Take control of switching to the MAC

Table of Contents (Version 1.0)
Read Me First .......................................... 2
Introduction ............................................ 5
Switching to the Mac Quick Start ................ 6
Get Ready ............................................... 7
Set Up and Use Your Mac ........................ 16
Learn More about Your Mac...................... 56
Live as a Mac User in a Windows World...... 81
Glossary ............................................... 84
Resources ............................................. 87
About This Ebook ................................... 89

ISBN 1-933671-04-1

READ ME FIRST
Welcome to Take Control of Switching to the Mac, version 1.0.

NOTE

This ebook was sponsored by Genentech. Special thanks to Mark
Altenberg and the reviewers at Genentech: Bill Bennett, Dexter
Chan, Kevin DuBay, Mark Jeffries, Jane Pray-Silver, Jerome
Rainey, and Kathryn Woods.

This ebook was written by Scott Knaster, edited by Caroline Rose,
and published by TidBITS Electronic Publishing. It guides you
through the process of switching from a Windows PC to a Macintosh
computer. You can contact TidBITS Electronic Publishing by sending
email to tc-comments@tidbits.com and view the Take Control Web
site and catalog at http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/. You can read
About This Ebook to learn about the author, the publisher, and the
Take Control series. The copyright page contains copyright and legal
info.
We may offer free minor updates to this ebook. Click the Check for
Updates button on the cover to access a Web page that informs you
of any available or upcoming updates. On that page, you can also
sign up to be notified about updates via email.

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Basics
To understand this ebook, you don’t have to know anything about
Macintosh computers or how they work. However, a working
knowledge of Microsoft Windows will help. Also note the following
conventions:
• Menus: When I describe choosing a command from a menu in the
menu bar, I use an abbreviated form. For example, the abbreviated
form for the menu command that saves a file from Microsoft Word
is “File > Save.”
• Descriptions: When I describe hardware, such as the Mac key-
board, I’m assuming you have a newer Mac, made in 2005 or later.
Some descriptions—mostly minor details—don’t fit older Macs.
• Operating system terminology: The Macintosh operating
system is called Mac OS X (the X is pronounced “ten,” like a
Roman numeral). Major releases have both a number and a name.
The current release is 10.4 Tiger, and the previous version was 10.3
Panther.
• Path syntax: This ebook occasionally uses a path to show the
location of a file or folder in your file system. Path text is formatted
in bold type. For example, the Mac stores most utilities, such as
Disk Utility, in the Utilities folder. The path to Disk Utility is:
/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.
The slash at the start of the path tells you to start from the root
directory of the disk (similar to C: in Windows). You will also
encounter paths that begin with ~ (tilde), which is a shortcut for
any user’s home folder (similar to My Documents in Windows).
For example, if a person with the user name joe wants to install
fonts that only he can access, he would install them in his
~/Library/Fonts folder, which is just another way of writing
/Users/joe/Library/Fonts.

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INTRODUCTION
There has never been a better time to be a Macintosh user. And
there’s never been a better time to become one if you’re not one
already. Thanks to the success of the iPod and of recent Macintosh
models, Apple is enjoying a renaissance.
Mac users tend to be dedicated to their computer of choice. There
are reasons for this devotion. Apple’s fanatical attention to detail
and ease of use, and high-tech-with-a-smile personality, have been
rewarded with loyal customers. And Mac users welcome new mem-
bers to their ranks.
In this ebook, I take you through the steps you need to switch your
computing life from Windows to Macintosh. By the end of the ebook,
you’ll be running on your Mac with your files moved over from your
Windows PC, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how to get around
on your new Mac.

NOTE Because this ebook is written with Macintosh beginners in mind, I
refer to many other Take Control ebooks that you might find useful.
I don’t mean to be pushy by doing this, just thorough. This ebook is
designed to be useful all by itself, but if you want to find out more
about particular topics, I highly recommend other Take Control
ebooks. I also suggest you visit Apple’s Web site, especially
http://www.apple.com/macosx/, to learn more about topics
that interest you.

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SWITCHING TO THE MAC QUICK START
Switching from Windows to Macintosh doesn’t have to be hard.
Here’s an overview of how this ebook can help:
Get ready to switch:
• Why switch to the Mac? You probably have some ideas already.
Find out more in What’s Cool about the Mac, and balance that by
reading What’s Not So Cool (and What to Do about It).
• Be sure to Choose the Best Mac for You.
Set up and use your Mac:
• If your Mac isn’t already set up, begin by reading Set Up Your Mac.
• You can figure out a lot about your Mac by playing around with it,
but it’s better to first Understand User Interface Differences.
• Next, you’ll start to get ready for real work on your Mac. It’s time
to Choose Mac Applications and Move Your Data to Your Mac.
Learn more about your Mac:
• You’ve got the basics down; now start diving deeper by reading Set
Up Multiple Users and Learn More about File Views.
• Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger includes a new tool for locating information
on your computer, as explained in Find Files with Spotlight.
• Figure out how to use more of your Mac’s features. See Manage
Applications and Windows, Use the Network, and Try Printing.
• Apple offers an easy-to-use service that downloads new software to
your computer via the Internet. See Use Software Update.
• Inevitably, you’ll run into problems. Find out how to solve them by
reading Glitches and Gotchas: Troubleshooting.
• Expand your Mac mind by perusing Five Mac Features You Must
Learn, followed by Five Useful Tips.
Learn to live as a Mac user in a Windows world:
• You might want to know how to Share Documents with Windows
Users, and you might have to Run Windows Applications.

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GET READY
OK! You’ve decided to take the plunge: you’re switching to the Mac.
Well, although you might think you’re a Mac island in a vast sea of
Windows, you’re far from alone. Apple is on a roll, and millions of
people are buying Macs, many of them for the first time.
When Windows computers seem to be everywhere, why should you
be using a Mac? Let’s take a look.

What’s Cool about the Mac
People have various reasons for buying and using Macintosh com-
puters. Here are the most common ones:
• Macs are stable. In general, fewer weird and unreliable things
happen when you’re using a Mac. Programs don’t crash or freeze
as often. Inexplicable problems, such as no sound from the
computer or the mouse not working, are almost unknown. And
although applications occasionally misbehave, full system crashes
(the equivalent of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death in Windows)
are rare.
• Macs don’t get viruses. If you’re tired of cleaning viruses
off your computer—and according to recent press reports, some
people are actually choosing to get rid of their PCs rather than
deal with virus infections—you’re bound to love having a Mac.
You won’t find viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, or other
ill-meaning software running in Mac OS X.
• Almost everything is easier on a Mac. Ease of use is a
cornerstone of Macintosh hardware and software design. Macs
come with lots of friendly software included, and more is available
from Apple and other companies. Because Mac users tend to
expect higher-quality software, other companies have to make
sure their Mac software is good, too.
• Little things on the Mac seem to work better. Waking your
Mac from sleep (system standby) will make you smile: the process
is almost instantaneous. Joining a wireless network usually hap-
pens automatically. The Mac is filled with small touches that make
your computing experience more enjoyable.

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• Mac software has terrific graphics and high production
values. Apple sweats the details, and it shows. Macs are fun to
use, which makes it more pleasant (or perhaps tolerable) when
you have to work late on those spreadsheets; as famed computer
researcher Alan Kay has said, “Things that are fun are intrinsically
worth doing.” Apple also does a great job hiding the messy behind-
the-scenes stuff that most users don’t want or need to see. In
contrast, Windows users must sometimes work through bits of
older software, such as DOS-style pathnames, that peek out from
the corners of the system.
• Now is a good time to switch. Reviewers and regular folks
have high praise for the latest version of the Mac’s operating
system, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Apple produces beautiful, innovative
hardware with plenty of features. The company is fiscally healthier
than ever (thanks in no small part to its success with digital
music), sparing us from those “Apple is going out of business”
rumors that used to pop up every year or so. And finding help for
your Mac questions is easier than ever, thanks to the vast informa-
tion sources on the Internet as well as Apple’s large network of
company-owned retail stores (each of which includes a support
and repair department named, with typical Apple verve and
humility, the Genius Bar).

What’s Not So Cool (and What to Do about It)
After reading the previous section, you might wonder why everyone
on the planet doesn’t immediately pitch their Windows computers
out the, er, window and trade them in for Macs. As wonderful as the
Macintosh world sounds, there is some pain attached to making the
Mac switch. And, although you’ll find Mac fans who disagree,
Macintosh computers are not perfect, or even clearly superior to
Windows in every last detail. Here are a few of the problems you’re
likely to encounter:
• Switching is work. Even if your switch to the Mac improves
your life and work, the act of switching itself will have its difficult
moments. When you use Windows, you’re exercising muscle
memory and neural paths so familiar that you might not even
realize you’re using them. As you make the transition, you’ll have
to slow down and think about things that have heretofore been
automatic. Changes in terminology will annoy you. You’ll be
troubled by screen elements that look the same but act slightly
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differently, or that have a completely different appearance but
perform familiar functions. One of the chief jobs of this ebook is
to help you with these issues—but they’ll still bug you, especially
during the early stages of your switch.
• In a Windows world, Macs can seem harder to use. Most
people who have used both systems agree that Macs are easier to
use than Windows PCs. But there are many, many more PCs in the
world than there are Macs. So when something goes wrong with
your Windows PC, there are usually more resources around to help
you: more neighbors, more family computer gurus, more material
online, more technical support at the office. This produces a para-
doxical network effect: although Macs are generally easier than
PCs, they can actually become more troublesome than PCs when
you need help.
Apple helps you overcome this problem by offering one-stop
shopping (literally) through its online and physical stores. Like
most companies, Apple provides support via the Web. But Apple
goes far beyond most others with its Apple Stores. Apple has more
than 100 retail stores in the U.S., a few more stores in Canada,
Japan, and the U.K., and more opening every month. Each store
includes a Genius Bar (as mentioned in the previous section),
where you can obtain excellent service and support for your Mac.
Employers provide varying degrees of help for Mac users. If your
IT department officially supports Macs, be sure to take advantage
of any services offered there. At most companies, Mac users are
in the minority, so it’s a good idea to form a community, such as
a mailing list, to provide mutual aid and to commiserate about the
terrible unfairness of a world in which most people use Windows.
Of course, Macs typically need less technical support than Windows,
so having fewer support resources becomes less of an issue.
• Connecting to Windows networks can be tricky. Apple
spends a lot of time and effort giving its computers the ability to
play nice with Windows. This includes such features as mounting
Windows shares, connecting to printers on Windows networks,
and working with Windows-formatted disks. But sometimes it
seems like Apple’s heart isn’t in it. Mac support for working with
Windows computers and networks is often buggy and incomplete.
And who can blame Apple? No doubt it’s a lot more interesting to
create the latest visually stunning Mac OS X feature than to fix a
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bug in how Macs share files with PCs. But for those of us who need
that Windows support, it’s a pain.
• Some applications don’t have Mac versions. Because there
are so many more PCs than Macs, some companies decide to
produce software only for Windows. Others have both Mac and
Windows versions but let the Mac versions trail behind in features.
You can find at least one Mac OS X application in every major
category. Because Mac users have high standards, these programs
are often excellent. But in many categories PC users have more
options to choose from. Specialized programs can present bigger
problems: some niche software is simply not available on the Mac.
If you rely on one of these unavailable programs, you have several
options. You can sometimes find another program that’s similar to
yours and adapt your work to use it. A few programs provide Web
interfaces that don’t care whether you’re using a Mac or Windows.
But in some cases you might have to continue using specialized
Windows applications. If you find yourself in that situation, you
always have the option of using Virtual PC, a software package
from Microsoft that actually installs Windows on your Mac and
lets you run Windows applications. I cover Virtual PC and related
issues in more detail in Choose Mac Applications.
• A Mac is a computer, and computers can be balky. If you
are used to Windows, you’ll experience fewer instances of odd and
annoying behavior on your Mac—but you’ll still see it sometimes,
unfortunately. This includes applications growing sluggish, freez-
ing, or quitting unexpectedly, features working strangely, and
network troubles. Although you can’t eliminate these problems,
you can learn how to avoid them, and to recover from them
gracefully when they do happen. I cover this in Glitches and
Gotchas: Troubleshooting.
Something else to remember is that although Macs are virus-free
today, there’s no guarantee that that will be the case forever. Why
haven’t Macs been hit by viruses, worms, and the like? The answer
to that question is hotly debated. The factors usually cited include:
(a) Mac OS X is built on UNIX, a mature and solid operating sys-
tem, (b) Mac OS X as installed is configured to prevent intrusions
from bad things on the Internet, (c) Macs are so few in number
compared to Windows computers that nobody bothers to attack
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them, and (d) virus writers hate Windows, but they leave Macs
alone. I believe each of these plays a part in the lack of Mac
viruses, but nobody really knows.

NOTE BEING PC: AREN’T THEY ALL PERSONAL COMPUTERS?
PC stands for personal computer, of course. But in this ebook and
in the common vernacular, PC is a shorthand term for a personal
computer running Microsoft Windows, as opposed to a Macintosh
computer running Mac OS X.

Choose the Best Mac for You
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he ridiculed the com-
pany’s confusing product line, which included many Macs with
similar designations such as Performa 6110, Performa 6112, and
Performa 6115 (not to mention Performas 6116 and 6118). How, Jobs
reasonably asked, could customers know the difference between these
models when even people working at Apple couldn’t tell?
To simplify, Apple changed the product line by dividing it into four
simple categories: desktop and portable computers, each with ver-
sions for consumer and professional users. Although the distinctions
have blurred and the product lines have become somewhat more
complex, these categories are still valid today, the better part of a
decade after Apple adopted them.
When deciding which Mac is right for you, your first decision should
be whether to choose a desktop or a portable computer. Get a por-
table (also called a laptop or notebook) if you want to be as mobile
as possible, carrying your work with you around the office and the
house. Pick a desktop model if you need processing power or a big
screen, or if you don’t care about portability.

TIP LESS IS MORE
You’ll usually pay more for the same capabilities in a portable com-
puter than in a desktop. That’s because cramming components into
a portable requires more advanced engineering and more precise
manufacturing than building a relatively spacious desktop model.
So, price versus performance is another factor to consider when
choosing desktop or portable.

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Here’s a brief look at the Macintosh models available now in each
category:
• Desktop computers: Power Mac G5 (Figure 1) is Apple’s
professional-grade desktop line. These computers possess the
most impressive specs of any in Apple’s stable, including the
fastest microprocessors, largest possible memory and hard disk
storage, and most powerful graphics hardware.

FIGURE 1 Power Mac G5, Apple’s most powerful line of
computers.

The venerable iMac and the upstart Mac mini are Apple’s low-end
desktop models. The iMac G5 (shown in Figure 2) plays hide-the-
computer, placing all the electronics inside the same 2-inch-thick
case that holds the display, so all you see is screen, keyboard, and
mouse. The Mac mini (Figure 3) is nearly the opposite: nothing
but a tiny box (less than 85 cubic inches) containing the basic
computer. You add your own external display, along with keyboard
and mouse, to complete the system. The display, keyboard, and
mouse need not come from Apple; you can use inexpensive ones
or spares to keep your total cost down. Because the mini includes
only essential parts, Apple can price it low ($499 for the basic
model).

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FIGURE 2 iMac G5 with keyboard, mouse, and
remote control.

FIGURE 3 Mac mini, the smallest
and least expensive
Macintosh computer
ever. You supply the
keyboard, mouse, and
display.

