06-06-2010, 10:34 AM

OK folks new to this forum and Macs.
Just got myself a nice shiny new Mac Book Pro, been a PC user for years, now I find myself a bit lost in this new (to me) operating system. Any advice or assistance welcome.
I do a bit of photography stills and filming while on bike runs, so I'm looking for software that converts AVI. to mac. Also would like to be able to view all the windows media player movie files on the PC.
Thanks in advance.

06-06-2010, 10:51 AM

I am new myself. But heres a few things I found quite useful:

This video is a MUST see: SCO0231 - Mac OSX Primer for New Mac Users | Switchers, OSX | ScreenCastsOnline I recommend downloading it in HD so then you can re watch anything you've missed.

And for all your video player needs VLC player will play anything you throw at it, including almost every video requiring a codec including avi and wmv. I've used this for years with windows, and fortunately they offer it for MAC OS X as well. VideoLAN - VLC media player for Mac OS X

Hope these help

06-06-2010, 08:02 PM

Here are my standard Tips for new Mac users:

You cannot cut and paste files in the Finder as you can in Explorer. To move or copy a file from one place to another, the Mac way is to open both the Target and Source folders, then drag and drop the file or folder.



The green button at the top does not expand the window to fill your screen. Very few windows need the full screen, so what that does is expand the window so it's large enough to handle the content. This will almost always leave some background visible.



You cannot see the size of a file or folder by holding your mouse over it. You must highlight the item and use Get Info. There are at least four ways to use Get Info, three of them involving the mouse.

If you have two folders with the same name, but have a few differences between the contents of same, don't move one to the enclosing folder of the other. OSX will not automatically merge the contents of the two folders. Instead, it will overwrite the target folder with the one you're moving. The differences in the target folder will be lost forever.

06-07-2010, 12:48 AM

Originally Posted by toMACsh

Here are my standard Tips for new Mac users:

You cannot cut and paste files in the Finder as you can in Explorer. To move or copy a file from one place to another, the Mac way is to open both the Target and Source folders, then drag and drop the file or folder.



or do it at the command line with mv or cp - but if you're not an advanced user, definitely the way toMACsh recommends.

You cannot see the size of a file or folder by holding your mouse over it. You must highlight the item and use Get Info. There are at least four ways to use Get Info, three of them involving the mouse.

or you can view it in list form, in which it will show the size...

If you have two folders with the same name, but have a few differences between the contents of same, don't move one to the enclosing folder of the other. OSX will not automatically merge the contents of the two folders. Instead, it will overwrite the target folder with the one you're moving. The differences in the target folder will be lost forever.

Yes, but it will prompt you if you want to overwrite the files first.

Good list, though.

06-07-2010, 08:32 AM

Thanks for the addenda. I have added two of those to my file.