New to the Forum - Intro & a Question or three...

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to stick my nose in here and introduce myself as a new user - both on a MAC and on the forum. I've been a long time PC user and continue to use Windows at my job (I'm a data analyst/computer programmer). When looking for a computer to replace my 7 year old Pentium 3 (finally!!) I decided to go with Mac. I have a lot of friends & family that have used them for years and I really like the all-in-one nature of the iMac. It may not be as upgradeable as a PC, but that's a good thing for me because it means I won't have to wait 10 years to buy another computer! For those of you that are curious, I went with the 20" 2.0 Ghz and upgraded the HD to 320 GB and the RAM to 2MB. I heard after the fact that HD's and memory are a little pricey through Apple but ah well, live and learn.

Anyway, I had a couple of quick questions for anyone out there that can answer them.

1) I realize you need to CLOSE a program by hitting CMD+Q or going to the menu and selecting quit. Howcome this is not true for iPhoto??...it actually closes alltogether when you hit the close button.

2) What's the point of having a minimize button on the Mac? It seems to me that the minimize button and the close button do the exact same thing.

3) What software would I use to create a slideshow? iPhoto?

I'm a new user myself but I'd like to have a crack at question 2.

Minimize keeps the program running as you know.

Closing the program clears it from RAM and you lose unsaved work.

I just realized that minimizing appears to also put the current window in the dock, but to the right hand side. Closing it, as you say, makes you lose anything you had.

Thanks!

Just wanted to pop in your thread to welcome you to Mac-Forums and to the Mac platform, The_Grudge!

Welcome Grudge! Glad to see another "IT Guy" (or Gal) making the leap like I did.

For number 3, have you tried playing with your fancy looking remote control yet? Hit menu, select pictures and it will play a slide show complete with some classical music to go along with it! I am also messing around with making web galleries with iphoto but haven't really spent too much time in there. Another cool thing for our family, we are using Connect360 to share our media with the XBOX 360 in the entertainment center in the living room. It works better than Media Player 11 or Windows Media Connect.

verbatim210 said:

I'm a new user myself but I'd like to have a crack at question 2.

Minimize keeps the program running as you know.

Closing the program clears it from RAM and you lose unsaved work.

Click to expand...

Further to this, say take iTunes for example
While your playing a song.

Clicking Minimise puts the Library/Playing window into the dock for you to reopen at anytime.

Clicking Close will just close this window. You can reopen it by just clicking iTunes at the bottom of the screen. Your music will keep playing.

Each program will behave differently - try it out