[doolally]

Hi all

I'm dipping my toe into the water - not quite able to completely give up on PC gaming - but sick to death of dealing with all that owning a PC entails, I'm buying a Mac Mini to tide me over while we wait to see what the MacIntels bring us. However, I have some basic user-ish questions, forgive me if they reveal me to be a neophyte; I am

1) I'm going to use a USB-based KVM switch to flip between boxes. How does the PC keyboard I have interract with OS X? Does the CTRL button become the Command key? Or will I, until I switch to an Apple keyboard, be stuck closing windows and applications with the mouse?

2) Do I need some kind of firewall application? I use Zone Alarm on the PC.

3) What's the Mac equivalent to Winzip?

4) I've seen a few folks recommend McAfee Virex for anti-viral protection; do you concur?

5) ...that's it I think

advTHANKSance

dool

[rjenkinson]

• as far as i know, the keys will all work the same on your mini, with the exception of the windows key which will act as a command key. alt will function as the option key.
• built into the OS. check sharing in system preferences for settings.
• built into the OS. right click on a file to compress it or simply open it to decompress it.
• you don't need virus protection (yet). you might want it if you're working with files from a PC on a regular basis and would like to remove any PC viruses you find.

-r.

[P]

I can confirm the above. The keyboard actually works out very well - the keys map almost perfectly, with the Windows Key becoming the Command key (used for shortcuts). Most people like to install a special keymap on the Mac to flip the Command and Option keys into the positions they have on a Mac keyboard (so Windows => Option and Alt => Command), but that's not necessary.

Other keys that map oddly are SysRq/Print Screen that becomes F13, Scroll Lock that becomes F14, Break/Pause that becomes F15 and Num Lock that becomes Clear (Num Lock is always on on a Mac), but most people don't use those keys all that often. I don't remember what the Contextual menu key becomes.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by doolally

Hi all

I'm dipping my toe into the water - not quite able to completely give up on PC gaming - but sick to death of dealing with all that owning a PC entails, I'm buying a Mac Mini to tide me over while we wait to see what the MacIntels bring us. However, I have some basic user-ish questions, forgive me if they reveal me to be a neophyte; I am

Congrats

Originally Posted by doolally

1) I'm going to use a USB-based KVM switch to flip between boxes. How does the PC keyboard I have interract with OS X? Does the CTRL button become the Command key? Or will I, until I switch to an Apple keyboard, be stuck closing windows and applications with the mouse?

Alt and Windows keys are interchanged. Otherwise they work just fine.

Originally Posted by doolally

2) Do I need some kind of firewall application? I use Zone Alarm on the PC.

There is a built-in firewall already. You need to activate it, though (it's in the Sharing prefs). There's no need to install a third-party firewall in OS X.

Originally Posted by doolally

3) What's the Mac equivalent to Winzip?

Zipping and unzipping files is built into the Finder. Double clicking a zipped file will unzip it. A context menu will compress selected file(s) or directory(ies).

Originally Posted by doolally

4) I've seen a few folks recommend McAfee Virex for anti-viral protection; do you concur?

Yes, but there are no OS X viri known yet.

[doolally]

Glorious! Thanks muchly, all, for your insight. Inadvertently, you've supplied a great example of why I'm switching to a Mac:

question: <insert random PC-centric question>

answer: Oh, that's built into the system already.



Thanks again!

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by doolally

question: <insert random PC-centric question>

answer: Oh, that's built into the system already.

That's almost completely correct. There are a few things that you just have to adapt to-mostly because they make a bit more sense than what you'd have to do with a PC, or because they're just "different." Of the latter, the biggest accomodation I had to make was the difference between a title bar and a window; an app can have an active title bar-and be active-without having any windows open. Once I got my head around that, I was fine.

[Helmling]

Ah, but he mentioned games!

Actually, if you buy a decent Mac there's plenty of games, but if you're like me you'll miss a few key titles that haven't been ported.

Like, <sniff>, my beloved CS. Or Civ3 Conquests! Oh, how I miss thee!

But, for the record, I'd never go back. I curse Windows six to ten times an hour at work and then come home to computing paradise (or as close as is currently possible).

[westrock]

The zipping program is called Stuff-It. PDF is actually part of the OS, so none of that stupid splash screen everytime you view a PDF.

Although the Apple keyboard is awsome, I tried it on my PC and it didn't work at all....but like said you can go the other way with PC keyboard to Mac. Microsoft mice work great with Mac.

If had my Mini 6 months and I think I've had 3 pop-ups....and I'm an avid surfer.

[P]

Originally Posted by westrock

The zipping program is called Stuff-It. PDF is actually part of the OS, so none of that stupid splash screen everytime you view a PDF.

Although the Apple keyboard is awsome, I tried it on my PC and it didn't work at all....but like said you can go the other way with PC keyboard to Mac. Microsoft mice work great with Mac.

If had my Mini 6 months and I think I've had 3 pop-ups....and I'm an avid surfer.

Zipping is included in the Finder these days. You don't need Stuffit unless you want to make actual Stuffit files.

The Apple keyboards should work on a PC, if you have the USB keyboard support installed. It does NOT work with one of those USB-PS2 converters.

[cb2001]

Originally Posted by rjenkinson

• built into the OS. check sharing in system preferences for settings.

-r.

Does the inbuilt OS X firewall give you control over what goes out? As far as I see it only prevents outside programs from connecting to your MAC and not the other way round.

ZoneAlarm on PCs allows you to control what goes out as well. Usually in PCs this is the first warning you get of a Trojan or Virus or Adware that has gotten on to your machine.

Not a big problem yet as there aren't many Trojans for MACs around, but may become more of a concern if they do find some.

--

[ewiser]

Little Snitch will tell you what programs are trying to phone home.
www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/

[P]

Originally Posted by cb2001

Does the inbuilt OS X firewall give you control over what goes out? As far as I see it only prevents outside programs from connecting to your MAC and not the other way round.

Yes and no. The firewall does have that ability, but the default interface in the OS doesn't give you that option. You can use a different program, such as Brickhouse to enable that feature.