Apple also sells the eMac, a lesser-known consumer desktop
model. The e in eMac stands for education and reveals the eMac’s
origin: when Apple redesigned its iMacs to incorporate flat-panel
displays, the eMac, which includes a less expensive CRT display,
was created to accommodate price-conscious education buyers.
Apple sells eMacs only to educational institutions; for more
information, see http://www.apple.com/education/emac/.
• Portable computers: Apple’s consumer-level portable is the
iBook; the professional model is the PowerBook (Figure 4 and
Figure 5). The current editions of these two lines are similar in
many ways, and the machines are a lot alike internally. The main
advantages of the PowerBook are its options for a larger screen,
faster processor, more memory, PC Card slot, and better graphics.
You can compare PowerBook and iBook features by going to
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html and clicking
Compare with iBook Notebooks.

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FIGURE 4 The PowerBook is avail-
able in various screen
sizes: 12-, 15-, and 17-
inch. It includes nifty
features such as a backlit
keyboard and a trackpad
that can be used for
scrolling.

FIGURE 5 The iBook is the Power-
Book’s less expensive
cousin. It lacks a few of
the PowerBook’s features
and is available only in
12- and 14-inch screen
sizes, but it can cost
substantially less.

NOTE Although this general description of Apple’s Macintosh lines is
correct as of November 2005, Apple is always making new stuff, so
the product line is bound to change in the future. In particular, with
Apple’s transition to Intel processors just around the corner (see the
sidebar Switching to Intel), big changes might be afoot. (I don’t know
anything about Apple’s plans for new Macs, and [almost] nobody else
does either. Apple loves to surprise everyone and is notorious for its
secrecy. Of course, this vacuum of official information leads to a
flood of speculation and rumors about what Apple is up to. Rumor-
mongering is a popular pastime among Macintosh fans.)

For detailed information about selecting the right Mac for you,
I suggest that you read Take Control of Buying a Mac
(http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/buying-mac.html).

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SIDEBAR SWITCHING TO INTEL
Apple has made its way by going in a different direction from other
computer companies. Not only does Apple make its own operating
system and computers, unlike companies that license Windows from
Microsoft, but Apple builds Macs around the G4 and G5 processors,
which have a completely different design than the ones used in com-
puters that run Windows. But that’s changing: in June 2005, Apple
announced that it’s ditching the current processors in favor of Intel
chips in future Macs. The first Intel-based Macs are supposed to
appear in mid-2006.
Amazingly, this processor switch alone won’t affect the way Macin-
tosh software looks and behaves. Apple has been secretly running
Mac OS X on Intel chips in its labs for several years now. Most
current OS X programs will work on Intel-based Macs, albeit more
slowly, as special software translates the old code on the fly. And
programmers are hard at work (listen: you can hear them typing
and griping) converting software to be directly Intel-compatible
so it won’t need the translation layer anymore.

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SET UP AND USE YOUR MAC
Now it’s time to go to your workspace, stretch out your fingers, and
set up and use your Mac. At this point, you might find it helpful to
recall the words printed in large, friendly letters on the cover of the
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Don’t Panic. You’ll see and experi-
ence all sorts of strange new things, but it’s going to be OK. It’ll be fun
and rewarding, too.

NOTE Before you go ahead with setting up your Mac, make sure this is a
good time to proceed. You should clear at least a few hours on your
schedule to make the transition and move your data; a weekend is
ideal. Although you might be itching to start working with your Mac
as soon as possible, it’s not a good idea to begin the process 10 min-
utes before you leave for an appointment. If you use your Mac at
work, the beginning of a new project is an excellent time to switch.
You should choose a point of relative calm in your computing life—
not, for example, while you’re simultaneously trying to finish up
your company’s annual plan.

Set Up Your Mac
If you haven’t already done so, take your Mac out of its box and set it
up in your workspace. Connect the mouse and the keyboard (if it’s not
built in, as on a portable) to the USB ports on the Mac. Make sure
you’ve plugged your Mac into AC power.
Turn your Mac on by pressing the Power button—that’s the round one
marked with a circle broken by a vertical bar. Enjoy the welcome from
Apple, and then follow the steps and answer the questions that
appear on the screen as the first-time setup program runs.

TIP The Mac emits a melodious tone when it starts up. If you’ve connect-
ed your Mac to external speakers, or you’re turning it on for the first
time late at night at home, be sure to lower the speaker volume or
make sure the door to the room is closed.

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NOTE If your computer has already been set up by someone else, you won’t
see the first-time setup program. Instead, your Mac will go directly to
the Desktop or to the login screen, depending on how it’s been set up.

Understand User Interface Differences
Your first time in the Macintosh universe might feel like a trip to
Bizarro world: everything is sort of familiar, but nothing is quite right.
Favorite objects are missing or have moved, and the colors are all
wrong. This section will help get you through those first minutes and
hours with your new Mac as you endeavor to figure out what’s what.
Mouse differences
The mouse or trackpad on a Windows PC has at least two buttons.
You use left-click to select and click things, such as menus and but-
tons, and right-click to bring up a shortcut menu of operations that
work on whatever you’re pointing at.
In contrast, Macintosh trackpads and mice have only one button.
This is an immediate, concrete example of the Mac philosophy of
simplicity: when there’s only one button, you can’t click the wrong
one. Use the single button on your Mac mouse or trackpad to select
and click objects. Macs have contextual menus, which are the same as
shortcut menus on Windows. (This is a rare case of Microsoft using a
friendlier name for a technology than Apple does.) To see contextual
menus, you hold down the Control key (which is marked “Ctrl” on
most keyboards) while you click.
Many people switching from Windows miss having that right mouse
button. Well, I have good news: although Macs don’t come with two-
button mice, Mac OS X fully supports them. You can connect any
multi-button USB mouse to your Mac, and both left- and right-click
are supported automatically, as is a scroll wheel. USB mice with three
or more buttons usually come with software that lets you set up the
additional buttons to perform other functions. You might want to
bring your favorite mouse with you from your PC to your Mac; it will
probably work fine.
If you have an Apple mouse, it might actually be a two-button mouse
in disguise. Apple’s Mighty Mouse has no visible buttons at all. It
works by detecting pressure on the left or right side of its face. Mighty
Mouse comes configured as a one-button mouse: it treats all “clicks”
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the same, so that novice users will never hit the wrong button.
Windows veterans and others who want two buttons can easily
change the settings (see System Preferences vs. Control Panel)
and then right-click with Mighty Mouse.
Keyboard differences
What’s so different about the keyboard? It still has all the letters
and numbers, right? Yes, but there are a few important distinctions:
• Control (or Ctrl): Macintosh and Windows keyboards both have
this key, but unfortunately for planetary sanity, they do entirely
different things. On Windows, you use Control with another key
as a shortcut for performing a command. On the Mac, Control is
much less common, usually used with a mouse click to summon
contextual menus, as described earlier in Mouse differences.
Fortunately, the key with the Apple logo is an almost exact
replacement for Control on PCs, as described in the next bullet
point.
• Command (Apple logo): The key labeled with both the Apple
logo () and the Command symbol () works like the Control key
in Windows: you use it primarily for menu shortcuts. This key is
called the Command key. For example, you can use Command-Q
to quit most applications. You’ll find that many shortcuts use the
same letter as on Windows; for example, Command-X is Cut,
Command-N is New, and Command-S is Save.
• Option and Alt: The Option key on the Mac is roughly equivalent
to the Alt key on Windows computers. In fact, most Mac keyboards
have the word Alt inscribed on the Option key, usually in tiny let-
ters. And if you have a non-Mac keyboard, you’ll use the Alt key
instead of Option.
The Option key is used to create additional shortcuts, often in
conjunction with the Command key. For example, in the iCal
calendar program that comes with your Mac, you can press
Command-Option-N to create a new calendar. (Command-N
creates a new event.)
Option is also used for mouse shortcuts. If you hold down Option
while dragging a file’s icon, for example, you’ll create a copy of the
file. (Dragging without holding down Option simply moves the
file.)

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• Windows logo: Apple keyboards have no Windows key, of
course, so all the shortcuts it provides in Windows are unavailable
on the Mac. However, you can connect USB keyboards made by
other companies to your Mac, and if you have one that’s not
designed especially for the Mac, it might well have a Windows key.
If you have such a key, don’t put black tape over it and pretend it
doesn’t exist: you’ll use it a lot as your equivalent of the Command
key.
• Backspace, Delete, and Del: On a non-Mac keyboard, you
press Backspace to delete the character to the left of the insertion
point. On a Mac keyboard, the Delete key performs this function.
Confusingly, the Delete key in Windows deletes the character to
the right of the insertion point. To delete to the right on a Mac,
press the Del (not Delete) key unless you’re using a Mac portable,
in which case press Fn-Delete.
The Mac keyboard includes a few additional special keys that provide
direct shortcuts to common hardware functions. Two keys have little
suns on their labels (one sun is smaller than the other); use these keys
to increase or decrease the screen’s brightness. Three other keys con-
trol the volume of the Mac’s built-in speaker; they’re the ones with
pictures of a loudspeaker on them. Press the first one to mute the
volume (and again to unmute). The second key lowers the volume,
and the third turns it up. Another key, usually at the far right, has a
horizontal bar and an Up arrow; that one ejects CDs and DVDs.
Depending on your keyboard, some or all of these special keys might
do double duty. In particular, all special keys on PowerBooks and
iBooks share space with functions keys (those labeled F1, F2, and
so on). You can tell they have two functions because they have two
legends printed on them; for example, on PowerBooks and iBooks,
brightness-down shares a key with F1, brightness-up is on the F2 key,
and so on.
To use the two-legend keys (typically F1 through F7 and F12 on
PowerBooks and iBooks) as function keys, hold down the Fn key and
press the desired function key. For example, F5 is also labeled as the
volume-up key. To turn the volume up, press F5 alone. To generate
the F5 function, press Fn-F5. Windows works the opposite way: press
the function key by itself for the usual function, and Fn plus the
function key for the special feature.

Page 19

NOTE If you like, you can easily make your Mac function keys work in the
Windows way: choose Apple > System Preferences (remember, the
Apple menu is the first one in the menu bar, labeled with the Apple
logo), click Keyboard & Mouse, click the Keyboard tab, and then
check the box in the middle of the window.

Here are the highlights of what you need to know about the keyboard:
• Command () on the Mac works almost identically to Control on
Windows.
• Option on the Mac works much like Alt on Windows.
• The main use of the Control key on the Mac is as part of Control-
click, which summons contextual menus.
Differences in menus
In Windows, every window contains its own menu bar. Mac OS X
uses a simpler concept: a single menu bar that’s always at the top
of the screen and changes depending on the current application.
The first item in the menu bar is always the Apple logo and always
contains the same items, which are systemwide commands such
as Restart, Shut Down, and System Preferences. The second menu,
called the application menu, always bears the name of the current
application and has commands that affect the whole application,
including Quit and Preferences. The rest of the menu bar varies
depending on the current application, although the next three menu
titles are usually File, Edit, and View, and the last one is Help in most
applications.
The phantom application
If you’re using an application and you close all its windows, you’ll
find yourself in an unfamiliar twilight zone. The application is still
running, as you can see by looking at the menu bar and noticing that
the program’s menus are still there, including the application’s name
next to the Apple logo on the left (Figure 6). But you don’t seem to
be able to do anything with the application.

Page 20

FIGURE 6

What happened to Microsoft Word? It’s the active application, but
the only way to know that is by looking next to the Apple logo in
the menu bar, at the application menu (it says “Word”).

When you’re using Windows, this situation can’t happen. As soon
as you close an application’s last window, all signs of the application
vanish. But most Mac OS X applications are happy to let you close all
their windows while they keep control of the menu bar at the top of
the screen.
Maybe even worse is that if you accidentally click the Desktop, or
anywhere outside the current application’s windows, you’ll switch to
another application, and the menus for the current application will
vanish.
Either of these situations can be confusing, especially if you’re used to
Windows. How do you reactivate the program you were working on?
First, look at the menu bar. The name of the current application is
always there, next to the Apple logo. If you’re not in the application
you want, switch to the desired application by clicking its icon in the
Dock (the strip of icons at the bottom of the screen).

Page 21

If you’re in the right application but there are no windows open, most
applications let you use the File menu to create a new, blank docu-
ment or to open an existing file. If the application has its own custom
windows, such as the Downloads window in Safari or the main iTunes
window, there’s usually a menu named Window that lets you open
those custom windows when they’ve been closed (Figure 7).

FIGURE 7 Safari’s Window
menu lets you open
the Downloads and
Activity windows if
they’re closed.

Status menus
On the far right end of the menu bar, you’ll find a few status menus.
These are menus that also serve as status indicators. Status menus
give you features similar to those provided by the system tray in
Windows (officially called the notification area, but nobody uses that
term), in the lower-right corner of the screen.
Among the status menus, the icon that looks like a speaker with
sound waves coming out of it is a menu that controls the Mac’s audio
level: click it to see a slider control, and then slide the control to
change the volume level. If you turn the volume all the way down, the
icon becomes a speaker with no sound waves.
Similarly, if you have a portable Mac, you’ll probably see an icon that
reports power status: plugged in, charging, charged, and so on. Click-
ing this icon reveals a menu of power options.
The date and time display is actually the title of another status menu;
like other status menus, you can click it to reveal a menu of options.
Table 2 on the next page shows the standard status menus, their
icons, and where to go in System Preferences to turn them on or off.
Others, such as Bluetooth and iChat, can be turned on in their related
System Preferences panes or applications.

Page 22

Table 2: Status Menus
Icon Menu Name Where in System Preferences

AirPort Network pane, Show menu

Clock Date & Time pane, Clock tab

Power Energy Saver pane, Options tab

Volume Sound pane

NOTE If you’re running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the magnifying glass icon you
see at the right end of the menu bar is not a status menu. It summons
Spotlight, the powerful search feature Apple introduced in Tiger,
which I cover in Find Files with Spotlight. To find out which version
of Mac OS X you’re running, choose Apple > About This Mac.

Apple offers many other status menus, most of which you can activate
using System Preferences (see System Preferences vs. Control Panel).
In addition, independent developers have created dozens of other
status menus for you to download and install. In fact, you can install
so many status menus that your poor menu bar won’t have room for
all of them, in which case the Mac simply leaves a few out.

TIP You can move a status menu left or right by holding down the
Command key and dragging the menu’s icon in the menu bar. To
quickly remove a status menu, drag it below the menu bar and
release.

Differences in windows
Even without this ebook, you can probably figure out the basics of
Mac OS X windows: they’re not much different from what you’re used
to. In both operating systems, most windows have a title bar that’s
meant to give you some idea of the window’s contents or purpose. The
title of the current window stands out in some way from the titles of
all other windows. Other parts of windows are different in the two

Page 23

systems. Here’s a guide to what’s not the same when it comes to
windows:
• Close, minimize, and zoom buttons: Windows in both
operating systems have a set of three buttons that perform roughly
the same functions: close the window, make it as big as it can be,
or reduce it to a small status indicator. This consistency is great,
but here’s the bad news: the Mac and Windows versions of these
buttons are on opposite sides of windows, look completely differ-
ent, and are arranged in a different order (Figure 8). For a while
you’ll find yourself instinctively mousing to the wrong side of the
window when you want to click one of them, but eventually you’ll
get used to the change.

FIGURE 8

Title bar buttons in Windows and Mac OS X windows are the same,
only different: their functions are almost identical, but their
appearance and locations are not.

