10 Things Every New Mac Owner Should Know

This is a list of 10 things every first time Mac owner, particularly Mac Mini owner, should know about their new computer and operating system. This article should answer some burning questions, enlighten you about some features you did not know about OS X and just all around be helpful. 256 Won’t Cut It Upgrading to 512MB of DDR RAM is suggested and will get you off to using a Mac on the right foot while an upgrade to 1GB will really unleash some speed. More RAM means you can have more applications open at the same time and decreased boot times. I recommend 1GB for photoshop or other intensive application users. Any memory rated DDR333 or higher will suffice. If you can find one with a CAS latency of 2 or 2.5, get that over one with a CAS of 3. If you’re not sure to go Crucial’s Mac section should be just what the doctor ordered. No Need to Defrag Whenever a PC is acting sluggish the first thing you hear people ask is “Have you tried defragging the hard drive?” However, this is not the case with Macs. Based on the proven and reliable Unix architecture with a Mac OS Extended Journaled file system, you don’t have to worry about defragmenting your hard drive to boost access/reading/writing times; it is done for you automatically. (Technically, it is not being defragged but things are just put in their place with journaling) Whenever your mac detects that it is fairly idle or you attempt to use a heavily fragmented file, it will start fixing up your filesystem. This might explain some noises coming from your computer in the middle of the night (assuming you left it on). Closing Unresponsive Applications The Mac equivalent of CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up a system tasks profiler for force quitting unresponsive tasks is CMD-OPTION-ESC (or Windows-ALT-ESC if you are using a PC keyboard). Just select the frozen application and hit Force Quit. If a program is completely frozen, it will appear in red text. Where Did That Window Go? You will quickly learn that when you minimize your applications, they go to the dock. Specifically the items to the right of the bar in the dock menu are open finder windows or applications. This is similar to the area where minimized applications go in the windows task bar. Also, if a finder window is not minimized, but behind another open window you can bring it up by clicking on the finder icon in the dock. Updates You will want to occasionally check for updates from Apple by accessing the Apple menu and clicking on Software Update. I recommend heading over to Apple > System Preferences > Software Update and setting your Mac to automatically check for software updates weekly and download important updates in the background. System Profiler The System Profiler, accessible via Apple > About This Mac > More Info, is the one stop shop for finding out anything about your Mac. Similar to Windows XP’s Administrative tasks and Device Manager, the System Profiler is easy to navigate and offers you a plethora of system information from application versions to the MAC address of your ethernet card. Expose Apple introduced Expose to OS X to make your life easier, so go ahead and use it to your heart’s content. Go to Apple > System Preferences > Dashboard & Expose and play with some of the settings to make those menial tasks more convienient to execute. My favorite Expose tip is setting an active corner to open up Dashboard. One simple mouse movement and Dashboard launches. Login Items A major annoyance with some applications is that upon installation they will automatically set themselves to run when you boot your computer. For Windows XP, you would usually run msconfig to remedy this problem. However in OS X you can access a similar menu in Apple > System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items. From here you can add, remove and hide items that launch when you login. Eject Optical Media This is probably only a problem for those that are using non-Apple keyboards, that lack a CD Eject key. Press and Hold F12 for 2 seconds to eject any CD or DVD. An alternate method is dragging the CD icon on the desktop to the trash. This will not delete it. You can also use the Command-E keystroke. Keyboard Shortcuts If saving time and being productive is the name of the game, then keyboard shortcuts are for you. The next time you are browsing around the menus of your favorite applications, take a glance at the right side of the menu to see if you find any shortcuts that can help you out. Here are a few to get you started. Command-? Mac Help Command-A Select All Command-C Copy Command-D Duplicates current item Command-E Ejects selected volume, media, or server Command-F Find Command-H Hide current application Command-I Opens Get Info dialog for selected item Command-J Toggles View Options Open & Closed Command-K Connect to server Command-L Creates Alias for selected item Command-M Minimize a Finder-folder to Dock Command-Option-M Save as above but minimizes all open Finder-folders Command-N Opens up new Finder window Command-O Opens selected item Command-Q Quits active application Command-V Paste Command-W Closes Finder-folder window Command-Option-W Same as above but closes all Finder-folders Command-X Cut Command-Z Undo Command-Del Moves selected item to Trash Command-Shift-A Opens the applications folder Command-Shift-N Creates a new folder in the selected workspace Command-Shift-Del Empty Trash Command-Tab Rotate through open applications and switch to highlighted app Command-~ Same as above but only flips through open windows in the selected application

Create Cool Apple iPod Ads with Your Photo

Ever thought how Apple creates those impressive iPod People Advertisements as shown in this picture ? The very innovative Apple iPod commercials feature dark black silhouettes against bright-colored animated backgrounds. The people are shown in dancing postures holding and listening to the iPod with white earphones that stand out against the colored background and black silhouettes [download apple ad movie here] Now Jennifer has a very simple tutorial to convert your photograph into an iPod ad using Photoshop. The ad looks best when you are in an action pose like playing a game, dancing or even jogging. Today, Photojojo points to MacMerc which has even more detailed instructions and step-by-step guide for creating iPod people ads with your own pictures. This creates a better version of the iPod since it also shows how to create people shadows on the floor which give that 3D look to the iPod ad. And if you hate Photoshop or don't have the "advanced" skills, just send your picture to ipop my photo and they will "ipodify" it for a fee. The final results are very impressive and they also include the iPod with the white earbuds even if they were not part of your original photograph. Happy iPodding.

