[brokecollegestudentF04]

Well I just recently started college, all my friends had iBooks so i finally took the plunge and switched. I got a Mac Mini Core Duo ive had it for about a week now and im not regretting the switch one bit, Anything i could have done on my pc i can do better on this mac and faster. And the people at the Apple Store were great in helping me make the switch. iTunes is amazing, I dont need a TV in the dorms... With the mini and my old flat screen from the PC im set. I stumbled acrossed this board in google when i was looking to purchase a mini. So now i figured id let everyone know that I finally am a switcher.. And after i bought this mini I am a really broke college student now.

[deeper]

Congratulations! And you may be broke now, but keep your focus,, and eventually school will pay off big time.

[nagromme]

Welcome!

What is the world coming to when peer pressure is FOR Macs?

[blackslayer]

CONGRAT! for getting a new mac..welcome to the dark side

[brokecollegestudentF04]

one thing that bothers me is the icons in the dock getting larger everytime put my mouse over them. How do I turn that off. Its really bothering me..

[Will C]

There are several ways of turning that off, try this one:-

System preferernces>Dock>uncheck Magnification (then quit sys prefs)

Hope this helps.

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by brokecollegestudentF04

one thing that bothers me is the icons in the dock getting larger everytime put my mouse over them. How do I turn that off. Its really bothering me..

If you right-click or Control-click on the "divider line" that is on your Dock (the line that divides the right and left side of the Dock, next to the Trash can) you can select the option "Turn Magnification Off".

[nagromme]

FWIW.... here are some quick tips for OS X newcomers:

* Exposé - Show All Windows is your best friend. It's often quicker than Command (cloverleaf)-Tab (same as Windows Alt-Tab) and always quicker than dragging or minimizing windows to see behind them. Get in the habit of hitting F9, or better yet, assign a mouse button or hot corner (I use bottom-left) in System Preferences.

* And you can do this in the MIDDLE of dragging something: drag from one window, go into Exposé, hover over the destination until it blinks (or hit Space) and then when it zooms to full size, drop where you wish. So you can drag from a visible window to a buried window in one motion. (Or to your desktop: F11.)

* Don't quit an app if you'll use it again soon. Leaving an app running in X doesn't use up many system resources at all. Just Hide it: Command-H instead of Q. When you want the app back, there it is with no loading delay.

* Try holding Option (Alt) when switching from one app to another. It auto-hides the previous app with no need to choose Hide. This works whether you switch apps by clicking in the Dock, OR by clicking on a window of the other app. You can even hide the current app just by Option-clicking on exposed desktop, since the desktop is a "window" of the Finder. (And to switch to any app and auto-hide ALL other apps, Command-Option click its Dock icon.)

* Move your Dock to the left to get it out of the way of scrollbars (just my preference). Don't use Dock Magnification AND Dock Hiding at once: they are both nice, but the combination makes it harder to click an app. I like my Dock visible: at a glance I can see what's running, and all my minimized windows.

* Turn off hard disk icons on the desktop, in Finder Preferences. Your screen will be nice and empty, and besides, your "Home" directory (the one with your name) is where everything goes anyway--the rest of the HD won't concern you except when installing software (put apps somwhere in "Applications," for best results.)

* Customize! Here's where to look: 1) The overall System Preferences in the Apple menu. 2) Each app's own Preferences (including Finder)--just switch to that app and look in the app's named menu (the first one after the apple). 3) Most apps have some kind of View Options in the View menu. 4) To customize most app's toolbars, Right-click the toolbar. Add the Path menu to your Finder Toolbars for instance--very handy. OR, try command-clicking the title of a Finder window to see the path. (Works in the Safari browser too.)

* If an app has no windows open, it can STILL be running. Look at the name up by the apple to know what app you are in. And if you want a new window in any app that has none, just click the app's icon in the Dock. That's how you get a Finder window for instance.

* When you click one of an app's windows, it comes forward alone, leaving all other windows behind. Makes it easy to use several apps at once. But if you want ALL the app's windows, just click the app in the Dock.

* For a quick list of all windows in an app, right-click its Dock icon (also allows you to Quit or Hide without even switching to the app first). You can also use the Window menu to find any or all windows in the current app.

* If you put a folder (or hard disk) in the Dock, right-click to get to everything inside without ever opening a window. You can make folders full of shortcuts (called aliases on Mac) and not have to clutter your Dock with apps you don't use often. This makes "subcategories" for your Dock. I put my "subcategories" into the Users/Shared folder so that ALL user accounts can access them.

* Add the Applications folder to your Dock and you can navigate it to any app (much like the Start Menu in Windows). Add any other often-used files/folders to the Dock--OR to the Finder sidebar, which can be collapsed to show just the icon instead of wasting space with names: just drag the vertical divider. The Finder sidebar is a good place to put a destination of something you want to move: drag the folder to the sidebar, and when you're done, drag it back out (anywhere). Dragging something out of the Dock or Finder sidebar doesn't delete it, it just removes that shortcut.