Page 24

Here’s more information about each of the window control
buttons:
• Close button: Mac close buttons are red and are on the far
left, with the other buttons. When you hover over a close button
with your mouse pointer, an X appears inside it, which might
remind you of the X that’s drawn inside close buttons (also red)
in Windows.
• Minimize button: The middle (yellow) button in Mac win-
dows is called the minimize button; it corresponds to the button
of the same name in Windows. Click it to see your window melt
away into the Dock like a genie reentering his bottle. Click the
teeny window in the Dock to make it big again.
• Zoom button: This (green) button is called the maximize
button in Windows. It makes the window get as big as it can be,
which on a Mac usually means covering the whole screen except
for the Dock, or in some applications making the window just
wide enough to show all its contents (rather than filling the
entire screen, as in Windows). Click it again to return the win-
dow to its previous size and location.
• Scroll bars: Mac scroll bars behave the same as their Windows
counterparts, but with one odd difference in their appearance:
instead of putting the up and down scroll arrows at opposite ends
of the bar, Mac OS X draws the two arrows right next to each other
at the bottom (or the right, for horizontal scroll bars). The idea
here is that it’s easy to scroll in either direction; you don’t have
to move the mouse far.
Clearly, Apple thinks this is the way to go. Somebody might agree
with that decision, but I haven’t met him or her yet. If you’re not
the one, either, you can change the placement as follows: choose
Apple > System Preferences; click Appearance; and in the Place
Scroll Arrows setting, choose At Top and Bottom.

TIP Maybe the best solution of all is to have double arrows at both ends
of the bar. Although this option is available, Apple doesn’t provide
a setting for it in System Preferences. To enable double arrows at
both ends, you can download and use the free TinkerTool utility
(http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html).

Page 25

• Resizing and dragging windows: To change the size of a Mac
window, drag the control in the lower-right corner, just as you
would in Windows. If you’re used to resizing windows by dragging
the edge of the window, I’m sorry to tell you that that feature isn’t
available in Mac OS X.
Some Macintosh windows are drawn in a style called brushed
metal, as shown in Figure 9. You can drag the edges of these
windows, but you won’t resize them: you’ll move them around.
In fact, you can drag brushed metal windows by mousing down
anywhere the “metal” appears.

FIGURE 9 QuickTime Player is an
example of an application
that has brushed metal
windows.

• Search box: This window part appears only in Mac OS X—not
in Windows—and primarily in the Finder (the Mac’s version of
Windows Explorer; see the next section for details). It’s a blank
field marked with a magnifying glass in the upper-right corner of
the window. (As you might have guessed by now, Apple uses the
magnifying glass icon to mean “search” in various places.) Click in
this field and type to search for files.

TIP When you open a dialog box in Windows, you can use the Tab key
to move from one control to the next. In Mac dialogs, by default, the
Tab key moves only among text fields and lists. If you want Windows-
like behavior, you can change this setting. Choose Apple > System
Preferences, click Keyboard & Mouse, click the Keyboard Shortcuts
tab, and then click All Controls near the bottom of the window.

Page 26

The Finder vs. Windows Explorer
Just as in Windows, your Macintosh has folders, icons, and a Desktop
(and as any veteran Mac user will be happy to tell you, Macs had
these things first). The Mac program that controls your Desktop is
called the Finder; it’s roughly equivalent to Windows Explorer.
Whenever you dig through folders or drag document icons from
one place to another, you’re in the Finder.
You can tell you’re using the Finder in the same way you can tell
you’re running any other application: it’s the title of the menu to the
right of the Apple menu. To get to the Finder, click the Desktop or
click the first icon in the Dock.
When you’re in the Finder, you can see your documents and other
files by choosing File > New Finder Window or by pressing
Command-N. The left side of the Finder window, called the sidebar,
lists some important places and folders on your Mac (Figure 10).
One of them is your entire hard disk, which is named Macintosh HD
by default on every Mac (although it’s been renamed Tiger in
Figure 10; you can rename yours too, by clicking to select it, choos-
ing File > Get Info, and then typing a new name in the Name &
Extension field). Macintosh HD is similar to the C: drive in Windows.
If you click Macintosh HD in the sidebar, you’ll see its contents in the
main part of the window. If you want to explore, double-click the
folders you find in Macintosh HD—but be careful not to move or
delete anything.

Page 27

FIGURE 10 The sidebar in Finder windows is a handy
place for shortcuts to important folders.
Applications gives you quick access to all
your programs. The Documents, Movies,
Music, and Pictures icons take you directly
to those folders.
You can add icons to the sidebar and
remove ones that are already there. See
Customize the Finder sidebar and toolbar
for details.

You’ll also see an icon named Applications in the sidebar. As you
might guess, that’s the place where your Mac’s programs are kept.
Click Applications in the sidebar to see which applications you have
on your Mac, similar to clicking Start > All Programs in Windows.
To start an application, you can double-click it here in the Finder
window.
Another important sidebar icon is Documents. It’s an empty vessel
in a brand new Mac, waiting for you to fill it up with your drawings,
reports, outlines, and other items you create with applications. This
folder is equivalent to My Documents in Windows.

Page 28

TIP Like Windows, the Mac lets you set up accounts for multiple users on
one computer. In the sidebar in the Finder window, you might notice
evidence of this: an icon of a house, along with the short version of
your account name. This is your home folder, the place where you’ll
store all your files and do virtually all your work. For example,
Documents is a folder inside your home folder. You should avoid
creating folders or files outside your home folder. Other users can log
in and see their own home folders. I discuss multiple users further in
Set Up Multiple Users.

In the sidebar, all items appear in a flat representation, without
hierarchy. But the sidebar items are shortcuts to actual files and
folders, which do have a hierarchical relationship: for example,
Macintosh HD contains Applications, and your home folder contains
Documents. When you click a sidebar icon, you see the hierarchy in
the Finder window.
The sidebar also shows up in applications, in the dialog that appears
when you open or save a file.
I examine the Finder in more detail later, in Learn More about File
Views.
Differences in disk organization
Windows and Mac OS X have similar locations for storing some
important files:
• Each operating system has a folder for applications: it’s
C:Program Files in Windows (which appears as All Programs
in the Start menu) and Applications on the Mac.
• Each provides a standard place for your documents: My
Documents in Windows and the Documents folder on the Mac.
• Each has an overarching item that encompasses everything else.
In Windows, this is an item called Desktop. On the Mac, the all-
encompassing item is the name of your computer—for example,
Jane Doe’s PowerBook G4.
To find your way comfortably around your Macintosh, you need to
realize that inside those all-encompassing items, the contents are
different. On Windows, the Desktop item contains My Computer,
My Documents, and My Network Places, which are virtual items that
Page 29

don’t correspond to actual folders. My Computer holds all files on
all disk drives. Within My Computer on the C: drive is a folder named
Documents and Settings; inside that folder are the actual folders that
hold the contents of My Documents. I find this mix of actual folders
and pseudo-folders confusing. After using Windows for a while, you
make some sense of this scheme (or you at least make peace with it),
which is depicted in Figure 11.

FIGURE 11 The Windows folder hierarchy.

In contrast, the outermost item on the Mac—for example, John A.
Vink’s Power Mac G5—contains disk drives, connected servers,
and a representation of the network. The main disk contains the
Applications folder, Users folder, and other important folders. Inside
the Users folder is your home folder and that of any other users
(Figure 12).

Page 30

FIGURE 12

Mac OS X folder hierarchy.

The Mac has no pseudo-folders like My Computer and My
Documents; what you see in the Finder matches the physical
hierarchy of the folders.
The Mac way, I believe, is more sensible. But because you’re used to
Windows, the Mac technique will likely confuse you for a while. My
advice is to focus on the Documents and Applications folders, which
are functional replacements for My Documents and All Programs,
while you gradually discover the rest of the layout. Before long, you’ll
be comfortable with the Mac’s layout.
The Dock vs. the taskbar
The Dock is the prominent rectangular palette of icons at the bottom
of the screen, in the same general space where the Windows taskbar
appears. Like the taskbar, the Dock is the place where you can see and
choose among all the running applications and open documents on
your computer—in a completely different way than on Windows, of
course.
Every application that’s running is represented in the Dock by its
icon, with a black triangle underneath, just as the Windows taskbar
has an entry for every window; click the icon to go directly to that
Page 31

application. But the Dock has more: it also includes icons for key
applications that aren’t running. Use these icons as a quick way to
run those programs: click the icon to start the application, as on the
Quick Launch toolbar in Windows. Mac OS X comes with a few of
these icons already in place in the Dock. You can easily add your own
shortcuts by dragging icons from the Applications folder to the Dock,
and you can remove ones you don’t want by dragging them away from
the Dock.

TIP When you run an application that isn’t in the Dock, Mac OS X adds it
to the Dock temporarily. When you quit that application, it vanishes
from the Dock. To make the icon of a running application stay in the
Dock even after it quits, Control-click the icon in the Dock and choose
Keep in Dock.
You can’t remove a running application from the Dock; you have to
quit it first.

TIP You might want to add the Applications folder to the Dock. You can
then Control-click it to see a list of all available applications, very
much like the Start > All Programs menu in Windows.

The Dock isn’t limited to applications; you can also drag any file or
folder into the Dock for easy access. The left side of the Dock is for
applications, whereas files and folders go on the right side. Take
a close look and you’ll see a vertical divider to the right of the last
application in the Dock. When you add your own items to the Dock,
remember that it’s applications on the left and everything else on the
right.
The last item in the Dock is special: it’s the Trash. Just like the
Recycle Bin in Windows, the Trash is for things you don’t want any
more. But the Trash behaves a bit differently from the Recycle Bin.
Windows has a maximum capacity for the Recycle Bin, whereas the
Mac’s Trash can hold any amount of stuff. When the Recycle Bin is
nearing its capacity, Windows automatically deletes files, starting
with the oldest. But Mac OS X never deletes anything in the Trash
automatically. So, if your Mac is running low on disk space, you can
empty the trash (Finder > Empty Trash) to reclaim some space.

Page 32

Learn the switching shortcut
You can change to a different application by clicking that application’s
icon in the Dock, but there’s a faster technique: press Command-Tab
to switch among the running applications. Hold down the Command
key and keep pressing and releasing the Tab key to move through
each application in turn. (This shortcut is similar to Alt-Tab in
Windows.)

TIP To switch quickly to another application, press Command-Tab, and
then release Tab, but keep holding down Command. With your other
hand on the mouse, move the pointer to the icon of the application
you want to switch to, until it’s highlighted by a white box. Release
the Command key and you’ll switch to that application.
To switch directly to a particular window in another application,
Control-click the application’s icon in the Dock to reveal a menu that
lists that application’s windows. Then choose the one you want.

NOTE There’s a subtle difference in philosophy between Windows and Mac:
the Windows taskbar has an entry for every window you have open,
while the Macintosh Dock has an icon for every running application.
When you click in the taskbar, you go directly to the window you
want. Clicking an application in the Dock moves all that program’s
windows in front of other windows, and you might not end up in the
one you want. In other words, the taskbar is more window-oriented
and the Dock is more application-oriented. If you don’t notice this
distinction as you move to using a Mac, don’t worry about it. But if
you do feel that something is vaguely “wrong,” maybe this description
will help your transition.

Customize the dock
The Dock is always there, and you’ll likely use it a lot, so you’ll
probably find it useful to tweak a few settings to make it more to your
liking. Choose Apple > Dock to see a few of the behaviors you can
change. Does the Dock get in your way as you’re working? Choose
Turn Hiding On to keep it out of sight until you move the mouse to
the Dock’s territory at the bottom of the screen. Is the Dock’s habit
of enlarging the icon you’re pointing at making you crazy? Turning
Magnification Off will restore your sanity.

Page 33

Some users don’t want the Dock to be so big. To fix that, choose
Apple > Dock > Dock Preferences and drag the Dock Size control
until you make the Dock just big enough, but no bigger.
If the Dock annoys you at the bottom, try moving it to the left (or
right) side. Choose Apple > Dock > Position on Left (or Position on
Right) to set that preference.
Sleep mode vs. system standby
Like most Windows computers, your Mac knows when you haven’t
used it for a while, at which point it enters sleep mode: the screen
goes dark, the hard disk stops spinning, and the computer uses very
little power. (This is similar to system standby in Windows.) Every
sleeping Mac has a little white light somewhere that pulses gently to
show that the computer is still breathing. On portable Macs, the light
is next to the button that opens the lid; the light is on the front of the
Power Mac G5 case and above the iMac screen; and the Mac mini’s
sleep light is on the front, in the lower-right corner.
Macs are light sleepers: they usually wake up in less than one second,
which is one of the great pleasures of using a Mac.

NOTE Windows has a hibernate mode, in which the contents of memory are
saved to disk, and then restored when the computer comes out of
hibernation. Although some laptop users are fans of hibernate mode
because it uses virtually no power, this mode is disabled by default on
PCs, and there is evidence that it’s buggy and not widely used. Macs
don’t have an equivalent to hibernate mode.

If you’re not going to use your Mac for a few days, or if you’re fastid-
ious, you can shut it off completely rather than letting it sleep. To turn
your Mac off, press the Power button and choose Shut Down from the
dialog that appears. If the Power button is a long reach, you can
choose Shut Down from the Apple menu to achieve the same result.
When you shut down your Mac, each application gets a chance to quit
in turn. If you have any unsaved work, the application will ask
whether you want to save your changes before it quits.
When you’re ready to work or play again, press the Power button to
start your Mac.

Page 34

System Preferences vs. Control Panel
When you want to change the way a particular application acts, you’ll
usually go to Preferences in the application menu. System Prefer-
ences, on the other hand, is the place to see and change settings that
affect the whole computer, not just one application. System Prefer-
ences is similar to Control Panel in Windows.
You open System Preferences by choosing Apple > System Prefer-
ences or by clicking the System Preferences icon in the Dock. Apple
organizes the System Preferences items into various functional
categories. If you prefer an alphabetical listing, choose View >
Organize Alphabetically. Each item in the System Preferences window
displays a preference pane in the window when you click it. Here are
a few of the key preference panes:
• Sharing: The Sharing pane lets you control whether your Mac is
visible to others on the network. Personal File Sharing lets other
Mac users read (but not change) files you put in the Public folder
inside your home folder. Windows Sharing gives Windows users
access to files on your Mac and the ability to use printers con-
nected to your computer; you create a password that Windows
users will need in order to get to your files.
This pane includes other settings related to accessing your Mac
remotely—mostly for advanced features, such as access via FTP
(file transfer protocol) and SSH (secure shell). To find out more,
choose Help > System Preferences Help and search for Sharing.
File sharing has serious security implications. For more informa-
tion, see Use the Network.
• Print & Fax: Use the Print & Fax pane when you want to connect
to a new printer, send a fax through a phone line attached to your
computer, or share a printer that’s connected to your Mac.
• Display: The Display pane lets you change the resolution of your
monitor, so you can fit more on the screen. You can also modify
the brightness and color profile.
• Appearance: Apple uses blue as an accent color in buttons, menu
bar highlighting, and the Apple logo in the menu bar. You can sap
some color from Mac OS X by opening the Appearance preference
pane and choosing Graphite. If you want to make your Mac more

Page 35

colorful, go instead to the Highlight Color category in the Appear-
ance pane and pick something new, such as gold or purple.
• Energy Saver: This preference pane lets you control how long
the computer must be idle before it goes to sleep. If you want your
computer to stay awake longer, click Energy Saver. If you don’t see
the Sleep settings in the Energy Saver pane, click Show Details.
Use the top slider control to choose the length of time you want.
• Desktop & Screen Saver: Your Mac Desktop comes preset to a
swoopy picture that Apple calls Aqua Blue. As with Windows wall-
paper, you can change the Desktop picture to any image you like.
Open the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane and then click
the Desktop tab if it isn’t already selected. Pick from the available
choices, or click Choose Folder to find your own images. And if you
can’t make up your mind, check the box at the bottom to have the
Mac select a new Desktop picture for you every so often.
Mac OS X has screen savers, just as Windows does, and some of
Apple’s are truly spectacular. To set one up, open the Desktop &
Screen Saver preference pane and click the Screen Saver tab.
Choose any of the screen savers in the left column to get a minia-
ture preview of what it looks like. The RSS Visualizer screen saver
installed on most new Macs is especially cool: it pulls news head-
lines from the Web and displays them as floating, twisting text that
must be seen to be appreciated. When you’ve decided on a screen
saver, slide the Start Screen Saver control to the setting you want,
indicating the number of minutes before the screen saver kicks in.
• Sound: Your Mac comes preset with a rather boring sound
(named Funk) as the noise it makes when it wants your attention.
If you want something more fun, open the Sound preference pane,
click the Sound Effects tab, and check out the sounds.
• Date & Time: The clock in the menu bar is controlled by the Date
& Time preference pane; click Date & Time and then the Clock tab.
You can change to a space-saving analog clock face, add seconds to
the time display, and switch to 24-hour time, among other options.
A couple of important preference panes are described elsewhere in
this ebook. To find out about using the Accounts pane to add accounts
for other users, see Set Up Multiple Users. To learn how to control
software updating with a preference pane, see Use Software Update.

