My First Mac. How? What?
 

Fairly straightforward question - I'm purchasing my first Mac in the coming days (either this weekend, or in the coming week). Is the machine ready to use out of the box or are there steps, installs, tweaks I need to perform to get things up and running?

Being a long time Windows user, I'm used to performing the following tasks to get things running.

1. Clean Reinstall
2. Removing the junkware included in the OEM install (not an issue with OSX, I gather)
3. Updating Drivers
4. Installing Anti Virus Software (not much of an issue with OSX, I gather)

I imagine there'll be some differences in getting my mac up and running. Tips and hints from Mac users on this forum are much appreciated.

FYI, I have been reading www.myfirstmac.com on and off; and plan to have it open on my netbook while running the mac for the first time; along with the relevant pages from the Apple website.

Wipe the hard drive, install Windows 7. Done. ;)

It's really easy, it will guide you through creating an account, etc. Just be sure you know what you want everything called, because once you have a name for the main "home" folder, it's tough to change.

It should prompt you to "update" everything, but if it doesn't, it's simple to accomplish through the "System Preferences."

It's kind of fun to know two "languages." While using the internet is really similar on a Windows and a Mac, most other functions are different, not complicated, just different.

It sounds like you are all set with your plans for getting the Mac up and running. And there haven't been many questions I've had that weren't answered in the first page of a Google search.

Good luck, and have fun!

Once you go mac, you never go back. The reason I bought macbook 3 years ago because I can install windows on it. During the first month, I was using 30% of the time. Now, I only open them when I want to use the MS Office and it still annoys me to the point I'm considering to buy MS Office for Mac.

As totherail said, you just need to make sure you know what your home folder name should be and not regretting it later. You'll be asked for your wifi password. Update is straightfoward. The installation process will be different than windows. Mostly, you'll just need to drag and drop it to your application folder. Uninstall program, just send them to trash can. Learn to use command + shortcut instead of control + shortcut in windows.

Do consider to buy ipod touch to maximize your mac experience. The address book and ical will work nicely as your personal organizer when you combine them with ipod touch.

Other mac programs I recommend:
insomniax - to keep the mac running even if you close the lid.
caffeine - Keep the display from sleep
Onyx - System maintenance tools
1Password - Keep your internet password.

Btw, OSX lion is coming up soon in summer. If you buy it at Apple store, try to get the free update for osx lion.

Yea, we have converted at home and slowly at work too. One other thing to mention is that the Macs come with a very nice back up system called Time Machine. Get an external drive and make use of it. You just plug the drive in and tell the Mac to use it as a backup and it will back the thing up and then make incremental backups.

Rule #1 is that you are going to hate your new Mac for the first 30 days. It's just the way it is, I call it Windows detox...

After that you love it so much there's no going back. :)

IMO you should have anti-virus software installed on your Mac, and to be honest the best piece of software out there (produced by Mac experts, not just some Mac version of a big PC title) is VirusBarrier X6. One of the biggest names in Mac security is behind it.

As for everything else, you'll see that programs don't shut down completely just by closing a window, which speed things up when you relaunch a file using the same program. The "dock" is something that you will really like, especially when you can customise it and rearrange things as you like.

It's ready to use out of the box. It will do a software update if it needs to (install with your approval only) and does it regularly.

If you are using third party stuff now (firefox, t-bird, chrome, etc) you can download those and use them on the mac too. Do you need a multi-protocol IM program that does XMPP? (adium, worth it).

You should probably download a thing called growl (provides notifications from apps, etc, many apps will use it if it's installed, and you can control the notification levels, etc), and something called Perian. (the swiss army knife of codecs for quicktime). It's up to you if you are interested in 1passwd or not (a multi-platform password manager), oh, and you might want dropbox with a free dropbox account, certainly if you go with 1passwd. If you are already using another online backup program on your pc, you will probably want it on the mac to, if it's compatible, to make it easier to sync or bringover your data/media files. (I'm still using sugarsync on my PCs and also on my macs now, mainly because I was entrenched there.)

Other than that you will figure it out or ask us or other more mac-related boards.

get used to Command button instead of Control key for most things. (ie, copy/paste is command/C command/V on the mac.)

Make sure you get yourself an external usb drive (or some other method if you prefer, like network drive?) and set up time machine on it for your local backups. Get that going early on. Then learn how to unmount external drives :)

Oh, and enable/learn the multi-finger gestures on the trackpad, and use them (two finger tap for right click, and two finger tap and drag for scrolling are things you will get used to very quickly and try to do on your pc when you go back and then realize they don't work there.) The easiest way to learn the gestures is in the trackpad system preferences applet (aka, control panel for pc users.) They have little videos in there that demonstrate each gesture if you hover the pointer over the item.

-David

You can always switch these keys around in your keyboard preferences to make cutting and pasting easier for an ex-PC user. :)

No, it's unnecessary and waste of resources.

Read here http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost...48&postcount=4

I wouldn't bother with an anti-virus program either. But the first thing you want to do after logging in is go to the Safari (web browser) preferences and disable the "Open safe files after downloading" checkbox. That prevents applications that are disguised as images or documents from auto-starting.

So, you don't need steps 1, 2, or 4, and 3 is done with "Software Update", which will run automatically, or you can do it from the "Apple" menu.

Also, if you have anyone else using the computer who can't be trusted to follow safe internet practices (don't open things you aren't sure about), make sure you set up a non-admin account for them to use. And don't let them use your default account (the first one set up on the machine), as it will have admin privileges. Well, they'd still need to know your password, but just to be safe.

joe

Neooffice (Openoffice for Mac). It's FREE. You will never need MS Office !!!

Assuming you're buying a new Mac from Apple, invest $99 in a One-to-One membership. With it, you can get up to 52 one hour per week personalized training sessions. When I switched to using the Mac, this was a great way to answer questions that I had accumulated since my last visit. I only used it about four times, but it quickly paid for itself. This membership can only be purchased at the same time you buy the Mac, and it doesn't apply to iPads or iPhones.

Another alternative I've been reading about is the LibreOffice. Definitely plan to give that a spin before shelling out for iWork.

To the poster who mentioned the 1on1 sessions at an Apple Store; definitely a great idea but the nearest Apple store is in Sydney, 300kms away so I don't see getting much use out of that. In that regard, I'll have to rely on Google.

I already use dropbox and chrome on my windows box so bringing over bookmarks and other "urgent" documents to the Mac won't be that much of a hassle.

I guess I will need to get my head around the long winded installation process of windows v/s the drag and drop way of install common in OSX; and some other changes, cosmetic or otherwise, mentioned earlier as a "windows detox".

I'll be the only user on the computer so just one admin account should suffice. I assume OSX has the windows like feature of having to click OK on the UAC screen before installing an application?

Thanks for the tips so far, folks. Keep them coming. And I promise to make my first flyertalk post from the new mac in this thread about how I went with getting it up and running...

Another tips:

Learn to use docks, corners and space.

I put my docks on the left side of the screen instead on the bottom to maximize my space.

I use corners :
Upper left: All windows
Lower Left: Spaces
Upper right: Dashboard
Lower right: Put display to sleep

Space:
1. Internet Browsing
2. Windows (used with Parallel)
3. Photo editing software
4. Other programs.

Turn on Firewall

9Benua, I imagine osx has a built in firewall....