New to Mac and very frustrated - Questions

My wife and I decided to take the Mac plunge and we are off to a shacky start. Perhaps it is because we used a PC for so long, but the interface that was promised to be so "user freindly and intuitive", has not turned out to be true for us.

I always search on a new forum before posts and I have doen so here without good results. I am sure the fault is mine in that I am not searching on the correct term out o ignorance. I could certainly use some help and advice.

Up front disclaimer; we have a new 17" Macbook Pro.

1. One of the most glaring differences is that there is no right click option (perhaps the mouse I have?). The built in mouse pad does not have a right click feature, nor does the wireless mouse I purchased. Is the assumption that I will use hot keys? Very unfreindly if that is the case, but perhaps I am missing something.

2. One of the primary reasons we got the Mac was the supposed easy of picture and video editing. Using IMovie we are catching on fast, but I am at a road-block on one issue that is driving me up the all. I did a search and found the 20th Century Fox mp3 that i would like to use as an intro. However, I am unale to right click and save the mp3 on to my computer. The sound opens in quicktime (which is a horrible program), and it tells me the only way to save is to buy the "pro" version. That seems obsurd. I am sure I am doing something wrong.

I have lots moe questions, but don't want to spam you guys. If you have specific answers I would appreciate the help.

Thanks in advance and thanks for running what looks to be a great forum.

I myself am getting my Macbook in the mail today. But if you have the mighty mouse. To right click I believe you would hold the button down for a bit longer. Or get a new mouse, its just the mighty mouse setup. Sorry, I cant help with your other question.

The Mighty Mouse does have a right-click...you just have to enable it.

Go to System Preferences>Keyboard & Mouse>Mouse

In the menu, make sure the right button is set to Secondary Button, and you should be all set! Hope that helps.

Sean

If you have a Mighty Mouse, and have enabled 'right click' (which is actually 'Secondary Button', or control-click) you have to make sure you have your finger completely off the left side of the mouse. The MM is actually a single button mouse with sensors that detect whether you are clicking the single button on the right side, but in order to do that you must have your finger only on that right side. If I'm going to do a 'right click' I usually do this little flourish with my fingers where all of them are taken off the mouse, and my middle (or some would say 'signalling') finger depresses the right side of the mouse, and voila! Context menu.

Some find this annoying, but that's how it works. You can get 'right click' at any time by holding the control key down while clicking. Also on your trackpad you can enable 'tap two fingers for secondary click', whereby you use two fingers to bring up context menus and do other control-click functions. After awhile of practice, you'll get it.

Any two- or multi-button mouse, not simply the Mighty Mouse, will work if the mouse preferences are enabled as explained above. You could use the mouse from your PC.

Hi

Yep it's a bit disheartening when those things happen but don't worry I was in that position too... Mac won't leave you hanging... How to right click, as Jake said, but it's on any mouse that you can just hold down on it for an extra second. take a look at this page on How To Right Click-> http://www.ehow.com/how_6542_click-mac.html there are also lots of other links to info on that page also.

Also for a switcher http://lifehacker.com/software/mac/hack-attack-a-guide-for-switching-to-a-mac-224674.php and shortcuts http://www.danrodney.com/mac/index.html

I think you can get this info in help on the mac but for great books "Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual by David Pogue" There are a lot of different versions for tiger, leopard etc... You can find a very good preview on google books. Also another book is the learn visually series. But searching on the net for key words because it's a common question.

Spectrepilot said:

1. One of the most glaring differences is that there is no right click option (perhaps the mouse I have?). The built in mouse pad does not have a right click feature, nor does the wireless mouse I purchased. Is the assumption that I will use hot keys? Very unfreindly if that is the case, but perhaps I am missing something.

Click to expand...

There are a few ways to "right-click" in OS X.

1.) Hold the left click button down for a few moments.
2.) Hold ctrl while you left click.
3.) Use a two buttoned mouse (the mighty mouse is single-click by default; enable the right-click in your mouse preferences).
4.) On portables you can simply tap the trackpad with 2 fingers at once (again this has to be enabled in your preferences).

2. One of the primary reasons we got the Mac was the supposed easy of picture and video editing. Using IMovie we are catching on fast, but I am at a road-block on one issue that is driving me up the all. I did a search and found the 20th Century Fox mp3 that i would like to use as an intro. However, I am unale to right click and save the mp3 on to my computer. The sound opens in quicktime (which is a horrible program), and it tells me the only way to save is to buy the "pro" version. That seems obsurd. I am sure I am doing something wrong.

Click to expand...

Well, now you know how to right click you can do that, or you can just hold option (alt) while you left click. That will download the file rather than opening it in the browser.

Personally I prefer QuickTime over anything else, but I have the Pro version. QuickTime Player is a bit basic, but perfectly adequate for most people's needs. If you let me know what's bothering you with it, I'll see if I can help you out (If it's just a question of supported codecs, make sure you download Perian & Flip4Mac).

The only other stand-alone media player worth using is VLC; see if that works better for you.

Tremendous help already, I now have right click!

It had to be enabled in set up...Duh.

As for Quicktime, I have found it to be very invasive on the PC side. Also, it did not want to let me save a file unless I upgraded and purchased the pro version.

I have more searching to with regard to IMovie, any suggestions?

Spectrepilot said:

As for Quicktime, I have found it to be very invasive on the PC side. Also, it did not want to let me save a file unless I upgraded and purchased the pro version.

I have more searching to with regard to IMovie, any suggestions?

Click to expand...

I think you'll find most of Apple's software performs much better under OS X than Windows; but yeah, it's called QuickTime Player because it's just meant for playing back content, rather than creating it. Having bought Pro I couldn't go back to the basic version, but I work with video a lot.

Equally, I use Final Cut Pro rather than iMovie, so I'm afraid I can't help out there.

I suspect if you're going to stick with the Mac and do much video stuff, Quicktime Pro is probably worth the price.

Your post sounds familiar. I took probably 2 years to get to the stage where I prefered OSX to Windows (but I'm lazy). I still use and run many Windows computers, but at home I only use a Mac - I guarantee once you get past the '***?' stage you're at now, you'll enjoy it.

Just a tip though - the mighty mouse is very fragile and unless you're a neat freak it probably won't last long. The little trackball thing is rubbish. Have a cheapo MS basic optical on standby for when it stops working . . .

chaunce322 said:

The Mighty Mouse does have a right-click...you just have to enable it.

Go to System Preferences>Keyboard & Mouse>Mouse

In the menu, make sure the right button is set to Secondary Button, and you should be all set! Hope that helps.

Sean

Click to expand...

Exactly right and also be sure to lift your Left Finger when you Right click as the Mighty Mouse works be sensing your fingers on it's surface, and if you have your Left finger on the surface, Right Click will not work.