Page 36

Summary: Learning to speak Mac
Congratulations! You now know most of the basic skills you need for
switching to the Mac. At this point, let’s pause and recap, using a list
of Windows terms and their Macintosh counterparts (Table 3).

Table 3: Windows and Macintosh Terms
Windows Term Macintosh Term Comments
Alt key Option key Used with other keys to create shortcuts.
Alt-Tab Command-Tab Switches between windows in Windows
vs. between running applications in Mac
OS X.
Control key Command key (_) Virtually equivalent in function.
Control Panel System Preferences
Maximize button Zoom button The green button in a Mac title bar vs.
the middle button in a Windows title bar.
My Documents Documents The next version, Windows Vista, drops
the “My” prefix. Microsoft innovates
again.
Recycle Bin Trash Sounds less ecological, but it’s the same.
Right-click Control-click You can right-click if you have a multi-
button mouse.
Shortcut menu Contextual menu The menu that appears when you right-
click (or Control-click).
Sleep System standby Waking (resuming) on Mac is generally
much faster than on Windows.
System tray Status menus Found at top of screen on Mac vs.
bottom on Windows.
Taskbar Dock The Dock also includes shortcuts to your
choice of files, folders, and nonrunning
applications.
Wallpaper Desktop picture
Windows Explorer Finder Click the first icon in the Dock to get to
the Finder quickly.

Page 37

TIP Apple’s Help has a similar table of Windows-Mac terms, but with
a few additional entries. To see it, in the Finder choose Help > Mac
Help, and then search for Microsoft Windows. One of the Help
Topics found is “What’s it called on my Mac?”. Double-click that
topic to see the table. Alternatively, you can find the table at
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/
cdb_whatcalled.html.

Choose Mac Applications
Macs and their software are good-looking, but what matters is
whether they can do the jobs you need them to do. Operating systems
create a foundation, but the real work is done by applications. In this
section, I discuss how to pick applications that do the work you’ve
been doing with Windows programs.
As you choose Mac applications and compare them to what you’ve
been using on Windows, you’ll find five rough categories of options:
• Programs that are virtually identical on Mac and Win-
dows: These tend to come from large software companies that
have an interest in making all their applications look and work
the same. That way, they have to create only one manual or Help
system, and their support department has to learn only one uni-
versal version of the program. Many of Adobe’s applications are
examples of this, as is Apple’s iTunes.
When you switch to Mac, these programs are the easiest to learn,
but they don’t always take full advantage of the Mac’s benefits.
However, a few Mac-only features sometimes sneak in; for
example, Adobe’s applications let you use some of the Mac’s
superior graphics features.
• Programs that have the same name and basic functions
but have additional features that are different on Mac
and Windows: Microsoft Word exists on both operating systems,
and the two versions have many identical features, making it
relatively painless for you to switch. They’re similar enough that
you can exchange files between them. But there are niche features
in each version that are not in the other; Microsoft has allowed two
development teams to follow two different sets of customers.

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With this approach, software companies can take advantage of
the particular needs and features of each operating system and its
users. For example, the Windows version of Microsoft Word
includes a feature called Information Rights Management, which
allows users to specify that a document can be read only by an
authorized list of people. This feature is more important in large
companies, where there are usually plenty of Windows computers.
It hasn’t been added to the Macintosh version of Word because
most Mac owners are at home or in small businesses. On the other
hand, users of Mac Word have a feature called Notebook Layout,
designed especially for students, that’s not in the Windows
version.
• Programs with no direct Mac counterpart but for which
there are programs with similar or equivalent features:
You might find that a program you’ve been using on Windows has
no Mac version. For example, Microsoft Outlook Express is a
popular (and free) email program for Windows users, but there’s
no current Mac version of Outlook Express. So if that’s your email
program on Windows, you have to change to something else when
you switch to Mac. (But don’t worry: you can choose from several
excellent Mac email programs, as I point out in Email applications
just ahead, so you’re bound to find one you like.)
• Web-based applications: These are applications that run inside
your Web browser, such as Web-based email (Hotmail, Yahoo
Mail, Gmail), banking applications, and shopping sites. Most of
these work fine on the Mac, although some require a specific Web
browser.
• Programs that have no Mac counterpart or equivalent:
Because Windows computers are so much more common than
Macs, you might discover that a particular Windows program you
rely on has no Macintosh counterpart whatsoever. Dealing with
that can be a pain. For more information on how to handle this
situation, see Run Windows Applications.
Let’s take a look at the Mac applications you’re likely to use.
Web browsers
The leading Web browser on Windows is Internet Explorer, although
Firefox has become popular lately. Apple’s own Web browser is called
Safari. It’s fast, visually slick, and regularly updated. Safari comes
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already installed on every new Macintosh. If you prefer Firefox, you
can download the free Mac version of that browser, which is virtually
identical to the Windows version, at http://www.getfirefox.com/.
The Mac has a version of Internet Explorer, but it’s like an abandoned
Victorian house: it was really something in its day, but the owner has
let it fall into disrepair. You should use it only when you encounter a
site that fails to work with either Safari or Firefox.
For a deeper look at these and other Mac browsers, see
http://www.macworld.com/2005/09/reviews/browserrdp/.

TIP It’s handy to have two or three browsers installed: one as your
primary browser, and others for accessing Web sites that don’t work
with your usual browser. If you use Safari as your main browser,
Firefox is especially handy for troublesome sites. For more about
getting into problem sites, see Work around stubborn Web sites.

Email applications
Although the Mac has no Outlook Express, it does offer many other
choices. Apple provides a free email client, blandly called Mail, that’s
already installed on your Mac. The first couple of versions of Mail
were severely lacking in features, but Apple has steadily improved it
with each release, and it’s now more than powerful enough for many
users.

NOTE If you decide to use Apple’s Mail program, you might be interested in
taking a look at the ebook Take Control of Email with Apple Mail
(http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/email-apple-mail.html).

Microsoft Outlook (a very different program from Outlook Express,
despite the similar name) is the most popular Windows email
program in businesses. Microsoft used to have a Mac application
named Outlook, but it provided only a fraction of the features of the
Windows program. Finally, a few years ago, Microsoft gave up the
charade and dropped its Mac Outlook program. Instead, Microsoft
puts its development resources into a program called Entourage,
which is a part of the Office suite for the Mac. If you have to replace
Outlook in a corporate office, you should consider switching to
Entourage.

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If you’re using (and liking) Qualcomm’s Eudora, famed for its flex-
ibility and power, you’ll be happy to know that you can switch to the
Mac version of Eudora.
Another popular email program to consider is Mailsmith, made by
Bare Bones Software, the legendary Mac-only software company.
Mailsmith users like its filter options, advanced schedule features,
and strong text editing capabilities.

NOTE If you’re using a Web-based email program, such as Hotmail, Yahoo
Mail, or Gmail, you’re in luck: you can continue to access your mail
from a Mac Web browser.

Office applications
Microsoft rules the Windows world with its Microsoft Office suite,
and the Mac universe is no different: the most popular office software
is Microsoft Office for Mac. The current version is Office 2004 for
Mac. Note that there is no Windows software called Office 2004: the
current version is 2003. Although the Mac version is newer, it’s not a
superset of the Windows package; it’s simply released on a different
product cycle. This causes plenty of confusion among those who use
both versions.
Office 2004 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage. The
first three have the same basic features as their Windows counter-
parts. Entourage is a Mac-only program that handles email, address
book, calendar management, and tasks.

NOTE Several excellent Take Control ebooks can help you get more out of
Microsoft Office 2004:
• Take Control of Customizing Microsoft Office
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/office-customizing.html
• Take Control of What’s New in Entourage 2004
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/entourage-2004.html
• Take Control of What’s New in Word 2004
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/word-1.html
• Take Control of What’s New in Word 2004: Advanced Editing &
Formatting
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/word-2.html

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Microsoft does not offer a Mac version of Visio, the diagram-making
program. Instead, you can use the Omni Group’s OmniGraffle
application for creating flow charts, organization charts, and other
similar projects. Some Macs come with the standard version of
OmniGraffle already installed. An enhanced version, OmniGraffle
Pro, imports Visio documents saved in the Visio XML format.
You might also take a look at Apple’s iWork package. iWork includes
two applications: Keynote, which is a presentation program and a
more than capable replacement for PowerPoint; and Pages, a sort of
word processor/page layout hybrid.

NOTE Many Macs come with AppleWorks, which is Apple’s long-standing
home/personal office software. AppleWorks is an all-in-one appli-
cation that provides word processing, spreadsheet, drawing, data-
base, and other features. Although AppleWorks might be more than
enough for your needs, you should avoid spending a lot of time with
it, because Apple hasn’t been doing much work on it for years and
seems to be preparing to abandon it, perhaps in favor of an expanded
version of iWork.

Instant messaging
If you’re a fan of instant messaging, you’ll be happy to learn that
all the popular IM services are available on Macintosh as well as
Windows. This includes AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Microsoft
Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. When you use any of these
programs, it doesn’t matter which operating system your online
contacts are running: you can all chat like buddies.
In addition to the big three chat clients already mentioned, Apple
supplies iChat, an IM program with Macintosh flair. iChat works on
the AIM network, so you can use AIM to log in to your account and
chat with your AIM buddies.
Video conferencing using iChat and an iSight camera is one of the
Mac’s most remarkable features. iChat rivals the quality and features
of dedicated video conferencing systems, but is far less expensive and
easier to use. In some cases, iChat alone could justify the purchase of
a Mac.
If you don’t want or need video, iChat also does audio-only chat.

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iLife applications
Every Mac comes with Apple’s iLife suite of programs already in-
stalled. iLife focuses on applications that work with media, such as
music, photos, and movies. If you haven’t used a computer to do these
kinds of things before, you should try iLife to see how this works on a
Mac.

NOTE If you got your Mac from your company, or someone else set it up for
you, you might not have the standard software installed on your hard
disk. In particular, maybe your company doesn’t think you should be
playing with iTunes or iPhoto. That would be unusual, but it serves to
point out that if your computer was set up for you, it might not con-
tain all the standard software that Apple includes. If that’s your fate,
and you want to have some of the software reinstalled, check with
your IT department.

iLife comes with five programs:
• iTunes: You’ve probably used, or at least heard of, this music
program. It’s the way to buy music and video from Apple and
transfer it to an iPod. iTunes handles music, podcasts, audio
books, movie trailers, music videos, and TV shows. There are
virtually identical Windows and Mac versions of iTunes.
• iPhoto: This is Apple’s program for managing your digital photos.
iPhoto grabs pictures directly from your camera, provides photo-
editing tools, and lets you order books containing your snapshots.
If you’ve used Picasa, Microsoft Digital Image Suite, or ACDSee on
Windows, take a look at iPhoto.
• iMovie: Edit your digital movie footage and become a celebrated
filmmaker with iMovie. Give this one a try if you’ve used Windows
Movie Maker and you need a Mac program to continue with your
efforts.
• iDVD: If you’ve ever created your own DVD with software like
Dazzle DVD Complete or Sonic MyDVD on Windows, you know it’s
not a simple task. You have to arrange the material you want, and
build menus so viewers can navigate through it. iDVD provides
themes and templates to simplify the process.
• GarageBand: GarageBand lets musicians (and pretenders)
record and arrange their own music. Although there are many
Page 43

Windows programs for creating music, there’s nothing quite like
GarageBand. This program is also an excellent tool for recording
and editing audio captured from a microphone, which you can
use to add a voiceover track to your slides or presentations. For
example, you might add a recorded bit of praise from a co-worker
to your next PowerPoint or Keynote presentation. To learn more,
you can read Take Control of Making Music with GarageBand
(http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/garageband-music.html)
and Take Control of Recording with GarageBand
(http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/garageband-recording.html).
Media players
The major media formats—Real, Windows Media, and QuickTime—
all have free players that work on the Mac. You might think that that
enables you to watch and listen to all the media on the Web, but alas,
it’s not always so. QuickTime works better on the Macintosh than
on Windows, which is not surprising, because QuickTime is an Apple
product. Real streams usually work OK in RealPlayer on Macs. But
Microsoft keeps the Mac version of Windows Media Player at least
a step behind the Windows edition. In particular, you can’t play Win-
dows Media Audio files that are protected by Digital Rights Manage-
ment (DRM), and some newer Windows formats don’t work with the
Mac player.
For much more information on media files and players, see the
discussion under Moving documents.

TIP Some files don’t work with the major media players, but there’s still
hope: VLC is an open source video player available free from
http://www.videolan.org/. If you encounter a video file that won’t
work with the other players, try viewing it with VLC. It will often
succeed when the others fail.

Graphics and illustration programs
The king of graphics editing programs is the same on both operating
systems: Adobe Photoshop. Some users prefer Macromedia Fire-
works, which is available in both Mac and Windows versions. Adobe
also makes Illustrator, another powerful graphics application that’s
available on both Mac and Windows. And you can use many other
less complicated and less expensive programs to create and edit

Page 44

drawings. OmniGraffle, from The Omni Group, is a popular tool that’s
included with some Macs; check yours to see if it’s installed already.
Adobe Reader is the standard Windows way to view PDF files. There’s
a Mac version of Adobe Reader, but many Mac users prefer Preview,
an Apple program that comes with Mac OS X and provides a more
Mac-like way to read PDF files.
Database programs
The most popular database program, Microsoft Access, doesn’t have
a Mac version. If you need a powerful database, look into FileMaker,
which has both Mac and Windows versions. Of course, you’ll have to
export your data from Access and get it into FileMaker, but at least
that’s a start.
Where to find more software
I’ve named only a small number of Mac applications in this section.
Despite the Mac’s reputation for having little software, thousands of
programs are available. Here’s how to find them:
• Visit an Apple Store. Apple retail stores carry a selection of inde-
pendent software for Macs. See http://www.apple.com/retail/ for
a list of locations.
• Look at Apple’s online list of programs. Apple keeps track of
thousands of applications that work with Mac OS X. To view the
list, choose Apple > Mac OS X Software, or point your Web
browser at http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/. You can
also search the Macintosh Products Guide, a catalog of software
(and hardware) products for the Mac, at http://guide.apple.com/.
• Try VersionTracker. The folks at http://www.versiontracker.com/
maintain an exhaustive list of software releases for programs that
work with various operating systems, including Mac OS X. To see
what’s available, go there and search or browse the vast listings.

