Humorous Mistakes/Confusion With a New Mac

Perhaps this should go elsewhere, but it could be fun.

I personally have made some definite "n00b" errors. I thought the hinges for cord management on the AC adaptor were feet for it to stand until about 10 minutes ago when I realized why it couldn't balance with them. I thought the cleaning cloth was a really ineffective CD holder. I deleted iPhoto's duplicate photo files and had tearful breakdowns thinking I'd ruined iPhoto forever and wasted HD space.

There are plenty of switcher websites out there, but I think I needed a bulleted list of stupid things people have done.

windows has a thing where, if you highlight all folders, and double click one, it will open the one folder. So when i got my new mac, i highlighted all of my music folders (i.e. one for every artist), but i wanted to check something first so i double clicked on one folder.

...cue all 138 folders opening!! . tried to restart to save having to close them. but no, my clever mac remembers which folders i had open before restarting!

Ha! That is funny, especially the power cord incident. Thanks for being brave enough to share.

Well I don't know how funny mine is and I'm sure I have done dumber and just cant think of it now. But one time my "H" key fell of my macbook pro keyboard and I freaked out trying to find it for like 10-15 seconds I'd say only to realize it was stuck to my right hand pointer finger. I guess I type really hard? Oh well, you're very brave for sharing. Excellent thread idea

I'll watch out not to type too hard then. Are Macbooks prone to losing keys?

deathcab1: I kept trying to figure out why weird windows would be open when I started up my Mac. Is it because they weren't closed at shut down? Interesting.

See, this thread is educational and humbling. Yay!

Zeels, you would not be typing on my MacBook!

This technically isn't a Mac software problem, but a hardware one at least...

I thought my MacBook was about to crack when I realised I could push the left side inwards a little.....turned out this is just the way the MacBooks are made... oops.

Did anyone else take it out of the box and look for instructions on how to open it? I was looking for some sort of button or locking mechanism...

My mom was looking at me like "You just spent how much on a computer you don't even know how to open...?"

for about the first week I kept trying to hit the X in the top right that wasnt even there.

and I used to keep clicking the mouse button to open a link in a new tab.

deathcab1 said:

...cue all 138 folders opening!! . tried to restart to save having to close them. but no, my clever mac remembers which folders i had open before restarting!

Click to expand...

Should you be in that situation again, just hold the option key while closing one window ... all the others will close as well.

Hah dont I think the keys fall off a lot, I mean none of my other ones have and I got the H one back on after some effort. I'll make sure I keep my hands off of everyone else's keyboards

I was wondering why they had two different power cords, until I realized they plug into each other to extend range.

ron4mac said:

Should you be in that situation again, just hold the option key while closing one window ... all the others will close as well.

Click to expand...

aah! clever. around half way through i found the CMD+W shortcut which made things a little quicker at least.

I had the same thing with the power adaptor.
Kept me busy for about a week.

I did think that surely Apple couldn't deign something that was such crap. It just wouldn't stand up on the feet!!

Then I worked out it was for wrapping the cord around and their design decisions made a whole lot more sense lol.

I was having major issues with looking for the X in the top right.
Don;t do it anymore thankfully but I leant my Macbook to a friend because his PC caught a really nasty virus (lol) and had a great laugh watching him use it!
He gave it the "macs are crap" bit but then shut right up after I managed to retrieve all his lost work through parallels. Which caught the virus twice off his HD.
Lol.
Long live mac osx

deathcab1 said:

aah! clever. around half way through i found the CMD+W shortcut which made things a little quicker at least.

Click to expand...

Now, try option command w with a number of windows open... That option key is handy; try it occasionally along with your command whatever shortcut to find out what functionality it adds.

BuickGN said:

I was wondering why they had two different power cords, until I realized they plug into each other to extend range.

Click to expand...

This is a brilliant design thing, IMHO. I can leave the bigger one plugged in at home and take it in wallwart mode when I travel. Much easier.

This one is good.. I kept clicking the x button to close programs, not realizing I had to go the menu to actually close it. For about a week straight I kept wondering why the dock was filling up with icons that I didn't remember moving there

Haha i bet thats a common one. I know I did that when I first got my mac. Thanks for sharing

BuickGN said:

I was wondering why they had two different power cords, until I realized they plug into each other to extend range.

Click to expand...

lol I had the same problem for 10 or 15 mins.

nackteziege said:

I'll watch out not to type too hard then. Are Macbooks prone to losing keys?

Click to expand...

Only for those of us with two year olds. Mine pulled off nine keys in no time flat. It took me about a half hour to figure out how to snap them back on (there's a clever little two-piece plastic spring mechanism back there), but they are all back on and no damage done!

HaHa...

I also thought the the "hinges" on the power cord were to stand it up to relieve heat or something....
I was like, "That's pretty dumb..."

I did not figure out that they were for wrapping the cord until a week ago when I went on a trip