Download Mosquitotone: Teenage Repellent turns favorite Ringtone of Students

Technology vs Teenagers - Who is winning ? Mosquito device sends out a high pitched irritating noise that can only be heard by young men as most people over 25 do not hear sound at this frequency range. The purpose of Mosquito is to prevent unwanted gatherings of youths and teenagers in shopping malls and around shops or chase them away. Not only shopkeepers, Railway companies have placed the device to discourage youths from spraying graffiti on trains and the walls of railway stations. When Compound Security System developed Mosquito, they would never have imagined that the device would actually help kids and teenagers in their classrooms. The sound emitted by the Mosquito Teens Repellant is now converted into a Cellphone Ringtone. Since adult teachers cannot hear the sound because it's too high-pitched, school children can receive text message alerts and incoming calls on their cell phones without the teacher knowing. Download Mosquito Ringtone | Mosquito Tone Mirror

Top tweaks for a very faster PC

Follow the tips directly after a clean install of Windows XP Defrag the hard drive. Even if XP tells you that it does not need to, do it anyway. It has much tolerance for what "needs" to be done and what should be done. After all, if it was really efficient, there would be no need for you to read this page. Defrag again after installing your applications and games. After that, there should be little need to do it again for awhile unless you delete/uninstall/reinstall a lot of stuff. Read all steps here - Super Tweaks for Windows XP by Black Viper

Free tweaking tool for optimizing Windows system

Fresh UI is a tool for configuring and optimizing Windows. It comes loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings in Windows such as: customizing the User Interface (UI), optimizing system settings, optimizing hardware settings, customizing Windows application settings, control user environment with policies. Fresh UI is organized by section for easy navigation and completed with detail description for easy reference. Great tool! Fresh UI is organized by section for easy navigation and completed with detail descriptions for easy reference. Fresh UI: for Windows XP, 2000, Me, 98, 95, NT Download here

Connect Google Talk to AIM, MSN, & Yahoo

Google has opened up their Google Talk servers for federation with other Jabber servers, you can use Google Talk to connect to your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo or ICQ. Here's how, step-by-step with screenshots. First, download and install the free Jabber client called Psi. It's a fine Jabber client, and you might want to keep it, but you won't need to once you've set everything up. The Psi wiki has a great step-by-step for connecting to Google Talk. Follow their instructions and you'll be able to see your Google Talk contacts. Next, go to Service Discovery and browse the Jabber server ursine.ca and you'll see the transports available. Click on a transport and Psi will gather data. Right-click on a transport to register. Registration involves entering your username and password for the given IM network. Once you do, Psi will connect to that network and retrieve your contacts. You can also add new contacts. Once I had "registered" each of my IM accounts, I had a lot of system messages. Basically it asked me to confirm that I wanted to add each of these contacts. Once I did, they showed up in my Psi contact list. Once you've done so, you can chat with your friends on AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN -- all using Google Talk. You can also add contacts directly within Google Talk. Just use the format [screenname]@[transport.dns.name]. For example, to add my MSN/Hotmail screen name you would enter pankajkala@hotmail.ursine.ca What's the deal with ursine.ca? You can use any Jabber server you'd like -- you'll find a complete list here at www.jabber.org/network/ -- ursine.ca was just the server I used. This process works, although in my experience, the MSN transport has not been reliable. One of my friends reported an weird "echo" effect. Everything she typed was returned back to her as if from me (I saw none of her messages). I've also sent IMs to MSN contacts, only to have them immediately appear "offline." As with any of these kinds of hacks, your mileage may vary. But you've got to admit -- it is very cool to be able to use Google Talk as a universal IM client.

Windows XP Must-Haves

I currently have a dual-boot Linux and Windows XP Professional . I use linux from last 2 year but I was a full-time Windows user for over a decade, so I will discuss some of the applications I have loaded on my new XP installation. Feel free to leave a comment at the end if I am missing some application you can’t live without.

XP Powertoys

Microsoft’s own Powertoys represents one of the few things I cannot live without on a fresh XP install. Powertoys are a collection of small yet helpful tools such as Image Resizer and Tweak UI.

The MCE Theme - XP Energy Blue 2

I was ecstatic when Microsoft released the theme that their Media Center Edition version of Windows uses, XP Energy Blue 2, as I can’t stand the default Windows XP theme. It features a slicker menubar with a seemingly Web 2.0 dual-color glare effect as well as a slightly retooled color scheme for Explorer. It makes the task of computing in Windows much more tolerable.

