The following is a list of things that stick out from when I made the move to my first Mac. So if you’re delving into Macs for the first time, the following should come in handy.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Luckily, when it comes to the actual keyboard shortcuts, a lot of the shortcuts on your Mac are the same as they are on your Windows PC; generally you can just swap Command for Control for a lot of the standards. For example, the Ctrl-C/X/V for Copy/Cut/Paste become Cmd-C/X/V. Simple, right?

Instead of boring you with a long list of keyboard shortcuts like those, I’m just going to highlight some of the less obvious shortcuts.

• Force Quit: When a program freezes up on your Windows PC and you want to force it
  closed, you hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete. On your Mac, you’ll hit Cmd-Alt-Escape. This brings up the Force Quit dialog — a similar tool
  to the task manager for the purpose of closing unresponsive apps.

• Minimize/Hide: You can minimize a window to the dock from your keyboard by pressing Cmd-M. Or you can Hide an application by pressing Cmd-H. The difference is that hiding an application does not put anything on the dock, but hids every window of that app. Instead all application windows disappear from view until you switch back. In my opinion hiding is a better option because you can Cmd-Tab back to a hidden application and it will restore to your screen; however pressing Cmd-Tab to a minimized app will leave the app on the dock.

• Opening selected file: If you’ve ever opened a file or program on your PC by selecting the file and then hitting Enter to launch it you will need to know this tip. If you try to do the same on your Mac, your Mac will think you want to rename the file instead of open it. To open the file, you have to hit Cmd-O (for open).

• Backspace vs Delete: On Macs, the backspace key is called Delete. This key deletes from right to left, just like the backspace key. If you want to delete test from left to right, like the windows delete key, you will have to press Function-Delete (especially if you’re on a laptop). As well if you want to delete a file or folder from with a key press, select the file and press Cmd-Delete and it will go straight to the Trash.

• Closing windows and apps: In the Windows environment, whenever you close the last open window from a program, that program quits. Things do not opporate like that in the Mac world. Cmd-W will close the active window, however — unlike in Windows — once you’ve closed the last window of an application, the app will continue to run. If you want to quit a Mac app, you hit Cmd-Q (for quit). This one is especially important when you first switch to a Mac so you don’t end of wasting your system memory running several apps you’re not using.

Installing apps

This may seem like somewhat of a no brainer for Mac veterans, but when you switch to a Mac from a PC, you may find the installation process of new applications a bit confusing at first. That’s because, in general, there’s absolutely nothing to it. When you download an application (generally in the form of a compressed .dmg file, which will mount as a drive when you open it), you’re pretty much done with
the installation process. You can run an application (marked by the .app extension) from anywhere on your computer, and there’s really no installation to it. Broadly speaking, the installation of a new Mac app generally consists of moving the new application to your Applications folder. Many apps make this very simple, like the mounted Firefox .dmg above.

Unless you have your own system for arranging apps on your Mac, copying new apps to the Applications folder is a good practice. What you don’t want to do is forget to move the app from the .dmg folder to your hard disk.

While this article is just scratching the surface I hope it helps those readers who have just switched to a Mac or plan to soon. I’m sure their will be more written on this topic hear in the future, so if you’ve got questions on the subject; say there is something you did on your Windows that you just can’t seem to figure out how to do on your Mac — then let’s hear it. Send us your questions and we will do our best to get answers up. Also if you’re a Mac Addict like us hear at About this Mac and you have your own tips, we’d love to hear those as well.

In general a CD or DVD can be ejected on a Mac (MacBook or MacBook Pro) using the physical eject button or from the finder without any problems, but occasionally this don’t work and the disc icon might disappear from your Desktop and you can’t get the disc out of your computer. However, there is a trick you can try to extract the stuck disc.

• Restart your Mac
• After you hear the startup chime, press and hold your trackpad button
• After a minute or so and you think nothing is gonna happen the disc ejects
• Release the button once the disc ejects

99% of the time this will work. The other 1% has a more advance solution that I won’t publish. So if it doesn’t work for you. Just contact us and we’ll walk you through it.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to send email attachments there is no faster way than by using Mail.