* When you're dragging something and want to cancel the drag, just drop it in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

* To move text from one app to another, highlight it, then click the highlight and hold for a moment. Now you can drag that text to any other app (just like Copy and Paste). You can also drag the text to the Desktop or any Finder window. It will make a text clipping, which you can drag into any document at any time--like storing multiple Copy clipboards with snippets of text to re-use. This is also the quickest way to store a tidbit of info from an email or Web page: select the text and drag it to the Desktop.

* Nearly every window has a "proxy" icon next the the window title. Click and hold on that for just a moment and you can drag it. It represents the file, so you can move the file from place to place, open it in another app by dragging it to the Dock, etc. (Also, a window with a dot in the red Close button means the document has not been saved.)

* You can drag a folder icon--or an open folder's proxy--into any Open/Save dialog. So when you hit Save, instead of navigating through the dialog, you can just drag a folder from Finder and it will become your Save location. Or drag a file from Finder to an Open dialog--great for submitting files through web upload forms.

* Try holding Option (alt) or Command while dragging and clicking things--those are common advanced shortcuts. For instance, when dragging a file, Option forces it to Copy, Command forces it to move (without leaving a copy behind) and Command-Option makes an alias (shortcut). You can also reposition items in an app's toolbar by Command-dragging them. The same goes for icons in the main menu bar at the top-right. More examples: Option-click the triangle for a folder in List view, and it will open that folder AND all subfolders within it. Option-click a window's Close button to close ALL the windows of that particular app. Or option-click the Minimize button (yellow) to minimize all. And option-double-click a file/folder icon (or use Command-Option-O) to make it open while closing the window it came from--useful when you want to open just one file from a folder and don't need the folder window afterwards. Or command-double-click a folder to open it in a new window AND leave the old window too.

* In Safari, enable tabbed browsing and then Command-clicking a link will open it in a new Tab: Command-click a bunch of links (like news stories or forum posts) and they will all open neatly in the same window. Command-clicking is integrated with Mac OS X Mail too: if you get a bunch of links or forum notifications in your email, Command-click all the links. They will all open in Safari in the background without you having to keep returning to Mail repeatedly. Also, Option-click any link in Safari to download the file it points to. Or to download just one file from a Web page, look at the Activity Viewer (Window menu) and Option-double-click the file you want to download. (Many of these tips apply to other browsers like Firefox also.)

* Command-click an icon in the Dock to see where the file is really located. The same thing works with Spotlight results: even right in the drop-down meny you can Command-click any item and the enclosing folder will open. And to trace a shortcut/alias back to its source, choose Show Original (Command-R).

* To make a .zip of any file(s) just choose Create Archive.

* CDs that you burn on Mac will work on Windows machines too.

* For sharpest text display, make sure System Preferences > Appearance has font moothing set to "best for LCD."

* You can make your Mac auto-lock the screen if you walk away long enough to trigger the screen saver. Then anyone who walks up needs a password to access the machine. Just go to System Preferences and choose "Require password...."

* Macs sleep and wake reliably: you don't have to power them all the way down.

* Download software from Mac, Palm and Windows Software Updates and Downloads – VersionTracker , MacUpdate: Macintosh Software & Games , Macgamefiles.com - Free Mac Games Downloads and the Mac OS X Software item in the apple menu. Macs have no real-world viruses, so making sure you get your software from trusted sources keeps you very secure.

* In every 24-hour period you are using only a fraction of your Mac's power. Put the rest to good use, help Stanford U. save lives, and get some cool stats on your Mac in the process Fold! http://teammacosx.com/NQS (Native Intel Folding@Home software is coming any day now.) Don't forget, if you want to do the team-stats thing, that Team MacOS X is not the only Mac team--MacNN has a team too, with their own cool stats displays!

[Andy8]

nagromme - excellent tips for new users and old!

[quiklee]

wow . that was really informative . . . where were you when i switched last year?

[nagromme]

I was in a cave on an island writing all that

Actually I have compiled it gradually. I just edited to add my favorite new discovery: Command-clicking links in Mail!

[brokecollegestudentF04]

Thanks guys for all the tips its sure helping. So far i like this mac its fast and dependable. My boyfriend is coming over tonight to install windows on it, my bf is a hardcore windows user he doesnt think this mini will do what I want it to do. But so far its great, i cant wait to see the games on it. Sims 2 here I come.