Move Your Data to Your Mac
Your Mac is set up, you know your way around, and you’ve selected
applications. Now you have to move all your stuff from the PC to the
Mac. Moving your data isn’t technically hard, but it can be tedious.
Even after you’re done with the transfer, you should keep your PC
around, even if you don’t intend to use it any more, just in case you
inadvertently left something behind.
Page 45

Getting help
Later in this section, I give directions for locating and moving your
files. However, you may find it worthwhile to seek help from other
sources, particularly if you’re switching at work, where your IT
department can assist you, or if you bought your Mac at an Apple
retail store, where your purchase makes you eligible for free services.
Here’s a closer look at some of these options:
• Let Apple do it. Apple retail stores offer a data transfer service
that moves all your information to your new Mac. Two levels of
service are available: basic and complete.
• To use the basic service, you begin on your PC by putting the
files you want to bring over into a folder named To Transfer.
The folks at the Apple store then move the contents of that
folder to your Mac.
• The complete service is much more thorough. It moves your
information and puts your files in their proper places (for
example, your photos appear in iPhoto, your Web bookmarks
are moved into Safari, and so on).
If you bought your Mac at an Apple retail store (not the online
store), Apple will do the complete transfer for free. Otherwise,
Apple charges $50 for the complete transfer service. If your PC is
more than a few years old and lacks a USB or FireWire port, Apple
might elect to remove your hard disk to complete the transfer, and
the charge goes up to $150. In any case, you can avoid the transfer
fees entirely if you join ProCare, Apple’s premium service program,
for a $99 annual fee.
• Hire a consultant. If you want a more personal level of service,
consider hiring a consultant to move your files. To help track one
down, see http://consultants.apple.com/.
• Use Move2Mac. Another option for semi-automating your trans-
fer is Move2Mac from Detto (http://www.detto.com/). Move2Mac
includes software and a cable to connect your PC to your Mac. Apple
touts Move2Mac on their Web site, stating that it “transfers files
from your PC to your new Macintosh and puts everything just where
you need it.” Move2Mac starts by letting you choose which files you
want to transfer and then sends those files directly to their places

Page 46

on the Mac. Unfortunately, Move2Mac doesn’t transfer your saved
email. Move2Mac costs $50, the same as Apple’s data transfer
service.
Move2Mac is a complex product that includes software running
on both your PC and Mac. Apple’s own Web site contains several
disturbing customer complaints about Move2Mac not working
as advertised: failing to transfer data, or simply refusing to run.
Furthermore, Move2Mac contains a copy protection scheme that
lets you run it with only one PC, which can make debugging (or
returning) the package difficult.
Should you use one of these options? And if so, which one? If you
don’t mind spending the $50, Apple’s service is an excellent value.
(If you bought your Mac at an Apple Store, the service is free, which
makes it an even better value.) Apple obviously subsidizes this cost
because it gets more people to buy Macs. The Apple service has
several advantages over Move2Mac, including that Apple moves your
email. But the most important advantage is that you get to deal with
a human being—an Apple Genius, a member of a group renowned for
excellent customer service—for the same price you would pay for
buying a mass-market software package. If you don’t mind paying
$50 and you can get to an Apple store, you should strongly consider
the complete data transfer service.
Of course, you can do it yourself. To describe this process, I start by
going over various ways to move the files. Then I discuss the kinds of
data you’ll want to move, where to find each kind on Windows, and
where it goes on the Mac.
How to move files
You need some way to get the files from your PC to your new Macin-
tosh. If you’re not using Move2Mac or the Apple data transfer service,
consider one of these methods:
• External hard disk: If you have an external hard disk with a
USB or FireWire (also called IEEE 1394) interface, it provides an
excellent pathway for your file transfer. Connect the hard disk to
your PC, copy the files you need (as described throughout the rest
of this section), safely disconnect the drive from your PC, and hook
it up to your Mac. You’ll find that Macs are trained to recognize
PC-format hard disks, and the disk will appear on the Mac’s
Desktop. If you don’t have an external hard disk and you’re about
Page 47

to buy your Mac at the Apple retail store, see if they’ll give you a
good price; an external disk can be handy to have around, even
after you’re done switching.

WARNING! If you use this method, make sure the hard disk uses the Windows
FAT32 format, which is the format that’s fully supported by Mac
OS X. For a highly technical but thorough description of how Mac
OS X handles various Windows disk formats, see the hint at
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2005052111045219
4&lsrc=osxh.

• CD or DVD: If your PC can burn CDs or data DVDs, your Mac
can read them. The biggest drawback to this technique is that CDs
hold only about 600 MB, a small fraction of a hard disk’s capacity.
Standard DVDs are much better, with a capacity of 4.7 GB. You’ll
be able to fit a lot more on one disc, although DVDs take much
longer to burn.
• Network connection: You can transfer files by putting your Mac
and PC on the same network. Unless you’re already a networking
guru or you have no other reasonable option, I don’t recommend
doing it this way. Getting the connection working can be trouble-
some, especially if you’re going to use the network for only a
couple of days while you do the transfer.
• File transfer Web site: Several Web sites have popped up
recently that let you transfer huge amounts of data. One such site
is YouSendIt (http://www.yousendit.com/), a free service that lets
you send files that are up to 1 GB in size. Sending a bunch of files
with a service like this would be tedious, but it’s useful for trans-
ferring a small number of large files.
Moving documents
The first place to look for files is the My Documents folder on your
PC. This is where you’re likely to find Word documents, Excel spread-
sheets, PDF files, Photoshop masterpieces, and so on. You’ll move
these files to the Documents folder on the Mac. The applications that
exist on both Mac and Windows are the easiest to deal with: the Mac
versions will almost always open the documents directly. You can use
either Adobe Reader or Preview to work with PDF files on the Mac.

Page 48

Inside your My Documents folder you’ll see several subfolders,
including My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos. My Pictures is easy:
copy the files to your Pictures folder on the Mac; then run iPhoto and
choose File > Import to add the pictures you want to your iPhoto
library. You can add movies from My Videos to iPhoto as well, or,
if you prefer, import them into iTunes, which also handles video.
Digital music is more complicated, due to competing formats and
copyright issues on purchased songs. My Music contains all the music
you play with various Windows music player programs, including
iTunes, Yahoo Music Engine, and Winamp. Depending on how these
programs are set up, the music might be neatly organized into folders
(one per program) or it might all be filed directly in My Music. No
matter how the music is filed, songs on Windows are usually in one
of three formats:
• MP3: This is the universal language of digital music, the digital
format that taught the world to sing. Almost every music-playing
program on the planet, including iTunes, can play MP3. To move
MP3 files, copy the music into your Music folder, and then use
iTunes to add the songs to your iTunes library by choosing
File > Add to Library in iTunes. Because MP3 is so universal,
some companies would prefer that you don’t use it, because then
they can’t lock you in to their format. By default, iTunes (on both
Windows and Mac) prefers Apple’s AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)
format, while Windows Media Player prefers WMA format (see the
next item); however, both have preferences that let you create MP3
files when you copy music from a CD (a process better known as
ripping).
• WMA: WMA (Windows Media Audio) music files come in two
flavors: protected and unprotected. When you rip a CD, you create
unprotected WMA files that can be moved or copied without
restriction (although some companies are experimenting with
protected CDs, an unfortunate trend). There is a Windows Media
Player for Macintosh (a rather twisted name), but it’s a pale
imitation of its Windows cousin and it won’t play many kinds of
WMA files.
Before moving unprotected WMA files to your Mac, you should
convert them to MP3. You can do this easily with iTunes on
Windows by choosing File > Add File to Library, or File > Add
Folder to Library, and then selecting your WMA music. iTunes
Page 49

makes a copy of the WMA music converted into a format it can
use. You can then move these files to the Mac, put them in your
Music folder, and then use iTunes to add them to the iTunes
library.
When you buy music from most online stores other than the
iTunes Music Store, such as Napster or Yahoo Music Unlimited,
you get protected WMA files. “Protected” means that it’s protected
against your evil intentions: the file contains restrictions on how it
can be used. There’s no way to play these files on your Mac. How-
ever, you can burn the music to CD (unless the protection prevents
that), take the CD to your Mac, and then use iTunes to rip the
songs to iTunes.

TIP If you move unprotected WMA files to your Mac and Windows Media
Player won’t play them, you can use Audion, a free program from
Panic (http://www.panic.com/audion/), to play the tunes or convert
them to MP3.

• AAC: Like WMA files, AAC files can be protected (if bought from
the iTunes Music Store) or unprotected (if ripped from your CDs).
The unprotected songs will play in iTunes on your Mac; put them
in the Music folder, run iTunes, and choose File > Add to Library.
If you buy songs from the iTunes Music Store, your account with
the store will let you play the songs you buy on five different
computers. The first time you try to play a protected song in
iTunes on your Mac, you’ll get a dialog asking for your account
name and password. Assuming you haven’t already authorized five
computers for your account, you’ll be able to hear the tunes you
purchased.
If you’re not going to use the PC for iTunes any more, be sure to
disconnect it from your iTunes account: choose Advanced >
Deauthorize Computer.
Moving email messages
Moving your email messages to the Mac is a little trickier than mov-
ing documents. Most email programs use proprietary formats for
storing messages, so you need various solutions depending on which
programs you’re using on Windows and the Mac.

Page 50

NOTE If you access your email with the IMAP protocol and all your mail is
stored in folders on a server, you don’t have to move your messages
at all. Use any Mac application that supports IMAP, such as Apple
Mail or Microsoft Entourage, to set up an account on the server that
has your mail.

Here are the solutions to consider:
• Transferring from Outlook: If you use Outlook on Windows,
you should get a copy of Outlook2Mac (which you can buy for $10
from http://www.littlemachines.com/). This utility automates the
process of converting your mail and address book from Outlook to
your choice of Macintosh programs, including Apple Mail, Mail-
smith, and Entourage.
• Transferring from Outlook Express: If you’re converting
from Outlook Express, the easiest way to move your email into
a Mac program is to first get it into Outlook format (in Windows)
and then use Outlook2Mac, as I noted in the previous paragraph.
To get your mail into Outlook format, run Outlook Express and
then choose File > Export > Messages. After you export your
messages, Outlook2Mac will convert them for use on the Mac.
• Transferring from Eudora: If you use Eudora on Windows, I
suspect you’ll want to stick with Eudora when you switch. If that’s
the case, you don’t have to convert your email at all; you can copy
it over and then put it in Eudora’s Mail Folder on the Mac. If you
want to move to Mailsmith, Entourage, or Apple Mail, you can use
those programs to directly import Eudora mail after you copy it to
the Mac. In the case of Apple Mail, use the free Eudora Mailbox
Cleaner utility (http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/
Eudora_Mailbox_Cleaner.html).

TIP You can find a bunch of conversion tools and other helpful items at
http://www.emailman.com/.

Moving address books
Like email, address books (called contacts in some programs) are
kept in various formats, which adds confusion when you’re trying
to move them to the Macintosh. In some cases you move your address

Page 51

book the same way as your email, but other cases require a different
technique.
Begin by determining which contact management software you’ll be
using on the Mac. Likely choices include:
• Entourage, which comes with Microsoft Office and serves as an all-
in-one email, calendar, and contact management program.
• Address Book, Apple’s contact management program, which
comes for free on new Macs. Popular programs, such as Apple Mail
and Mailsmith, use it to store contacts.
Once you know where to go, you can transfer your contact info. Here
are a few suggestions:
• Outlook2Mac converts your address book to your choice of a
variety of Mac programs, including Entourage and Apple’s Address
Book. If you’re coming from Outlook Express, start by exporting
your address book to Outlook, just as you did with your email, and
then invoke Outlook2Mac.
• Mailsmith uses Apple’s Address Book, so you can use any
path that gets your contact information into Address Book. For
example, if you’re coming from Outlook or Outlook Express, use
Outlook2Mac; if you’re converting from Eudora, start by bringing
your mail to Eudora for Macintosh and then use Mailsmith to
import.
• To get your Eudora addresses into another program, start by
bringing them to the Macintosh. Then, to get addresses into a uni-
versal format that can be read by Address Book, Entourage, and
many others, use a utility (like Eudora vCard Export, a free pro-
gram available at http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/). Or simply
open the Address Book window in Eudora and choose File > Save
As to store your contacts in a file as a comma-separated list.

TIP Eudora’s address book is a text file, so in a pinch you can usually find
the information you need manually.

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Moving Web browser bookmarks
If you’re like most Internet users, you’ve built up a huge collection of
bookmarks (or favorites) over the years—an unsorted, unruly collec-
tion, probably, but a large and valuable one nonetheless. You’ll want
to bring your bookmarks with you as you move to the Mac. No matter
which browser you use, this isn’t hard to do. For example:
• To transfer favorites from Internet Explorer: To find your
Internet Explorer favorites, open your C: drive and then open
Documents and Settings. In there, you’ll see a folder with your user
account name on it. Open that folder and then the Favorites folder
inside it, and you’ll see your Internet Explorer favorites. Move
these files to the Mac. Once they’re on the Mac, you can open them
with Safari, Firefox, or any other browser and decide whether to
add them as bookmarks.
• To transfer your Firefox bookmarks: choose Bookmarks >
Manage Bookmarks and then File > Export. Take the exported file
and copy it to your Mac. On the Mac, reverse the process: choose
Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks and then File > Import. Find the
file you brought over, and your Windows bookmarks will move
right in.
Moving Internet settings
You’ll have a lot more fun on your new Mac with an Internet connec-
tion. If you’re at home, you probably use a dial-up or broadband
connection to an Internet service provider (ISP). At the office, there’s
probably an Ethernet cable that you plug into your computer, or
maybe a wireless network.
No matter how you’re connected, you or someone else entered magic
settings into your PC to get it connected. You’ll need those same
settings on your Mac. (The Internet settings might have already been
entered for you if someone else set up your computer, or if you knew
the settings when you went through the Mac’s first-time setup; if so,
you can skip this section.)
If your PC uses a dial-up connection to get on the Internet, you can
discover your Internet settings by opening Control Panel and then
Network Connections, and then looking under Dial-up for the con-
nection you use and double-clicking it. A window opens, showing

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your user name and the phone number you use to connect. You also
need your password; if you don’t know it or you need other help in
connecting, check your ISP’s Web site (assuming you can get to the
Internet) or call the ISP for support. On your Mac, you can enter your
dial-up settings by opening the Network preference pane in System
Preferences and choosing Internal Modem from the second pop-up
menu.
If you connect at home via broadband, you instead have to enter set-
tings by choosing Built-in Ethernet from the Show pop-up menu in
the Network preference pane (unless you have a wireless network, in
which case see the following note). You have to fill in various items on
this screen, depending on how your ISP has you connected; you need
ISP documentation or help to know what you should fill in there.

NOTE You can set up a wireless network at home using an accessory called
a wireless gateway, such as Apple’s AirPort Extreme Base Station.
If you already have a wireless gateway, you’ll probably be able to use
your Mac with it, even if the gateway is not made by Apple. In gen-
eral, you use your ISP settings to connect the access point to the
Internet; if you have an AirPort Base Station, you’ll use AirPort
Setup Assistant. On your Mac, you don’t enter the ISP settings;
instead, you simply connect to the wireless network. This should hap-
pen automatically once your wireless gateway is set up; if it doesn’t,
open the Network preference pane in System Preferences, choose
Show: Network Status, click AirPort, and then click Connect. If more
than one wireless network is available, choose the one you want from
the AirPort status menu. Check out the ebook Take Control of Your
AirPort Network (http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/airport.html)
to learn more about AirPort networks.

