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tripletaker · Mar 21, 2005, 08:08 PM

I have never used a Mac before so please help me.

I really love the card game Freecell by Microsoft. Is there a Mac version of this? (not solitaire)

I downloaded Firefox. After it installs, whenever I open it, the icon shows up on the desktop. How can I make it stay in the Applications folder?

What program can I use to display GIFs? Preview seems to not display GIFs.

Is there a Microsoft Paint equivalent for Mac?

How can I customize iChat? How do I change how it looks and stuff like that? I have no clue.

Would you recommend to use FileVault?

Oh and any tips of getting used to OSX?

eatinwokout · Mar 21, 2005, 08:36 PM

wow.. sounds like you have a lot on your platter.

for firefox. when you download the file, you download a dmg (disk image). when you double click that image it's basically mounting a firefox disk on your desktop. you want to drag the firefox application into your applications folder (or anywhere else). usually people keep all their applications in the application folder.

customizing ichat is kind of limited. imo you should check out adium. it's a fully customizable multi-protocol chat client.

for normal daily use i would not recommend filevault. that's just my opinion. but if by chance you are doing things that you don't want prying eyes to see, go ahead and enable it.

for tips... just play around with osx. explore. you'll be safe. just don't delete anything in the system folder. use google for to search for panther tutorials. check out osxhints for tips on maximizing your osx experience.

as far as the paint and freecell like app question, do searches at macupdate and versiontracker. lots of freeware and shareware apps to try.

midwinter · Mar 21, 2005, 10:15 PM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
I really love the card game Freecell by Microsoft. Is there a Mac version of this? (not solitaire)

Yes. Go to MacUpdate and search for "freecell."

I downloaded Firefox. After it installs, whenever I open it, the icon shows up on the desktop. How can I make it stay in the Applications folder?

It sounds like you didn't actually install it. Mac files are sometimes distributed in "disk images," which are kind of like zipped up files. What you need to do is double-click on Firefox to get that icon to mount on your desktop and then drag the Firefox application inside it to your applications folder. Then drag that disk image to the trash and empty the trash.

What program can I use to display GIFs? Preview seems to not display GIFs.

It should.

Is there a Microsoft Paint equivalent for Mac?

Not natively with the OS like Paint, no. I'd search MacUpdate for drawing applications.

How can I customize iChat? How do I change how it looks and stuff like that? I have no clue.

The only way to modify the appearance of OS X is through something like Shapeshifter (again, try Macupdate). You might also try Adium, which is kind of like Trillian and has all kinds of skins and themes.

Oh and any tips of getting used to OSX? [/B]

1) Ask lots of questions here.
2) Get used to this: you will often want things to be far, far more complex than they actually are.

Cheers

tripletaker · Mar 21, 2005, 10:26 PM

Thanks for helping me. I got Adium and it's awesome. I got Firefox and it's great as well.

I have one more question. How do you take a screenshot?

Thanks for all the help!

midwinter · Mar 21, 2005, 10:29 PM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
Thanks for helping me. I got Adium and it's awesome. I got Firefox and it's great as well.

I have one more question. How do you take a screenshot?

Thanks for all the help!

Pretzel/Apple + Shift + 3 takes a full screen shot.

Pretzel/Apple + shift + 4 turns the cursor into a crosshair and you can select parts of the screen to capture.

f1000 · Mar 21, 2005, 10:33 PM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
I have one more question. How do you take a screenshot?

You can also go into the Applications/Utilities folder and use Grab directly.

tripletaker · Mar 21, 2005, 10:36 PM

Whoa, that's cool... but I notice it saves as a pdf file. Is there any way to save it as a jpg?

And what program would you use to edit pictures. What's your favorite program? ^_^

midwinter · Mar 21, 2005, 10:39 PM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
Whoa, that's cool... but I notice it saves as a pdf file. Is there any way to save it as a jpg?

And what program would you use to edit pictures. What's your favorite program? ^_^

There is no way to save it as a jpg directly from the OS, but there are tools that do it (try MacUpdate). You can open it in Preview and export it as whatever you want.

