a few more questions...
video:
i have a lot of avi files (episodes of friends) which i want to play in mac. quicktime said it required a plugin. now i downloaded divx. now for 'certain' files, only video is played and there is no audio. for the others there is video and audio as well. these same files played fine in k-lite media player classic on my toshiba vista laptop.
also, there is a movie i have which has been directly copied from a dvd (not ripped) it has .vob files. they played on windows but mac failes to reconize them as known file types. they dont play either with itunes, quicktime, dvd player or divx player. what to do?
is there a codec package for mac which would make quiktime play all the movie types properly and also their audio?
iphoto:
when i rename a pic in iphoto and then drag drop the pic into a folder os desktop, the new dropped file still has the original name! any advice on this...
ipreview:
what is this software?
public folder and shared folder:
what is the difference?
dashboard:
can i have dashboard widgets on my desktop like in vista?
download manager:
currently i am using speed download but its trial. which free download manager (without spyware or bots) would u recommend?
office suite:
which works best with macs? does apple has its own?
ichat:
i was able to setup gtalk on ichat thanks to the inbuilt option for using gtalk however it doesnot show the voice option of gtalk. also, how do i transfer a file via ichat?
HOW ON EARTH DO I NETWORK WITH A WINDOWS MACHINE?
xp or vista?
which version of windows is compatible with mac as a dual boot via boot camp?
please link me to a good resource for mac related knowledge
Although the thread is a bit old, my take:
Video:
Quicktime plugins: FlipForMac (WMVi) and Perian (most everything else)
Flip4Mac: Telestream Downloads
No need to buy anything unless you want to encode into WMV.
Perian: Perian - The swiss-army knife of QuickTime® components
Other players:
VLC and
MPlayer
(both play VOB files as far as I know)
VLC: VLC media player - Open Source Multimedia Framework and Player
MPlayer: MPlayer OSX Extended
(a better but unofficial build)
Download manager:
I use
iGetter. I can't say if it is better or worse than
Speed Download, it probably isn't as good, but I can use if for free, although it does give me nag screens, and I just haven't bothered trying Speed Download.
iGetter Download Manager
Office:
What else but
Open Office?
OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite
It's Sun's attempt to loosen Microsoft's grip on the Office market, which they use to force people to use Windows (they keep some enterprise features out of the Mac version).
Never mind that the KDE project is working on a native Mac version of KOffice, its not ready and KOffice is not as good as OpenOffice.
And yes, there is of course Microsoft Office.
Apple does have
iWork, but it's not so much a full-fledged Office package; it's mostly a consumer product, where
Pages is
MS Published on steroids,
Numbers is a very nice home spreadsheet program, and Keynote is an excellent presentation program akin to
Powerpoint, but nicer. I expect the latter was made because Steve Jobs needed it for his SteveNotes, and didn't want to rely on a Microsoft product.
iWork doesn't have a database, but Apple does sell separate products under the Filemaker brand:
Filemaker Pro, and the more consumer-oriented
Bento.
Bento Personal File Organization and Database
FileMaker Pro (database)
Instant Messaging:
I don't use
iChat, so can't comment on its features. I use
Adium because my contacts are all on the MSN network, which iChat deliberately doesn't support:
Adium
Current Beta:
Adium Beta
It supports most IM protocols like MSN, Yahoo, Jabber (inc. GoogleTalk), ICQ, and Oscar (AOL; also used by iChat's Mac accounts).
It is a much nicer IM in my opinion, but it doesn't currently support audio or video (hopefully soon), nor does it support sending custom emoticons as MS Messenger does (coming soon), but does display the ones sent to you.
File transfers work, but are fairly slow.
There is a native version of MS Messenger, but it doesn't have audio or video:
Microsoft Messenger for Mac
Some people use aMSN, an opensource clone, though I wouldn't recommend it yet; version 2 is under heavy development and sounds very promising:
aMSN
iPhoto:
Retitling in iPhoto doesn't change the file name. That's just how it works.
Dual booting:
Both XP and Vista is compatible with Bootcamp, and by reports, so is Windows 7.
Networking:
To get Windows machines to recognise Macs on a network, Macs pretend to be Windows NT servers, since when you're Microsoft you don't have to acknowledge the existence of anything else but Windows. Macs (and other Unix-like systems like Linux) do this with a program called Samba. Looking up Samba in the Help menu can help here, and you should find
"Setting up a Mac to share files with Windows users".
On the Mac, go to System Preferences from the Apple menu, choose Sharing, and turn on File Sharing.
Click the Options button and select "Share files and folders using SMB" (SMB is the network protocol Windows uses, hence the name Samba). This turns on the Samba file server. There's a warning that this will store your password in a less secure manner to be compatible with Windows.
Select the name of accounts to share files with. If turning off file sharing later, turn off the accounts here first, else the passwords will still be stored less securely.
You may want to create a special user for sharing with Windows users for security. The user you log onto the Mac with through the network will be able to see their entire Home directory with full privileges, other accounts will only expose their Public folder by default (in your home directory; there is a Dropbox which is writable through the network, but not viewable). This may be fine in the short run for transferring files.
Note: The Shared folder on the Mac is different; it's for sharing files between users on the computer, located in the Users directory alongside other user folders:
/Users/Shared whereas each account has a Public folder to share over the network. You could choose to share the Shared folder over the network though.
Click
Done, name your computer something meaningful and unique, like
Mac, and add folders you wish to share by clicking the +, and tweak the permissions if you desire.
On the PC, go to the Start Menu, and right-click
Computer; this gives you a menu, where you choose
Properties. On Vista you have to click the
Advanced system settings in the list on the left. In the resultant palette, under the Computer Name tab, it shows your Workgroup and Computer Name. Click Change, and set them; the computer name must be unique, like
PC, or if you have several,
PC1,
PC2 etc. The Workgroup name can be something like
HOME, anything will do; being Windows, it is case-insensitive, one of those annoying hangovers from DOS, but I set it in all-caps just to be sure. I'm not sure if it has to be 8 characters or less, or if it can be longer.
To share a folder, right-click a folder and select Properties and select the Sharing tab, and click the Share button. If necessary add users who can access the share and click Share.
Assuming that File Sharing is on in the
Network and Sharing Centre on Control Panel, the shares should now be available on the Mac, just as the Mac should be available on the PC.
On the PC, the Mac should be available from Network in Explorer or the Start menu.
On the Mac, in the Finder, you can go through the Go menu and either choose
Network to browse for the share, or
Connect to Server to enter the address directly: The path is in the form
smb://[computername]/[sharename]
eg if the PC is called
PC1 and the share is called
Documents, the path is
smb://PC1/Documents
Clicking the + will save it for future use. You can also use protocols like FTP here to mount an FTP share.
It should also show up in the Devices section of Finder windows on the side under your Mac's share name, eg
Mac in the above example.