Like a PC, your Mac has a built-in firewall to protect it from the un-
wanted attention of Internet bad guys. To turn on the firewall, open
the Sharing preference pane, click the Firewall tab, and click Start.
Moving sound effects
You can move your Windows sound effects to the Mac; however,
Windows is far more customizable in this category than Mac OS X.
Windows lets you choose sounds for different events, including Click,
Window Maximize, and Low Battery Alarm. On your Mac, you have
easy access only to the sound used when the Mac puts up an alert box.

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To rescue sound effects from your Windows computer, find them
in the C:WindowsMedia folder. On the Mac, put them in your
~/Library/Sounds folder (recall that ~ is a shortcut that refers to
your home folder). Open the Sound preference pane and click Sound
Effects. You should see your old Windows sound effects listed along
with the Mac-native sounds.
Moving wallpaper (Desktop pictures)
The wallpaper files are stored on your PC in the folder
C:WindowsWebWallpaper. On your Mac, put them anywhere
you like, such as in your Pictures folder. To pick one as your Desktop
picture, open the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane, click
Desktop and then Choose Folder, and navigate to your favorite
wallpaper.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR MAC
If you’ve been playing along this far, you’re now using your Mac,
you’ve figured out which applications to use, and your files and
settings are there with you. Congratulations! This section tells you
more about how to use your new Mac.

Set Up Multiple Users
Mac OS X provides an easy, powerful way for more than one person
to use a single Mac and each get a private space. To see how it works,
open the Accounts preference pane in System Preferences. The left
side of the pane lists the user accounts registered on the computer.
If you set up your computer yourself, you’ll probably see only your
name on the left side. If you got your computer from your company’s
IT department, there might be additional accounts.
You might want to add additional accounts for your family members
or (less likely) your co-workers. Note that a word appears under each
account name on the left side: Admin, Standard, or Managed. To add
an account, your own account must be of the Admin type. At some
companies, the IT department doesn’t give everyone Admin access,
so you might not be able to add accounts. If you do have an Admin
account, you first have to prove you’re really who you say you are,
through a process called authenticating: click the padlock at the
lower left and enter your password to unlock it. Once the padlock
opens, click the + (plus) button just above it to add an account.
To learn more about the things you can do with user accounts and
how to do them, see the ebook Take Control of Users & Accounts.
There are versions for Mac OS X versions 10.3 Panther and 10.4
Tiger (http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/panther/users.html and
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-users.html, respectively).

Learn More about File Views
The Finder provides three different views that show files using
columns, lists, or icons:
• Column view: The Finder’s column view is a hierarchical series
of panels, with the hierarchy expanding from left to right. This
view can take a little getting used to, but it’s quite useful. In
particular, the preview column at the far right provides some
information about the selected file, such as its name, kind, size,
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and creation date. For many types of files, the preview column also
shows some of the file’s content—for example, the first snippet of
text from text files, a thumbnail for image files, and a reduced view
of the first page of PDF files.
• List view: To see a folder of files listed in a single column, choose
View > As List. This Finder view is similar to the usual view for
files in Windows Explorer. As in any Finder view, you can double-
click a folder to see what’s inside it, or double-click a document to
open it. Alternatively, you can click the disclosure triangle (some-
times called expansion triangle) next to any folder’s name to see
its contents. Disclosure triangles work like the little plus and
minus signs in Windows Explorer.
Click the Name column to alphabetize the list; click it again to keep
the list alphabetized but in reverse order. You can click any column
in the window to sort the list by that column: Date Modified, Size,
and so on.

NOTE When Windows displays a list of files and folders in Windows Explor-
er or in the Start > All Programs menu, it segregates the folders from
the files: folders are listed first, and then files. The Macintosh Finder
alphabetizes files and folders as one list. The Windows behavior
always confuses me; I never expect or understand why folders and
files are listed separately. But maybe I’m just a Mac guy, and you’ll
find yourself puzzled by the Mac’s way.

• Icon view: To see this view, choose View > As Icons. Drag the
icons into any arrangement you want. If it gets too messy, choose
View > Clean Up to make the icons toe the line.
The Finder can provide a lot more information about any file without
opening it. To learn about a file in any view, click to select the file and
then choose File > Get Info. You’ll get a window with information
about the file, including its name, size, location, which application
opens it, and a preview in some cases, such as for text, graphics, and
audio files.

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See sizes of all folders
When you look at the contents of a folder in the Finder using list view,
you see all the files and folders it contains, but the Size column for
folders shows only dashes, as if the Finder were saying “I don’t
know.” Microsoft Windows has the same limitation.
But the Mac has a fix: you can ask the Finder to show the sizes of
folders when it displays a list view. To make this happen, start by
opening the folder in the Finder and choosing View > As List. Then
choose View > Show View Options. At the bottom, click Calculate All
Sizes. At first, you won’t see anything happen. But in a few seconds,
you’ll notice that the dashes are being replaced by numbers indicating
the size of each folder’s contents. It takes the Finder a while to go
through the files in each folder and add up their sizes, so it’s done
as a background task; you can go ahead and do other things while
it calculates.
The View Options window has a pair of buttons at the top that control
whether the settings apply to this window only or to all Finder list
view windows. Make sure the All Windows button is selected if you
want to see folder sizes every time you open a window in list view.
(This will also apply the other settings in the View Options window
to all Finder list views.)

TIP When you have Calculate All Sizes turned on, the Finder spends a lot
of energy adding up the space consumed by all files in each folder.
This slows down processing in the Finder and, because the Finder
must run the disk drive, can drain your laptop battery. To maximize
Finder speed and battery life, use this feature in moderation.

Find Files with Spotlight
Arguably the most significant new feature in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger is
Spotlight, a way to find files quickly and easily. You get to Spotlight
by clicking the magnifying glass at the right end of the menu bar.
The first time your Mac started up, it nosed through the contents of
your hard disk, investigating what was there and creating an index so
that it could quickly find things later when you ask for them. As you
use your Mac, every time you run a program that changes something
on a disk, Spotlight is there, paying attention and updating its index.

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Spotlight is Apple-easy to use: click the magnifying glass and type
what you’re looking for. You can search for a filename, text from a
document, comments about a digital picture, or any other clues you
can think of. Spotlight starts searching and displaying results as soon
as you start typing, and it finishes quickly.
When it’s done, Spotlight displays its best guess at what you’re
looking for, followed by a list of other possible matches, in a menu
that stretches out below the magnifying glass. You can click any item
in the menu to open it right away, or press Enter to open a window
with more information about all the files Spotlight found (see both
the menu and the window in Figure 13). As you can see, Spotlight
organizes results into categories: Music, Documents, Mail Messages,
and so on.

FIGURE 13

The Spotlight menu (left) and window (right) display search results.
The window gives you more options for where to look and how to
organize the results.

TIP You can press Command-Space to activate the Spotlight menu, and
Command-Option-Space to bring the Spotlight window to the front.
If you want to change those shortcuts, go to the Spotlight pane in
System Preferences.

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If you prefer hierarchy and an organized approach to storing your
files, you’ll probably use Spotlight a lot less. Some Mac users report
that Spotlight works slowly on their machines, for reasons that aren’t
understood yet.
Spotlight is still a young technology. As it evolves and as more appli-
cations allow Spotlight to index their files, it will become more and
more useful.

NOTE If you’re running Mac OS X 10.3 Panther or an earlier version, you
don’t have Spotlight. You’ll have to make do with the previous gener-
ation of tools, which aren’t quite as slick as Spotlight. To find a file in
the Panther Finder, either type in the search box that appears at the
top of Finder windows or use the File > Find command. These tech-
niques aren’t as fast or as easy to use as Spotlight, but they do help
you find what you’re looking for.

Manage Applications and Windows
When you want to start an application in Windows, you usually click
the Start menu or an icon on the Quick Launch toolbar. To start a
Mac application, you typically click its icon in the Dock. (Starting
an application is also called launching it.)
What do you do in Windows if the application you want isn’t on
the Start menu or the Quick Launch toolbar? You click Start > All
Programs to see a full list of applications, and then choose the one
you want. Similarly, on the Mac, you see all available applications
by going to the Finder and choosing Go > Applications. This opens
a window on the Applications folder. Find the application you want
and double-click to start it.

TIP You can set any applications to start automatically every time you
log in. Open the Accounts pane in System Preferences, click the Login
Items tab, and then click the + (plus) button under the list of login
items. The Applications folder appears in a dialog. Click to choose
the application you want to start automatically at login time (you
can choose more than one by Command-clicking) and then click
Add. You should see your choice added to the login items list.

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Getting around from window to window and from application to
application on your Mac isn’t much different than on Windows. To
activate an application, you click its icon in the Dock (very much like
clicking in the Windows taskbar).
As I mentioned earlier, you can use Command-Tab to switch from
one application to the next. Most applications offer Command-` as
a shortcut you can use to switch among that application’s windows.
Deal with window clutter
Modern user interfaces like Windows and Mac OS X use overlapping
windows as a fundamental feature. But often too many windows are
open, cluttering the screen and making it hard to find anything. Macs
offer at least two techniques for dealing with window overcrowding:
the prosaic Hide Others and the flashy Exposé. Each has advantages
and disadvantages, and each performs a slightly different function.
The Mac’s Hide Others feature is simple. Every application has a
Hide Others item in its application menu; choose it and the rest of
the world vanishes, leaving only the current application’s windows,
with the Desktop peeking through from behind. All the other win-
dows are temporarily put away, removing unnecessary clutter so that
you can focus on what you’re doing. You can make the other windows
instantly reappear, by choosing Show All from the application menu,
or one application at a time, by switching to that application.
Hide Others works much like the Show Desktop button in the Win-
dows taskbar, except that instead of hiding all applications, it hides all
but the current one.
Exposé won’t hide other applications’ windows, but it will help you
find them. When you activate Exposé by pressing F9, the Mac shrinks
every window in every application and slides them around gracefully
so that you can see them all at once. Move the mouse pointer to the
one you want, and click to bring it to the front, as all the other win-
dows return to their previous sizes and locations. Figure 14 gives
you an idea of what this looks like.

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FIGURE 14

In this series of screen shots, Exposé is activated, which causes all
the windows to shrink (second image) and finally become uncov-
ered (third image). When the user points at a window, its title
appears on a label (the black strip over the blue-tinted window in
the upper right of the fourth image). Clicking causes the windows
to enlarge (fifth image) and finally return to full size in their same
locations (sixth image), but with the clicked window now in front.

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Exposé has a few other handy features:
• Press F10 to see the windows in the current application get the
Exposé treatment of shrinking and spreading out. This is useful if
you have a lot of windows open in the application.
• Press F11 to scoot all windows of all applications out of the way
so that you can see the Desktop underneath. If you keep a large
number of files on your Desktop, this will help you find them even
when lots of applications are open.
• If you’re not fond of pressing function keys to start Exposé, you
can use other triggers. For example, you can set Exposé to appear
by moving the mouse into a particular corner of the screen. Go to
the Dashboard & Exposé pane in System Preferences to change the
settings. The top part of the pane lets you set up what you want to
have happen when you mouse into your screen corners. The
bottom of the pane is where you specify mouse commands and
alternative keyboard shortcuts for Exposé.
Exposé is handy, and it’s really cool to watch (it’s a great recruitment
tool for getting folks to switch to the Mac). However, Exposé ignores
windows that have been hidden with the Hide Others command. So
if you’re a clutter-hater who likes to use Hide Others to remove visual
distractions, Exposé is far less useful. On the other hand, if you have
lots of windows open and you need help finding the one you want,
Exposé will save you time every day and make you smile when you
watch it work.

Use the Network
If you’re connecting your Mac to a network at home, the physical
connection is the same as for a Windows PC. For a wired network,
that means running an Ethernet cable from your Mac to a network
hub or broadband modem. Set up your Internet connection as
directed by your ISP. For a wireless network, you’ll use the software
that came with the wireless gateway, such as AirPort Setup Assistant
if you have an Apple AirPort Base Station. See Moving Internet
settings for more information.
Note that if you have your Mac at work, it’s a good idea to get help
from the IT department before plugging your computer into the net-
work. Technology professionals can be picky, and rightly so, about
what’s connected to their networks.
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Once your network is set up, you can take advantage of it by connect-
ing your Mac to other computers, both Macs and PCs. To see the
other computers, go to a Finder window and click the Network icon
in the sidebar. You should see items such as My Network and Servers
in the first column. (If you don’t see them, wait a bit; they can take up
to 30 seconds or so to appear.) To find another computer on the net-
work, click the My Network folder. You should see the other computer
inside. Click it, click the Connect button, and enter your user name
and password, and the other computer’s disk will appear in the
sidebar. Once it’s there, you can copy files to and from it.
To share files with a PC on your network, you have to do a little setup
on the PC first. Find the folder you want to share, right-click it, and
choose Sharing And Security. Click the Share This Folder button and
then click OK (but see the following warning). The shared folder
should appear in the My Network folder on Macs on the network.

WARNING! Be cautious about which folders you make available for sharing,
because you’re granting other users access to your computer. Also,
you should enable the firewall feature on the Windows computer
and the Mac. File sharing is a tricky enough art that there’s an entire
ebook on the subject, Take Control of Sharing Files. Both Tiger and
Panther versions are available.
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-sharing.html
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/panther/sharing.html

Try Printing
Your Mac can print to any printer that’s directly connected to it or
available on the network. Macs use USB printers, just like Windows
computers, so in general any USB printer that works with a PC also
works with a Mac, although more complicated multi-function devices
that combine printing with faxing and scanning sometimes don’t have
software that works with Mac OS X.
Printing works as it does on Windows: choose File > Print, pick the
printer you want, and then click Print. If you have a printer plugged
into your computer, it appears by name in the Print window. Any
printers available on the network are listed in the Shared Printers
submenu. If you want to see what you’re going to print before you

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actually spill ink, click Preview to see a PDF version of the document
(displayed in Apple’s Preview application).
If you have a printer connected to your Mac and you feel generous,
you can share it with other users on the network. In the Sharing
preference pane in System Preferences, make sure the Printer Sharing
box is checked. If Windows computers are on the network and you
want them to use the printer too (you feel very generous), check
Windows Sharing as well, but be sure your Mac’s firewall is enabled.

Use Software Update
Apple operates a terrific service called Software Update that makes
it super-simple to keep your software fresh. Once a week, Software
Update quietly connects to the mothership and asks Apple if there
are any new pieces of the operating system or Apple applications
available. If so, Software Update downloads them and then presents
a dialog asking if you want them installed. If you say yes, Software
Update shows you its progress while it performs the installation.
Software Update roughly corresponds in function to Windows
Update, but while Windows Update is clunky, requiring visits to a
Web site to download new software, the Mac’s Software Update is
a real gem, easy to use and virtually painless.
In general, if you’re a home user you should allow Software Update
to install what it presents to you, whereas corporate folks should find
out what their IT department’s policy says about Software Update.
Once in a while, Apple releases a clunker of an update that causes
some unexpected problems. To be cautious, check the Mac news sites,
such as http://www.tidbits.com/ and http://www.macintouch.com/,
for other people’s experience before you install. On the other hand, if
you love the bleeding edge, you can set Software Update to check for
new goodies every day instead of every week.

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TIP Although you can continue to work in other applications while
Software Update is installing something, you might be frustrated,
because the installation software takes a lot of the Mac’s resources
and makes everything else run slowly. It’s best to take a break while
Software Update does its work.
Also, some updates require you to restart the computer after install-
ing them, which adds a few minutes to the updating process while
the Mac shuts down and then starts up again. (These are marked in
Software Update with a left-pointing triangle in a gray circle.) If you
get one of these updates, you should wait for a convenient time to
install it, such as over lunch.