For editing, I use either Photoshop Elements or GraphicConverter.

f1000 · Mar 21, 2005, 10:54 PM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
Whoa, that's cool... but I notice it saves as a pdf file. Is there any way to save it as a jpg?

Grab will save it as a TIFF.

Originally posted by tripletaker:
And what program would you use to edit pictures. What's your favorite program? ^_^

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=209787
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=166751

tripletaker · Mar 22, 2005, 02:13 AM

I always used cuteFTP to transfer files but in the sticky, I noticed it was included. If anyone's ever used it for mac, would you recommend me to continue using cuteFTP or to switch to the other seemingly popular programs such as "Transmit."

PurpleGiant · Mar 22, 2005, 02:30 AM

Transmit is the much better FTP program IMO.

tripletaker · 02:45 AM

Transmit is cheaper than cuteftp pro. I'll give it a trial run before buying either one.

I'm still unable to display animated GIFs. They open in Preview but only as frames, not as an animated GIF. I tried playing with the settings but can't figure out how to get it to display correctly yet.

Is there any way to stay connected to the internet while the laptop is sleeping?

PurpleGiant · Mar 22, 2005, 03:00 AM

Animated GIFS, you didn't mention that before

You can open animated GIFs in Safari or Quicktime Player.

Assuming you are talking about dialup, there is no way to stay connected to dialup internet while your computer is asleep.

tripletaker · Mar 22, 2005, 08:10 AM

If I had fast access internet (t3) and I put my computer to sleep, would I still be connected?

And I heard somewhere that if you buy a mac, you get Quicktime Pro for free? Is this true?

Chuckit · Mar 22, 2005, 08:22 AM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
If I had fast access internet (t3) and I put my computer to sleep, would I still be connected?

T3s are always connected. Your computer obviously wouldn't be doing any networking while asleep, but it's not going to sever the T3 cable or anything.

Originally posted by tripletaker:
And I heard somewhere that if you buy a mac, you get Quicktime Pro for free? Is this true?

No. I don't think it ever has been true either. Certainly not anytime I was in the market for a new Mac (and I just bought one three weeks ago, so I know it's not true now).

OptimusG4 · Mar 22, 2005, 08:34 AM

Originally posted by PurpleGiant:
Animated GIFS, you didn't mention that before You can open animated GIFs in Safari or Quicktime Player.

Assuming you are talking about dialup, there is no way to stay connected to dialup internet while your computer is asleep.

Also, if you customize the toolbar in Preview, there is a play button that you can add that allows you to play animated gifs.

Millennium · Mar 22, 2005, 08:46 AM

That's a lot of questions, but here we go:

I really love the card game Freecell by Microsoft. Is there a Mac version of this? (not solitaire)

There are several, actually. Here's a free one.

I downloaded Firefox. After it installs, whenever I open it, the icon shows up on the desktop. How can I make it stay in the Applications folder?

What you downloaded was a disk image containing Firefox, not just Firefox directly. When you double-click on that image, an icon appears on your desktop, which acts like a CD-ROM of sorts. If you open the disk, you'll find the Firefox application icon. Simply drag it to your Applications folder to install it; you can then "eject" the disk and throw the image you downloaded away.

This is a popular method of distributing applications on Macs, because anything you can do with a CD, you can do with a disk image. It's even possible to burn the disk image directly onto a CD.

What program can I use to display GIFs? Preview seems to not display GIFs.

That's strange, because Preview should be able to display those. You might want to consider the shareware GraphicConverter, which is the Swiss-army lightsaber of graphics manipulation tools. It can import and display almost every graphics format ever devised, and do simple image manipulation and filtering as well. Its tools for creating graphics are a bit weak, but that's not what it's made for anyway. It's not cheap, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a better shareware program on any platform, no matter what it did.

Is there a Microsoft Paint equivalent for Mac?

GraphicConverter, which I mentioned above, is roughly on Paint's level when it comes to creating graphics. If you want something free, consider Seashore, which packs a surprising amount of power into its package.