Adobe Acrobat Enterprise Edition

Everyone knows that the standard version of Adobe Acrobat is pretty much bloatware. It takes a long time to load when opening a PDF and can cause your system to feel like it’s 10 years old. Adobe realized that not everyone fully utilized the extraneous features of Acrobat so they released a lightweight version with the Enterprise Edition suffix. You can download the Enterprise Edition here. Alternatively, you can ditch Adobe’s offerings all together and opt for Foxit Software’s Foxit Reader. It promises to be a small and fast PDF viewer.

Image Editors

Not everyone can justify spending several hundred dollars on a professional image editing application such as Adobe Photoshop when all they want to do is occasionally crop something. There are two free alternatives: the GNU Image Manipulation Program and Paint.NET. If you are familiar with Microsoft Paint, you shouldn’t have much of a problem becoming familiar with Paint.NET’s interface. It is based upon the .NET architecture to provide for a more robust image editing experience. Some Paint.NET highlights include layer support and an unlimited history.

For those pursuing a more feature-rich application, GIMP is the way to go. The only downside to GIMP is that the menu system is nothing like Photoshop or Paint, so it definitely takes some getting used to. GIMP has a nifty feature for taking screenshots which can come in handy.

The capabilities of GIMP are up there with the current Photoshop, although slightly less. However, GIMP is open-source and free making it a massive bargain compared to Photoshop. If you just can’t get anything done in GIMP due to the foreign menus, Scott Moschella has taken the GIMP source code, made the menus more Photoshop-user friendly and released it as GIMPShop. Download GIMPShop for XP.

Productivity Apps

This probably goes without saying but Mozilla Firefox should be your browser of choice.Mozilla Thunderbird makes a great email client and Open Office is a fantastic open-source productivity suite.

As far as simple text editors go, the standard Notepad leaves much to be desired. Some great and free solutions include Notepad 2 and the spiffy Notepad ++. Both offer basic amenities such as line numbering and colored text. Notepad ++ is slightly more advanced with tabs, syntax highlighting and auto-completion. Either of these are fantastic upgrades for those that dabble in HTML all the way to advanced coders that want a simple and lightweight editor. Alternatively, if you like to do a lot of HTML and web coding, the Nvu web authoring suite is for you.

Spyware Removers/System Performance

Since we are talking about Windows here, you will need some form of protection and defense against spyware.Some of the more mainstream spyware removers include AdAware, Spybot Search & Destroy and Microsoft AntiSpyware. CCleaner also helps speed up your system by getting rid of superfluous crap as they put it.

The standard defragmenter gets the job done, but it is bereft of features and uncanny. I prefer Power Defragmenter (freeware) or the full-scale Diskeeper application. Power Defragmenter provides a GUI for the Sysinternals defragmentation engine allowing for faster defrags, higher efficiency and increased ease of use.

After you have cleaned up your hard drive, start focusing on running applications and system resource hogs with Sysinternals’ Process Explorer. This application provides you with extensive information that the Task Manager can’t - The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Now it’s time to benchmark your computer to see if your tweaks have done anything. The SiSoft Sandra benchmarking suite is a great way to track system performance and compare it with other computers. Futuremark’s PCMark and 3DMark series of benchmarking applications are slowly becoming the industry standard. AquaMark used to be a great GPU-intensive benchmarking application, and still is, but their publisher isn’t in existence anymore.

Internet Utilities

I’m not one to web develop on my PC but when there comes a time that I need to edit something on my server, I use either WinSCP or FireFTP. Both are small and free FTP clients with FireFTP integrating into Firefox. WinSCP can handle SSH activities but when you really need a terminal, there is no replacement for Putty. WinSCP’s terminal is emulated but Putty’s terminal is the real deal - colors, tab-complete, etcetera.

The ChatZilla Firefox extension lets me hop onto IRC quickly and easily, but if I want a more feature-rich IRC environment it’s always been XChat or mIRC. My other messaging duties are done with Google Talk and Gaim. Gaim is a big step-up from AIM, boasting an ad-free IM client with support for several instant messaging protocols as well as tabs and chat logging.

When thinking about BitTorrent clients for Windows, several come to mind: Azureus, uTorrent, BitComet and BitLord. Azureus has all the features and extensive plugin support but is slowed down considerably by its use of the Java VM. uTorrent is quite the opposite with a lightweight application that doesn’t hog system resources. You can find out more about other BitTorrent clients with this detailed comparison chart on Wikipedia.

File Utilities

WinRAR with its support for folders, unlike WinZIP, is a well-needed upgrade from Windows XP’s compressed folders. UltraISO is also a nifty application strictly for dealing with ISO images. Great if I want to edit or add a file to an ISO image rapidly. WinISO doesn’t seem to have as many features as UltraISO but is still a solid application.

What Else

I know I am leaving some spaces open such as media players, but I would like to hear what you guys can’t live without on Windows. I know I am a big VLC and iTunes proponent when it comes to media.