Just switched over from the darkside....I'm lost

I just bought my first Mac. I bought a Macbook Pro 2.33. I'm so lost. I have been using Windows my whole life. Just looking for tips and guides to help me smoothly convert over.


Thanks Eric

Check out all the stickies in this subsection if you have not already.

Welcome:
If you can get a copy of David Pogue's Missing Manual it's worth it's weight in gold
Apple's support sites are great too:
Apple - Support - Switch 101
Apple - Support - Mac 101 - All Work and Play

Index of all Macs and Apps:
Apple - Support - Discussions - Forum Home

Why don't you list out the problems that you are having, and we can answer them for you one by one?

No specific problem really. Everything is just so different and I don't know where to start. I'm sure I will catch on. I hope. Thanks for the help so far. This sight looks great.

Check out Apple's Guided Tour.

The Missing Manual books are very, very good.

Last night, though, I found another resource: podcasts.

If you turn on iTunes and select "podcasts" from the menu on the right side of the screen you will find a series of podcasts that you can download and view that give quick tips on using OS X. These videos are mostly under three minutes each so the downloads are quick.

Give it a look. It can't hurt.

Well my most useful command is Command-Q which will force quit any app that your currently running, this is because even though you click the red X in the corner, the app just minimizes, the Cmd-Q will force quit.

Luminosity said:

Well my most useful command is Command-Q which will force quit any app that your currently running, this is because even though you click the red X in the corner, the app just minimizes, the Cmd-Q will force quit.

Click to expand...

That is not a force quit. That is a proper clean shutdown of an application. Also, the red circle in the corner closes that single window, not minimizing it. Also if it has an darker red dot within it, then the data within the window needs saving and most applications will prompt you to do so. The yellow circle is for minimizing a single window.

A force quit will shutdown an application in an unclean manner, losing any changes to any and all open windows of the application. The only reason to ever do that is because the application has locked up. This isn't common.

Force quit is: Commant+Option+Escape

not Command+Q

I find Apple's Guided Tours very useful. I watched a few a while ago, and now I have my Mac it's pretty easy for me. I've also been on Windows since about 1998-1999 and have only just got a Mac two days ago, and I'm already glad I decided to go with a Mac.

Hi Eric,
Me too. This is what I have found:
Hardware - I have used an external USB hard drive to copy files and folders.
Office Files - I am using office for Mac so the word, excel and powerpoint files simply transfer. Copy them onto the external hard drive from the old machine and paste them into your chosen folder on the new one.
Email - I had 150 folders with up to thousands of mails in each one. For about US$10.00 I bought O2M (Little Machines) and it did the business. Install it on the old machine and convert outlook to Entourage with O2M.
iTunes - copy the iTunes folder (normally under My Music) from the old machine to the portable hard drive, go onto the new machine, delete iTunes folder and paste the copied one.
Calendar - Using the file from O2M transfer the calendar into iCal. This will either be called "work" or "home". Sync Entourage and iCal (see other threads for this). However, at this point your calendar is not yet in Entourage. To do so export the "work" or "home" calendar from iCal, then import it into iCal but select the Entourage calendar as the destination.
Contacts - Import these into address book directly from the file provided by O2M.
iPhone - when I sync'd my iphone I thought I'd lose some of the applications I had installed on it. The menu options seem to tell you that you will, but don't panic because when you go and try to buy them again it tells you that you don't need to pay since you had bought them previously. They are then reinstalled for free.

I have given a very high level picture here. Just so you know, I have managed to successfully migrate my whole computer over one weekend using the advice in the Mac Forums and the details of all of the above are better documented elsewhere. What I have given is the ones that worked for me and they have been quick and easy.

Good luck,

Luminosity said:

Well my most useful command is Command-Q which will force quit any app that your currently running, this is because even though you click the red X in the corner, the app just minimizes, the Cmd-Q will force quit.

Click to expand...

even though the command is a proper shutdown not a force quit I found the Command + Q tip extremely helpful. Thanks

there is plenty of tutorials on you tube for mac.