How can I customize iChat? How do I change how it looks and stuff like that? I have no clue.

You can't customize it much, I'm afraid. There are many other third-party AIM clients, however, and some of them do what you're looking for.

Would you recommend to use FileVault?

FileVault had problems when it was first released, but the issues seem to have been resolved. I've been using it for several months now. This said, I would recommend it more for laptops than for desktops.

If I had fast access internet (t3) and I put my computer to sleep, would I still be connected?

Yes and no. The machine isn't going to do anything while it's asleep, so downloads will pause (and may halt if the connection times out). However, you won't break the link to your ISP or anything.

And I heard somewhere that if you buy a mac, you get Quicktime Pro for free? Is this true?

Unfortunately, no. You do get QTPro for free if you buy Final Cut Pro, but that isn't terribly cost-effective.

If you only need QTPro to play videos full-screen, then there are several free players out there which can help you, such as Fullscreen Movie Player.

tripletaker · Mar 22, 2005, 10:50 AM

I have run into another question. I just tried burning a DVD+RW and it worked. But when I try to erase it, it won't let me. The erase button is grayed out so that I can't click on it. Same with CD-RWs. Do I need another program to erase it?

JKT · Mar 22, 2005, 11:04 AM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
I have run into another question. I just tried burning a DVD+RW and it worked. But when I try to erase it, it won't let me. The erase button is grayed out so that I can't click on it. Same with CD-RWs. Do I need another program to erase it?

What are you using to burn the DVD/CD? If it is just the Finder, you can gain better features for burning by using Disk Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities) - you should also be able to erase the RWs using this app.

Chuckit · Mar 22, 2005, 12:30 PM

Originally posted by Millennium:
If you only need QTPro to play videos full-screen, then there are several free players out there which can help you, such as Fullscreen Movie Player.

Incidentally, the new RealPlayer is basically just QuickTime. It's pretty nifty.

tripletaker · Mar 22, 2005, 12:46 PM

Here's a screenshot.

here

grobbins · Mar 22, 2005, 08:26 PM

Originally posted by Chuckit:
Incidentally, the new RealPlayer is basically just QuickTime. It's pretty nifty.

RealPlayer 10 does use QuickTime to play back all content that QuickTime handles, but unlike QuickTime Player it also plays back RealAudio/RealVideo, and provides full-screen and multiple-monitor support for free.

Millennium · Mar 22, 2005, 08:57 PM

Originally posted by grobbins:
RealPlayer 10 does use QuickTime to play back all content that QuickTime handles, but unlike QuickTime Player it also plays back RealAudio/RealVideo, and provides full-screen and multiple-monitor support for free.

Basically, the app wraps around QuickTime. It provides code so that QuickTime can handle Real content, but instead of using the usual plug-ins it embeds the code in the app itself. This keeps QuickTime from being able to play Real content outside the app, but lets the app leverage QuickTime's underlying architecture.

Windows Media Player did something similar to this back in the OS9 days, but its implementation was somewhat flawed. As long as it was open, you could play WiMP content in any QuickTime app. You could even use ResEdit to rip out the code and embed it in a plug-in. This is how the old DivX player for OS9 worked.

tripletaker · Mar 22, 2005, 10:10 PM

Another newbie question.

What is the mac equivalent of pressing enter to open a file?

midwinter · Mar 22, 2005, 10:12 PM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
Another newbie question.

What is the mac equivalent of pressing enter to open a file?

You can't. You have to double-click. Drives me nuts.

f1000 · Mar 22, 2005, 10:27 PM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
What is the mac equivalent of pressing enter to open a file?

I've always used Command-O. Command is the weird shamrock thingy next to the spacebar.

midwinter · Mar 22, 2005, 10:29 PM

Originally posted by f1000:
I've always used Command-O. Command is the weird shamrock thingy next to the spacebar.

whoa! Gawd, this is why I love these threads!

grobbins · Mar 22, 2005, 10:55 PM

Originally posted by Millennium:
Basically, the app wraps around QuickTime. It provides code so that QuickTime can handle Real content, but instead of using the usual plug-ins it embeds the code in the app itself. This keeps QuickTime from being able to play Real content outside the app, but lets the app leverage QuickTime's underlying architecture.