[MattJeff]

windows scares me. i have had macs all my life and i have never once had a hicup or virus, we use windows at school and at least one server will crash every day not to mention the viruses we get.
buy a cheap computer for windows, and keep you Mac clean.
P.S. sorry your broke, i am to (sims 2 )

[brokecollegestudentF04]

Yeah the boyfriend has decided to leave his old AMD 3000 laying around for the sims 2, Ive decided to leave this thing all mac although my bf thinks its a crime having MacOS X run on intel hardware he refuses to touch my computer. Im glad of that. So far I enjoy the speed of this mini it blows his Pentium 4 away and hes rather hot about that LOL... I guess he'll get over it and learn to cross over to the dark side eventually, Train Him I must.. Convert him I will... he will succumb to the forces of the dark side

[brassplayersrock²]

no offense, but people like your bf make me puke!

welcome to the better side of the computer world brokecollegestudentf04

[brokecollegestudentF04]

Would It be wrong to dump him if he didnt turn switcher like me ??, ever since i brought home this mac mini hes been a dick. He was so opposed to me buying it, he chewed out the people at the apple store where I got the machine, never have i been so embarrased

[brassplayersrock²]

if something like having a mini does that to the guy then yes, dump the prick. he has no reason being your bf...

you can IM me if you want to talk to someone... berkleestudent84

[FutureTech]

Originally Posted by brokecollegestudentF04

Would It be wrong to dump him if he didnt turn switcher like me ??, ever since i brought home this mac mini hes been a dick. He was so opposed to me buying it, he chewed out the people at the apple store where I got the machine, never have i been so embarrased

I wouldn't dump him because he doesn't switch but he should learn to respect your preference to use a Mac, however if he has been a jerk ever since you bought it and this is going to continue to cause future problems then that's a different story.
He may be a Windows fan, but he doesn't have to get all cocky just because you decided to get a Mac, it's not like it's going to take over his Windows PC. Now i'm not sure it'd be a good idea to try and convert him because that may just add fuel to the fire but maybe one day he'll get curious on what he's missing and make use of your Mac Mini when you are out and somehow convert himself, but only time will tell.

[brokecollegestudentF04]

im about to take his windows pc and make him go on a scavenger hunt for it, ill leave a note in place of it and make him look for clues till he finds it. LOL, god i can be so evil

[nagromme]

I agree--don't dump him, keep him--and exact slow painful vengeance! Scavenger hunt is a good start.

Remember one of the big reasons people get upset over something: because deep down they doubt themselves!

Luckily it's only an OS and no big deal We hope...

[FutureTech]

Originally Posted by nagromme

Luckily it's only an OS and no big deal We hope...

Hmmm, her bf did make an idiot of himself and embarresed her infront of the Mac shop staff. Actually i'm surprised he even stepped foot inside a Mac store, for some Windows fans it'd probably be like what light to a Vampire is.

Originally Posted by brokecollegestudentF04

im about to take his windows pc and make him go on a scavenger hunt for it, ill leave a note in place of it and make him look for clues till he finds it. LOL, god i can be so evil

You could always make the Apple logo as his desktop background so he get's a nice surprise the next time he boots into Windows.

[brokecollegestudentF04]

I did worse i changed his startup screens in windows xp while he was at work hes gonna have a shock when he comes home and his log in panel looks like mac os x

[Gamoe]

Fine choice, brokecollegestudentF04! And great info there, nagromme! Oh wow... romantic troubles over computing platform choices-- Wowzers! Seriously, love should be able to surpass such issues. If it doesn't-- well, I'd say there are more issues there then what kind of computer you or he have!

Another little tip--Download TinkerTool. It has very neat extra options for customizing your Mac that Apple doesn't expose by default (like putting both scroll arrows on the bottom and top of the scroll bar on every window). Best of all, it only changes options built-in to Mac OS X-- it doesn't "hack" the system in any way (like other such software) that might make your system unstable.

[brokecollegestudentF04]

Yeah im glad i switched... Very happy with the Mini, it out performs anything ive ever used before, Im a gamer girl and I go to lan parties quite often and you see some of the most expensive high end gaming rigs there. However i think this mini is gonna turn some heads when i take it there. It plays my games decently alot better than the PC i had.. The PC is up for grabs in the marketplace. And as far as the bf situation goes... he aint gettin any until he changes his attitude. I am actually going to college for Computer science. however its a non mac school. So ill have to learn elsewhere. Thanks guys for all the help

[blackslayer]

Congrat on getting ur new mac mini Your bf will get used to it somehow so be patient with him yea? Pyscho him by telling hw good mac is..

[KeriVit]

Yay brokecol...yadayada.

I hope you enjoy your new toy.

The Windows startup, i did it to my friend and he cried.

nagromme, lovely tips.

[polendo]

bcsf04: congrats on your mini.. enjoy it!

nagromme: great quick list! I printed it twice , one with my iBook and one with the Mini.

regards