We all know the standard way. Open Mail…Select New Message…click on
the Attachment Paper Clip icon…fill out your email…and Send.

There is actually a much quicker way to do this. Just take the
attachment you would like to send, and drag it to the Mail icon in the
Dock. Mail will launch, a new message will pop up, and your file will
already be attached.

Fill our your email, and click Send.

via Mactips.org

To activate Spotlight, you can either click on the magnifying glass on the top right of your screen, or use the keyboard shortcut: command + spacebar.
Once you activate Spotlight, type in what you want to find. Every file, from applications to emails to documents, are indexed by your computer.

Find the file/application you want, press enter and it will open the document or application.

Why is this so important? Well, I never use the dock anymore. I rarely use the Finder to find stuff. Spotlight is where I go for everything! It’s faster than taking your hands off of the keyboard or searching through endless finder windows for that one document from last year…

Remember: command + spacebar!

Notes:
1. Top Hits (most frequently accessed files or applications) are always the first hit at the top and are automatically highlighted. This makes it super easy to launch applications. Just hit enter when you see the name of your favourite application!

2. Everything in your documents –not just their names– are indexed by Spotlight. If you can’t remember the file name, but can remember that it had the words “cashflow” and “Greg Benson” in it, type them into Spotlight and the document will show up

3. If you just want to see where a file is rather than open it (like if you want to copy it to your portable USB drive), highlight it, then press command + enter to open its enclosing folder

4. If you don’t see the file you’re looking for, hit “show all” for a longer list

5. If you’re looking for a specific type of file, you can specify what you’re looking for right in Spotlight. Just type in a keyword or two, then kind:jpeg, kind:document, kind:pdf, kind:photoshop… you get the idea

6. Want to know a word’s definition, synonym, etc? Type it into Spotlight and select definition!

I haven’t installed anything new. I haven’t added any large files to my computer. But I keep running low on hard drive space! How do I find out what is taking up all the room on my iBook?

Apple’s Finder doesn’t cut it. It’ll tell you how much space is left on your hard drive, but it doesn’t give you a bird’s eye view on what is taking up your hard drive space.

Enter Grand Perspective. This free application gives you an interactive, graphical “tree view” of your Mac’s hard drive.

Step 1: Download and install Grand Perspective.

Step 2: Select the hard drive of concern:
Step 3: Wait a few minutes for Grand Perspective to scan your hard drive
Step 4: Be overwhelmed by the graphical representation of your hard drive. (FYI, the largest block is my iPhoto library)
Step 5: Mouse over the larger blocks to find out what they are and how much space they’re taking up, then click on the blocks you don’t think you need, then click “reveal” to see where it is in the Finder
Step 7: Delete and repeat!

This is an awesome free app and I know it saved Alexa a huge headache; she found out that Azureus was taking up 7.5GB of space. Needless to say, she deleted Azureus and is now using Transmission and enjoying having almost 1/5th of her hard drive back!

note: There is a rhyme and reason behind the colours and groupings of the squares that Grand Perspective uses: Files in the same folders are grouped together, then folders that are in the same folders, etc.

What is the shortcut key to force quit an application on a Mac?

Short answer: ⌘ + option + escape

Long answer: Although many Mac zealots would say otherwise, Apple Mac computers are not perfect. Occasionally, applications will quit working and you’re stuck staring at what I like to call, “the Rainbow wheel Of Death”, or ROD for short. You’ll know him when you see him!

Often, a little patience will pay off and the application will resume, but if you know it’s crashed, or you’re impatient, force quit the application. Hit the key combo above, and the ensuing dialog will list your applications AND tell you if one is not responding. You can even force quit (or relaunch) the finder through the force quit dialog.

Alternatively, you can also find “Force Quit” under the apple in the title bar, or by holding the left mouse button on the guilty application’s icon in the dock.