Glitches and Gotchas: Troubleshooting
As I noted earlier, Macs are far from perfect. You will have problems,
although they’re likely to be few and not serious. In this section, I tell
you what to do when you get smacked by the most common Macintosh
troubles: a program that gets stuck, and general weird behavior, such
as applications running slowly or features not working quite right.
Application gets stuck
Sometimes an application gets confused by bad data, a change in
network status, or another unknowable problem. The result is an
application that seems to have stopped working: you type or click in
its windows, but it’s not listening to you. When this happens, more
than likely you see the colorful spinning wait cursor, known as the
beach ball or the spinning pizza of death (SPOD) by Mac folks
(Figure 15).

FIGURE 15 Spinning wait cursor: the bane of our Mac experience.

An appearance by the spinning wait cursor is perfectly normal, as
long as it goes away after a few seconds. If it stays for a while—say,
30 seconds or more—there’s a good chance it will continue forever,
and you probably don’t want to wait that long. To get out of this
predicament, you can Control-click the application’s icon in the Dock
and choose Force Quit from the menu that appears. (If you see Quit

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instead of Force Quit, you can try Quit; if that doesn’t do anything,
Control-click the Dock icon again and hold down Option to change
the item to Force Quit.) After a moment, the program should go away.
Of course, if you have unsaved changes in that application, you’ll lose
them, so in that case you might want to wait longer to see if the wait
cursor will go away by itself.
If the application still seems stuck after you choose Force Quit from
the Dock menu, you can try a variation on this technique. Switch to
another application by clicking an icon in the Dock, choose Apple >
Force Quit, click the stuck program’s name in the list, and click Force
Quit. (You can press Command-Option-Escape as a shortcut to the
Force Quit command.)

TIP If the current application shows the spinning wait cursor and you
switch to another application, you can work there while you wait for
the original application to finish what it’s doing.

In rare cases, the application might refuse to vanish even when you
use Force Quit, or the Mac might be so disturbed that you can’t even
get the Force Quit dialog to appear. If this happens, you should first
try to switch to other applications that have unsaved changes and
save your work there. Then, you can use the method of last resort for
gaining control of your Mac: hold down the Power button for several
seconds until the Mac shuts off. Needless to say, you’ll lose any
unsaved changes you have in any application, but this might be your
only way out. As I said, these are rare cases.
General bad behavior
Occasionally, you might notice your Mac behaving a bit oddly.
Applications are running unusually slowly. It takes a long time to
switch from one application to another. An application ignores a
menu command. You repeatedly get a nonsensical error message.
When these things happen, you can follow a relatively well defined
set of procedures that almost always fixes the problem. If only one
application is being weird, try saving your changes, quitting the appli-
cation, and then starting it again. If that doesn’t make it right, or if
the trouble isn’t limited to one application, try restarting your Mac:
choose Apple > Restart, click the Restart button, and be sure to save
your changes in any applications that prompt you to do so.

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If you restart and the problem is still there, your next step is to try an
easy but geeky operation called repairing permissions. This procedure
verifies certain settings in your files and fixes them if they’re broken.
Bad permission settings can often cause odd problems to appear. To
repair permissions, go to a Finder window, click the Applications icon
in the sidebar, click Utilities, and then double-click Disk Utility. Click
the First Aid tab, click your hard disk in the list on the left side, and
then click Repair Disk Permissions. While Disk Utility is working,
it mutters a bit about what it’s doing and puts the mutterings into
the text field in its window. Depending on your technical background,
you’ll find this information to be somewhere between fascinating and
gibberish. When Disk Utility is done repairing permissions, see if
your problem has been fixed.

TIP For in-depth coverage of Mac OS X permissions features and issues,
see Take Control of Permissions in Mac OS X, available at
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/permissions-macosx.html.

If the problem still hasn’t gone away, you can do some research. Try
MacFixIt (http://www.macfixit.com/), a highly respected trouble-
shooting Web site that’s been serving Mac users since before Mac OS
X was invented. Visit http://www.apple.com/support/ to look for info
on your problem, or try http://discussions.info.apple.com/ to see if
other users are experiencing the same difficulty. If you can’t locate
anything on these sites, type a description of your problem into your
favorite Internet search engine and see what you can find.

TIP If you’d like to try some advanced detective work, check out the
Console application, found in the /Applications/Utilities
folder. Console displays logs of information about your Mac’s inner
workings, including notes about things that go wrong. After you start
Console, if the various log files aren’t listed on the left, click Logs on
the toolbar to see them. In particular, the files console.log and
system.log record a sort of monologue of the Mac’s mumblings
to itself. In those files, you might find more information about the
problem that’s troubling your Mac. Although the error message text
will likely be meaningless to you, you can copy the text and search for
it on the Web to see if anyone else has a solution.

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If you use your Mac at work, contact your support department to see
if someone there can help you out. Remember that if you’re near an
Apple Store, an Apple Genius is there to help you. Before you head for
the store, go to http://www.apple.com/retail/, find the store’s Web
site, and reserve a time at the Genius Bar so you won’t have to wait
around when you get there.

TIP Be sure to keep a few hundred megabytes of free space available
on your hard disk as a prophylactic measure. Mac OS X uses large
amounts of disk space for various purposes while it’s running, and
you’ll start having problems if free space runs low. Eventually you’ll
see a message that tells you to clear some space on the disk.

Kernel panic
Macs don’t experience the Blue Screen of Death; that’s for Windows
users only. The Mac equivalent is the kernel panic. When Mac OS X
runs into a problem in a critical part of its code, it can’t continue, so
it stops everything and displays a rather startling translucent box that
informs you, in four languages, “You need to restart your computer.
Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart
button.” And that’s exactly what you must do.
Fortunately, kernel panics are rare, and they’re almost always
transient. When you restart your computer following a kernel panic,
in most cases you won’t see another one for a long time.
But what do you do if you see kernel panics repeatedly? Here are
some suggestions:
• If you haven’t already done so, try repairing permissions, as
described in General bad behavior.
• If the kernel panics started happening right after you installed
some new software, try removing or uninstalling that software.
• Did you recently move, rename, or edit a system file? If you can,
change it back to the way it was.
• Try MacFixIt and Apple’s discussion boards, as mentioned in
General bad behavior.

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• Start the Console application, which is found in the folder
/Applications/Utilities, and then choose File > Open
Quickly > /Library/Logs > panic.log. Try copying parts of the log
and searching the Web for someone reporting a similar problem.
• If you’re not far from an Apple Store, make an appointment with
the Apple Genius there.

Five Mac Features You Must Learn
This section describes five important Mac features I haven’t men-
tioned yet that are either so handy that you’re likely to use them every
day or so important that they’ll make a significant difference in your
Mac work environment.
Use multiple Finder windows
When you’re working in the Finder, you can open as many windows
as you need. To open a new window, choose File > New Window or
press Command-N. You can also open a folder into its own window by
Command-double-clicking it.
Each window can show whichever Finder item you want: folder, disk,
network, and so on. Having multiple Finder windows open is espe-
cially helpful when you’re moving or copying files.
You can use various views in different windows to see your files. For
example, you might use column view (View > As Column) to see an
overview of your disk’s hierarchy, but you might want to see a folder
of documents listed in the order the documents were modified. To do
that, choose View > As List and then click the Date Modified column.
Move and copy files
The most direct way to move files from one folder to another on the
same disk is to drag their icons in the Finder. This is easiest if you
have both the starting and destination windows open before you
begin. If you drag an icon to a different disk, the file is copied to the
new disk, but the original is left intact as well.
You can use dragging to make a copy of a file in a new place on the
same disk, leaving the original alone. Hold down the Option key and
then start dragging the file’s icon. You’ll see a green bubble with a +
(plus) on it, indicating that you’re creating a copy of the file. Drag the
copy to the destination folder, and then let go of the mouse button to
complete the copying.
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Instead of dragging, you can copy a file to a new place with menu
commands. Select the file, choose Edit > Copy, go to the place you’re
moving it to, and choose Edit > Paste. A copy of the file appears in the
new location.

TIP If the folder you’re dragging to is listed in the sidebar, there’s an easy
shortcut available: just drop the file into that folder.

Learn Finder and system keyboard shortcuts
You’ll spend a lot of time in the Finder. To be most efficient there, you
should learn at least the most common of the many keyboard short-
cuts for Finder commands. For example, press Command-N to open
a new window; Command-Shift-N creates a new folder.
Table 4 on the next page lists handy Finder and systemwide
keyboard shortcuts that are different from their counterparts in
Windows (or have no counterparts in Windows).

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Table 4: Finder and System Shortcuts
Keys to Press Command Notes
Command-D File > Duplicate (Finder)
Command-Option-D Show/hide Dock
Command-H Hide application
Command-Option-H Hide other applications
Command-I Get Info (Finder and some Like Properties in Windows
other applications) Explorer and other applications
Command-M Minimize window to Dock Same as clicking minimize
button
Command-Q Quit application Usually File > Exit in Windows
Command-W Close window Like Alt-F4 in Windows
Command-1 View > As Icons (Finder)
Command-2 View > As List (Finder)
Command-3 View > As Columns (Finder)
Command-Shift-3 Take picture of screen Like Print Screen (or PrtSc)
Command-Shift-4 Select area and take picture
Command-? Open Help Viewer In most applications
Command-` Select next window in
application
Command-Delete Move to trash
Command-Option-Esc Show Force Quit window
Command-Space Show Spotlight menu
Command-Option-Space Show Spotlight window
Command-Tab Switch to another Like Alt-Tab in Windows
application
Command-Option-click Show that application and
a Dock icon hide all others
F9 Exposé (all windows)
F10 Exposé (current application)
F11 Exposé (show Desktop) Like Show Desktop button on
Windows Quick Launch toolbar

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For a more complete list of Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts, see
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459 or go to the
Finder, choose Help > Mac Help, and search for keyboard shortcuts.

TIP You can change the keys for many keyboard shortcuts and create
your own new shortcuts by opening the Keyboard & Mouse pref-
erence pane in System Preferences and clicking the Keyboard
Shortcuts tab.
To change the key for a shortcut, double-click any value in the
Shortcut column and press the keys for the new shortcut.
To add a new shortcut, click the + (plus) button: choose All Applica-
tions or a specific application; in the Menu Title field, type the exact
name of the menu item that the shortcut is for; in the Keyboard
Shortcut field, press the keys for the shortcut; then click Add. If
you’ve added a shortcut to a running application, it will become
available when you quit and restart that application.

Customize the Finder sidebar and toolbar
You can customize the sidebar and toolbar (the buttons at the top)
in Finder windows to hold your favorite icons. Let’s say you have a
folder named Doughty Account that you keep inside your Documents
folder. Every time you want to get to it, you have to click Documents
and then find Doughty Account inside it. In this example, the folder
is only one level deep in Documents, but the inconvenience would
multiply if you had an elaborate filing system that buried it four or
five levels down; suppose, for example, that the folder’s path is
~/Documents/work/active/important/Doughty Account.
You can reduce the Doughty-finding process to a single click by
adding the Doughty Account folder to the sidebar or the toolbar.
To add it to the sidebar, find the Doughty Account folder and drag it
to the sidebar, below the horizontal gray line that divides the sidebar
(you can’t add anything above the line; that area is reserved for things
the Mac puts there, such as disks). As you drag it over folders such as
Applications, Documents, and Movies, you’ll see each folder high-
lighted, presenting itself as a possible target for the folder you’re
dragging. Be careful not to drop it into one of these folders. Instead,
drag it slowly, and notice that as you drag between folders, a horizon-
tal insertion line with a circle at the end appears. That line shows you
where the icon will appear in the sidebar.

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When you see the insertion line at the place where you want the icon,
release the mouse button. A copy of the Doughty Account icon will
appear in the sidebar, a new one-click shortcut to the folder no matter
where it is.
The procedure for adding an icon to the toolbar is even simpler. As
you drag the Doughty Account folder to the toolbar, the other items
politely move over and make room. (The exception to this is when you
drag directly to a folder on the toolbar; in that case, the folder is high-
lighted to show that you can drop the new item there.)

TIP You might want to choose some organizing principle for deciding
whether to put your own icons in the sidebar or toolbar. One good
scheme is to use the sidebar for folders and the toolbar for frequently
used applications. This takes advantage of the fact that the sidebar
appears in dialogs for opening or saving a file, but the toolbar does
not. When you’re opening or saving a file, shortcuts to folders are
handy, but shortcuts to applications are useless.

TIP To further customize the sidebar or toolbar, you can move icons,
or remove them entirely. To move a sidebar icon, simply drag it to
its new location. To remove an icon, drag it away from the sidebar;
when you let go, it vanishes in a puff of smoke.
To move a toolbar icon, hold down Command and then drag it to its
new place. Getting rid of the icon requires that you hold down Com-
mand as you drag it away from the toolbar.
You can move or remove any items in the sidebar and toolbar, not
just the ones you put there.
Note that you’re not deleting a file, folder, or disk when you take
something away from the sidebar or toolbar; you’re simply removing
a shortcut to that file, folder, or disk.

Print documents to PDF files
The Mac OS X graphics system software (named Quartz) is closely
related to Adobe’s PostScript and PDF technologies. This relationship
enables at least one wonderful feature on the Mac: any time you’re
ready to print a document, you can “print” to a PDF file instead of
a printer. In other words, you can create a PDF file that contains

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images of the pages as they would appear on the printer. This feature
is possible with Windows, but only with (usually expensive) add-on
software.
There are many uses for this great feature:
• Save PDFs on your disk so you can archive them and reprint them
any time.
• Send PDFs to others via email.
• Save PDF copies of receipts from Web purchases.
• See how a document will look before you print it.
To use this feature, get your document ready to print, including
choosing File > Page Setup if you need to change any settings there.
Then choose File > Print and make sure the settings are the way you
want them, but don’t click Print; instead, click the PDF button. You’ll
get a menu of options, including these:
• Save As PDF prints your document to a PDF file.
• Mail PDF creates the PDF and then switches to Apple’s Mail
application and starts a new message with the PDF attached. (This
one is useful only if you use Apple Mail.)
• Save PDF To Web Receipts Folder creates the PDF and then stores
it in a specific folder, ~/Documents/Web Receipts. (This folder
is created the first time you use this feature.)
The Preview button in the Print dialog provides another handy
feature: it “prints” the document to a PDF, and then opens the PDF in
the Preview application so you can review it before deciding whether
to print.

Five Useful Tips
In this section, you’ll find tips about five cool Mac features. Although
much of the Macintosh interface is visual and obvious, the Mac com-
munity has discovered vast numbers of hidden shortcuts and tricks
for working more quickly and efficiently. Here are five of my favorites
that have broad appeal.

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Work around stubborn Web sites
Some Web sites are picky, in that when you try to use them with
Safari, they refuse, claiming the site requires Internet Explorer, and
maybe even Windows. And sometimes they just don’t work. Financial
sites have an especially bad reputation for doing this.
Sometimes the site needs features that are available in only the
specified browser. But far more often, the site creator simply hasn’t
tested the site with other browsers, and it works fine if you use them.
You can sometimes get into the site by trying another browser, such
as temporarily switching to Firefox if you usually use Safari. But this
doesn’t work when the site demands a Windows browser.
Even in that case, you can often use the site if you can get past the
first page. The trick is to convince the site that you’re using the
anointed browser when you’re really not.
To do this, you enable Safari’s hidden Debug menu. The free Tinker-
Tool utility (http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html) will do that
for you. When you have Safari’s Debug menu unhidden, go to the
troublesome site, choose Debug > User Agent, and pick the Web
browser you want to be. For example, choose Windows MSIE 6.0 to
present yourself as Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows. When
you do this, many fastidious sites will let you right in. If faking your
browser doesn’t work, you’ll probably have to contact the site oper-
ators and convince them to do a better job of supporting Macs.
Use Dashboard (Tiger only)
Dashboard is another of Apple’s marquee new features in Mac OS X
10.4 Tiger. Dashboard lets you use a collection of small, colorful,
special-purpose programs that fly onto the screen in their own layer,
on top of everything else, and then fly away when you’re done with
them. To use Dashboard, press F12 (if you have a portable Mac, hold
down Fn and press F12). You’ll see something that looks like
Figure 16.