QuickTime is not handling the RealMedia content within RealPlayer. Rather, RealPlayer 10 treats both Helix (the open-source playback engine that handles RealMedia and other media types) and QuickTime as peers for playback in RealPlayer's windows, and chooses the engine based on the type of audio or video being played.

If you look inside the RealPlayer application package (control-click on the icon) at the Info,plist file, you can see the engine list for each document type (Helix, QuickTime, or both), indicating the order RealPlayer will pick the engine for that document type.

tripletaker · Mar 22, 2005, 11:05 PM

Is there any way for AIM not to close when the computer is sleeping?

grobbins · Mar 22, 2005, 11:19 PM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
What is the mac equivalent of pressing enter to open a file?

Within the Finder, arrow and command-arrow keys let you open files and move in and out of folders.

PurpleGiant · Mar 23, 2005, 04:47 AM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
Is there any way for AIM not to close when the computer is sleeping?

Assuming you mean it going offline, no. When your computer is asleep, there is zero processing going on, it couldn't possibly keep an AIM connection going, or anything for that matter.

If you want AIM to stay online, don't put your computer to sleep

tripletaker · Mar 23, 2005, 10:10 AM

Why does Mac redraw each thumbnail in the folders? It slows the computer down a lot when you have like over 500 pictures. =/

Is there any way to do it differently while still displaying the thumbnails?

Millennium · Mar 23, 2005, 10:42 AM

Originally posted by tripletaker:
Why does Mac redraw each thumbnail in the folders? It slows the computer down a lot when you have like over 500 pictures. =/

Is there any way to do it differently while still displaying the thumbnails?

Not as implemented in OSX, but Windows does it by generating a single thumbnail of each image and storing it in a separate file. This cuts down on the number of times you have to open the image, read it in, and scale it down to icon size, and this speeds things up. Of course, if the thumbnail file isn't kept properly up to date, the icon won't accurately reflect what the picture shows; that is the downside.

hayesk · Mar 23, 2005, 11:52 AM

Originally posted by midwinter:
whoa! Gawd, this is why I love these threads!

You might do yourself a favour and look through the Finder menu bar too then. All of the shortcuts are there.

tripletaker · Mar 30, 2005, 02:44 PM

I just thought of another question.

When I copy more than one item and try to paste it in a different location, it won't let me. "The items on the clipboard cannot be pasted to this location. One or more of the items have been deleted or are no longer available." But it works if I copy and paste it one by one. How can I do more than one?

Chuckit · Mar 30, 2005, 02:59 PM

It works fine for me. Does this happen all the time for you?

PurpleGiant · Mar 30, 2005, 03:17 PM

Are you sure you didn't copy a file/s, delete (or move) one or more of the files you copied, and then try to paste somewhere?

TETENAL · Mar 30, 2005, 03:45 PM

Originally posted by Millennium:
Not as implemented in OSX

You can create custom preview icons with GraphicConverter or a similar program.

TETENAL · Mar 30, 2005, 03:47 PM

Originally posted by PurpleGiant:
Are you sure you didn't copy a file/s, delete (or move) one or more of the files you copied, and then try to paste somewhere?

This the reason why many said file copy & paste sucks.

Millennium · Mar 30, 2005, 03:54 PM

Originally posted by TETENAL:
You can create custom preview icons with GraphicConverter or a similar program.

Indeed you can, but it's not something you can get done automatically for new images.

TETENAL · Mar 30, 2005, 04:17 PM

Originally posted by Millennium:
Indeed you can, but it's not something you can get done automatically for new images.

Depends on what you mean by "new images". Image Capture creates them automatically for images imported from your camera; iPhoto doesn't.

tripletaker · Mar 30, 2005, 04:50 PM

I'm sure that it hadn't been moved or deleted. I didn't change anything at all. And it happens every single time.