I use an application called Quicksilver which allows me to easily and quickly call up applications or documents (which will open up Pages) with just a few keystrokes. I don't need to bother with recently opened documents features--there are several documents that I use every day, and I just need three letters (not even the first 3 letters) to open them (Quicksilver learns your habits). Don't need much on the dock. I also use a feature called spaces--I've set up six spaces and set options to have particular apps load in these spaces. e.g., email/calendar goes in one, browsers in another, pages in a third, photoshop in a fourth, itunes in another, etc. F8 lets me see all 6 spaces at once and whatever is opened in these spaces (and then select which space I want to go to next), or I can COMMAND TAB to move around in the open apps (there are other ways to jump from space to space). I never need to minimize anything. As someone who prefers to have multliple apps open all the time, Spaces is a terrific feature to make that way of working very smooth. Command Q is easy to quit an app. I had already been using control c/v/x etc, so I don't miss not having any special buttons in Pages. I didn't like the Mighty mouse, and was able to program my old windows mouse to use the extra buttons to do things I wanted to have handy with one mouse click.

I do have brain freeze at work when I have to remember the physical position of the command key on the Mac keyboard is different from the physical position of the control key on Windows, but otherwise I don't have too much trouble going back and forth between the two worlds on a daily basis.

I haven't made the time to learn all the other keystroke shortcuts yet that would make my mac life even easier, but I can function pretty well.

On of my pet peeves is not being able to click in the URL section of Safari and instantly have the entire URL highlighted so I can type a different URL--I guess you have to keep clicking several times before that happens And I prefer the windows way that home key is the start of a line rather than the top of the document.

All I can say is I'm glad I made the switch!

[mdawson]

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loriwass wrote:

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I prefer the windows way that home key is the start of a line rather than the top of the document.

The ?home? and ?end? keys work as a PC user would expect in Microsoft Office applications, but are not recognized in the same way in other Mac applications or the operating system. The original Mac keyboards were simply the core key set and was modeled after the Apple II?s keyboard. Mac keyboards with built-in numeric keypads appeared a few years later and the Mac Extended keyboards upon which modern Mac keyboards are based that include navigation keys between the standard key cluster and numeric keypad did not appear until about 1990 when the Macintosh IIsi was introduced.

For that reason in the absence of ?home? and ?end? keys command ← and command → were used, respectively. Mac users are used to those shortcut keys so the legacy functionality has remained in OS X. Unlike in Windows, in the Mac OS the ?home? and ?end? keys operate more like such keys did on dumb terminals and old text editors on 1980s era desktops. The ?home? key was used to place the cursor at the home position on the screen (e.g., the uppermost, leftmost character position) and the ?end? key placed the cursor at the end position (e.g., the bottommost, rightmost character position). In the a GUI-based operating system like the Mac OS, the home and end positions were document-dependent instead of screen-dependent particularly as a graphical user interface is dynamic and does not have character positions.

[dabigkahuna]

Quicksilver sounds like it may be quite useful. "Spaces" may be even more handy if it lets me set up a dock with different programs on it in each especially. I can easily see me switching spaces much like now I switch applications or documents.

I almost always have Word, Excel, Firefox, and Thunderbird open all the time. Word will have a couple files open typically and Excel would have at least three and often five or more. I'll pop a game up sometimes too or use Access on occasion. Everything else is less common, but I do use a lot of other programs from time to time.

Glad you brought up the mouse. From what I've seen, I won't be satisfied with the Apple mouse either. I love my Logitech wireless mouse. It has the usual left/right and scroll wheel (which also clicks). But in front of the scroll wheel, I programmed a button that steadily scrolls up, another behind the wheel that steadily scrolls down. Another button behind that will close the active window. This is mainly used with my browser, closing the active tab.

Two buttons on the side are also very handy. I programed one to increase the text size on screen every time it is clicked while the other one shrinks the text. I do this process a LOT due to both my small screen as less than ideal eyesight! So I definitely want to make sure I can get something similar for a mac.

[dabigkahuna]

I was wondering if a Mac can do this. I think it would be nice to be able to essentially set a time for the mac to shutdown (or hibernate, whatever). Even better, I'd love to have it boot at a certain time and even load up certain programs. Best of all if it could load the browser, go to a web page with streaming audio, and activate that audio option without me doing anything. Any of that possible?

Another thing I'd like is a media player that does one particular thing Windows Media Player does. I can play back a sound file and change the speed over a pretty wide range, but the pitch stays the same (so you don't hear it like chipmunk voices). I have another PC programs that lets you change speed, but apparently it just makes it MUCH faster (unintelligible) and doesn't maintain the pitch. Anything on the mac or third party software that will handle this?

[Tom_Diola]

Yes

Have you read anything on the Apple Site? http://www.apple.com/getamac/

So you're going to ask these questions until January?

Moderators need to start a forum (call it):
I'm a PC user trapped in a Windows World and I want to ask 12,000 questions before I buy a Mac.

[dabigkahuna]

I've been to the apple site.

The number of questions will be entirely determined by what things come up that I have questions about. Why not? It is a good way to learn.

[mdawson]

Asking questions is fine dabigkahuna , but posing new questions in an existing thread on a help forum is always a bad idea. At this point your audience is much smaller than it was when you first posted on Sunday. So you are severely limiting your response pool.

You have also long since past the point where most of your inquires have anything to do with OS X; in fact your first post mostly contained questions that really should have been posted in the Mac Software section. At this point, I would strongly suggest that you post new questions as new threads under the appropriate forum sections to broaden your audience and improve your chances of getting helpful responses from a wider range of participants. For instance, your question about working with audio files should be under the Create section where people with that type of experience are more likely to see it.

Lastly, the reason Tom_Diola has asked if you are going to ask questions until January is because you are making inquiries that require very detailed answers that will be lost on you because you are not sitting in front of a Mac. I could provide you with very detailed explanations about how to manage windows in OS X, use the Dock to its full advantage, set the system to sleep and wake at certain times, etc., but without you having a Mac in front of you to try these things out it is pretty much pointless. It is akin to trying to teach my Chinese roommate to drive without ever having him get in a car or worse telling him what to do in intricate detail then leaving him to go off and try to accomplish it on his own some time later.

The simple answer to any question that you have asked and likely will ask is that anything you can do in Windows can pretty much be done on a Mac, they simply may be accomplished in different ways. Short of using very vertical corporate software, there is almost nothing you as an individual use on your Windows PC that there is not either a Mac version for or for which an alternate application cannot be found. And, unless you are running Vista on your current computer, the previous version of OS X, Tiger (10.4.x), was more feature rich than what you now have let alone the current version, Leopard (10.5.x), which has more features than Tiger.

[Alan]

Also, I love OS X's column view, it's so much easier when you have to constantly navigate through a plethora of files and folders.



Limacboy90, how do you set up column view?

[mdawson]

In the toolbar of Finder windows are three View buttons for the icon, list and column views.

[Alan]

Thanks mdawson.

I knew it, just didn't know the proper name... :^0

I prefer the cover flow.... looks cool