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FIGURE 16

Dashboard looks like this. The usual Mac Desktop is dimmed in the
background.

TIP If you press the Dashboard key accidentally, the quickest way to
return to what you were doing is to press the key again. If you can’t
remember which is the right key to press, simply click any non-
Dashboard window to make Dashboard go away.

The programs that appear in Dashboard are called widgets. You can
drag them like ordinary windows and click in them to choose things.
To see more widgets, click the circled + (plus) in the lower left; a
parade of additional widgets appears on the widget bar at the bottom
of your screen. Click any widget to use it.

TIP You can open more copies of a widget by clicking it again in the
widget bar. This can be useful for showing the weather or the time in
more than one place.

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Apple has more than a thousand additional widgets on its Web site
for you to try, most of them created by developers outside Apple. To
see this widget collection, click the + (plus) in the lower left, click the
Manage Widgets button, and then, in the widget that appears, click
More Widgets at the bottom.
Open recent items
Mac OS X keeps track of many of the items you’ve used most recently,
in case you want to use them again. For example, the Finder
remembers the last nine folders you’ve opened and keeps the list in
the Go > Recent Folders menu. Choose any item there to return to
that folder instantly.
Most Mac applications remember the last few documents you’ve
opened. If you close one and then want to reopen it, go to the
application and choose File > Open Recent. In some Microsoft
applications, the recent documents are listed directly in the File
menu; choose one of those to open it.
Finally, there’s a handy systemwide Recent Items list in the Apple
menu. It’s actually three lists: Applications, Documents, and Servers.
All the Recent menus have a Clear Menu item at the bottom that
erases the list of recent items and provides privacy if you don’t want
to leave evidence of where you’ve been.
Password-protect your Mac
If your Macintosh is not in a secure location—that is, if you have
kids, co-workers, or roommates—you can take simple steps to
prevent intrusion. First, in the Security preference pane in System
Preferences, click the first checkbox below the line, which will make
Mac OS X ask for the current user’s password before waking from
sleep or a screen saver. Then click Show All to see the complete set
of preference panes again, and click Accounts. If the padlock at the
bottom is locked, open it by clicking it and then entering your
password. Click Login Options at the bottom of the list of users on
the left. Finally, uncheck the Automatically Log In As box at the top.
From now on, when you wake up or start up your Mac, it will stop
and ask for your password before proceeding.
By taking these steps, you make it much harder for amateur spies to
get into your stuff. Just don’t forget your password.

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TIP You can lock your Mac (just like pressing Control-Alt-Delete and
choosing Lock Computer on Windows) when you move the mouse
to a selected corner of the screen. First, follow the preceding instruc-
tions to set the preference for requiring a password when waking
from sleep. Then open the Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane,
click the Screen Saver tab, and click Hot Corners. Pick a screen
corner and choose Start Screen Saver from the pop-up menu; the
lower left and lower right are better choices, because the upper
corners are already occupied. After choosing a corner, click OK.
Now, when you’re ready to walk away from your computer, move
the mouse to the corner you selected, and the screen saver will start
immediately.

Make a smart folder
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger uses the powerful Spotlight search capabilities
to provide other features. One of these is smart folders in the Finder.
A smart folder is an ongoing search, looking for files that match some
criteria you specify. Like a Spotlight search, the contents of a smart
folder are always up to date. For example, you can create a smart
folder that finds all the files containing the words “mellow gold”. Each
time a new file is created that contains those words, or the words are
added to an existing file and the file is saved to disk, the smart folder
instantly adds the file to its contents.

NOTE Smart folders contain links to files rather than the files themselves.
Files aren’t moved or copied when they appear in smart folders; they
remain in their original folders.

To create a smart folder in the Finder, choose File > New Smart
Folder and use the pop-up menus to specify the criteria you want
(Figure 17). Click a + (plus) button to add a search criterion, or click
– (minus) to remove one. When you’ve specified the criteria you
want, click Save to create the smart folder.

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FIGURE 17

The interface for creating a smart folder in the Finder.

Another use of smart folders is to keep track of files you’ve recently
opened. You can make a smart folder that shows files you’ve opened
since, say, yesterday. The result is a folder that always shows files
opened today or yesterday; when a new day begins, the smart folder
drops the files from the day that has now become the day before
yesterday.

TIP To find out a lot more about cool things you can do with your Mac,
you might want to look into Take Control of Customizing Tiger
or Take Control of Customizing Panther, available at
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-customizing.html and
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/panther/customizing.html,
respectively.
For an enormous and ever-growing supply of Mac tips, ranging from
invaluable to bizarre, see http://www.macosxhints.com/.

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LIVE AS A MAC USER IN A WINDOWS WORLD
Let’s face it: the vast majority of our family members, friends, and co-
workers have managed to resist the Mac’s charms so far. This can make
for some rough edges as you transition from Windows and become a
Mac user. In this section, I cover some of the difficulties you might run
into as you continue to work with Windows users, along with possible
solutions.

Share Documents with Windows Users
You can exchange many kinds of files, including Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, GIF, JPG, and PDF files, with your Windows counter-
parts. Usually, you’ll share documents via email, but any form of
transfer is fine.
Although sharing documents across operating systems works well,
here are some troublesome areas you should be aware of:
• Many Excel documents include macros, which are generally
portable between Mac and Windows. The major exception is
macros that use ActiveX controls on Windows: those don’t work
on Macs and can’t be converted.
• PowerPoint presentations can have problems moving from Mac
to Windows if they include movies. Movies created on the Mac are
typically in QuickTime format, but for them to work in PowerPoint
on Windows you must convert them to AVI format. Apple’s Quick-
Time Pro lets you export QuickTime movies to other formats,
including AVI.
• You’ll occasionally have problems with documents that appear
or print slightly differently after they cross operating systems.
Sometimes you can fix these problems by avoiding exotic fonts
and sticking with a well-known set. In particular, some fonts
on the Mac are installed in Windows only if the computer has
Microsoft Publisher. If you send documents with these fonts to
Windows users, they won’t appear or print correctly if the recipient
doesn’t have Publisher.
Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac includes a helpful feature that tries to
determine whether a document will have any problems when viewed

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with Windows. To use this feature, choose Tools > Compatibility
Report in the Mac versions of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. In some
cases, Compatibility Report will offer to fix potential cross-platform
problems in your documents, but often it merely reports them and
can’t fix them. In either case, it’s a useful tool for these applications.
For more information on these kinds of compatibility issues, and to
join a community of people who use both Macs and Windows
computers, visit http://www.macwindows.com/.

Run Windows Applications
Some Windows applications have no Mac version. If you can’t find
a suitable replacement, you might have to run the actual Windows
application. To run Windows programs on a Mac, you can either use
Virtual PC or run a client program that connects to a Windows server
over a network.
Windows emulation with Virtual PC
Microsoft makes Virtual PC, a Windows emulator for the Mac, and
sells it for about $200. Indeed, this program runs Windows applica-
tions on your Mac, but, like many emulators, it runs them very slowly.
It’s a reasonable solution if you absolutely must run a Windows
application occasionally and you don’t have a PC.

NOTE In 2006, Apple will start building its computers with the same micro-
processors used in Windows PCs, and it will actually be possible to
install Windows on your Macintosh and start up into one operating
system or the other. Obviously, this will have a profound effect on
people who have to run Macintosh and Windows software on the
same computer. Microsoft hasn’t said what magic it has in store for
a future version of Virtual PC, but we can dream of a fast, integrated
environment that runs programs from both operating systems. We’ll
find out in 2006.

Remote Desktop Connection
Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) Client is a free
download from Microsoft that provides another option for running
Windows applications on your Mac. With RDC, you use a network to
connect to a Windows computer that you have permission to use.

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From your Mac, you run the applications on the remote Windows
computer, basically using the Mac as a terminal. If you can arrange
network access to a Windows computer, this might be the right
solution for you. Download the RDC software by going to
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx and clicking
Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac OS X.

NOTE Apple sells a product called Apple Remote Desktop, which is not
related to Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection, despite the very
similar names.

Another option that works this way is the Citrix ICA Client from Citrix
Systems (http://www.citrix.com/). Although the Citrix client is not
free, many companies prefer it because it’s available for several
platforms and provides more features and options than Microsoft
RDC.

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GLOSSARY

NOTE If you know the name of a Windows term and you want to find out
what the Mac equivalent is, see Table 3.

application menu: The second menu in the menu bar. Its title is
the name of the current application, and it contains commands for
that application.
authenticating: The process of providing your user name and your
password, as requested by your Mac before it will let you change an
important setting.
brushed metal: A type of Mac OS X window that looks as if it’s
made of metal and can be dragged by its edges. The Finder and
QuickTime Player are examples of applications that use brushed
metal windows.
contacts: A collection of names and addresses, primarily used by
email programs. Some email programs call this the address book.
contextual menu: A menu that appears at the cursor location when
you Control-click or, on a multi-button mouse, right-click. Contextual
menus are called shortcut menus in Windows.
disclosure triangle: The small triangle next to a folder in a Finder
list view window, also sometimes called expansion triangle. Click it to
show or hide the contents of the folder. Disclosure triangles appear in
other places on the Mac as well, such as in the Keyboard Shortcuts tab
in the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane. Some Mac users call these
flippies or twiddles for short. Disclosure triangles work like the small
plus and minus signs in Windows Explorer folder view.
Dock: The bar of icons, located by default at the bottom of the screen,
that provides quick access to applications, folders, and documents. The
Dock is broadly similar to the Windows taskbar in function.
expansion triangle: See disclosure triangle.
Finder: The Macintosh program that controls your desktop and
provides a way for you to see, move, and copy your files, as Windows
Explorer does. The Finder’s icon is always first in the Dock. See Dock.

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home folder: A folder set aside for you to store your documents
and other work. Your login name is also the name of your home
folder. Your home folder contains subfolders, most notably the
Documents folder, which is very similar to My Documents in
Windows.
kernel panic: A serious condition in Mac OS X in which a critical
part of the operating system encounters an error and can’t continue.
It’s like a Windows Blue Screen of Death, only much prettier and in
four languages.
preference panes: The functional units of the Mac’s System
Preferences program (accessible through the Apple menu or the
System Preferences icon in the Dock), in which you tweak various
settings that don’t belong to any one program. For example, you
can use preference panes to control the network, alert sounds, and
general appearance settings. Preference panes are similar to Windows
control panels.
ripping: The process of copying music from an audio CD to your
computer. According to legend, in 2001 some music industry exec-
utives were confused by this term, presuming that “rip” meant “rip
off,” or steal, when it really means “rip the music from your CD and
put it on your computer.” This led to embarrassing public arguments
between the music folks and Apple over its slogan “Rip. Mix. Burn.”
root directory: The starting point in the hierarchy of directories
(folders) on the disk. Similar to C: in Windows.
sidebar: The area at the left edge of every Finder window that
contains shortcuts to commonly used items on your hard disk.
sleep mode: A power-saving mode the Mac enters if you leave it
alone for a while. The Mac darkens the screen, stops working, and
makes a light on its case blink slowly as it enters sleep mode. This is
similar to system standby in Windows.
smart folder: Folders that display files matching search criteria that
you specify. The Finder in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger lets you create smart
folders. Some Mac users call these virtual folders, because they’re not
like other folders in that you can’t drag anything into them; they add
contents themselves by searching.

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spinning wait cursor: The colorful mouse pointer that appears
when the Mac is busy doing something and needs you to wait a
moment before continuing. The bane of Mac users.
status menus: Menus that appear on the far right end of the menu
bar and do not belong to a specific program. The icons that represent
status menus in the menu bar are also status indicators, such as the
volume menu, which is topped by an icon showing the current volume
level. Status menus are similar in function to icons in the system tray
in Windows.
wireless gateway: A device, such as an Apple AirPort Base Station,
that makes a network available via a wireless connection.

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RESOURCES

Books
In this ebook, I’ve tried to present the fundamentals of switching to
the Mac in a relatively small number of pages. If you’d like a lot more
material about switching (for a higher price, of course), take a look at
the book Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition
by David Pogue and Adam Goldstein, ISBN 0-596-00660-8
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0596004524/).

Web Sites
Software downloads and services:
• Firefox browser: http://www.getfirefox.com/
• VLC video player: http://www.videolan.org/
• Software from Apple and others:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/
• Audion music player (plays and converts WMA files):
http://www.panic.com/audion/
• Email conversion tools: http://www.emailman.com/
• Outlook2Mac mail conversion utility:
http://www.littlemachines.com/
• Eudora vCard Export conversion utility:
http://homepage.mac.com/aamann/
• TinkerTool utility: http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerTool.html
• Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx
• Web service for sending large files: http://www.yousendit.com/
Apple sites:
• List of Apple retail stores: http://www.apple.com/retail/
• Apple’s official support site: http://www.apple.com/support/
• Apple-hosted support forums: http://discussions.info.apple.com/
• Apple Consultants Network: http://consultants.apple.com/
Page 87

• Information on developing software for Mac OS X:
http://developer.apple.com/
Information sites:
• Information about thousands of Mac programs:
http://www.versiontracker.com/
• Macintosh news sites: http://www.tidbits.com/,
http://www.macintouch.com/, http://www.macsurfer.com/
• Vast collection of Mac tips: http://www.macosxhints.com/
• Troubleshooting help: http://www.macfixit.com/
• Review of Mac browsers:
http://www.macworld.com/2005/09/reviews/browserrdp/
• Community site for people who use both Macs and PCs:
http://www.macwindows.com/

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ABOUT THIS EBOOK
In contrast to traditional print books, Take Control ebooks offer
clickable links, full-text searching, and free minor updates. We hope
you find them both useful and enjoyable to read. Keep reading in this
section to learn more about the author, the Take Control series, and
the publisher.

About the Author
Scott Knaster has been writing about Macs for as
long as there have been Macs. Scott’s book How to
Write Macintosh Software was required reading
for Mac programmers for a decade, and his
groundbreaking Macintosh Programming Secrets
became a cult classic. Scott’s writing experience
ranges from books for software developers to April Fool’s Day hoaxes.
Scott’s books have been translated into several languages, including
Japanese and Pascal. Scott has every issue of MAD magazine, which
explains a lot about him.

Author’s Acknowledgments
Mark Altenberg and Genentech have generously sponsored the
creation of this ebook and offered it to the Mac community. Mark
had the idea for the ebook and then helped guide it from conception,
giving me insight on what switchers want to know. Mark and his
colleagues at Genentech, a company that has been using Macs since
the very first one, reviewed the ebook and provided excellent
suggestions for its improvement.
Adam and Tonya Engst gave me the opportunity to write this ebook
and to work on it with Caroline Rose, and for that I thank them
profusely. Adam and Tonya have helped me immeasurably through-
out the process, shepherding the ebook from idea to publication and
beyond.
Thanks to Matt Neuburg, whose table of status menus in Take
Control of Customizing Tiger inspired the similar table in this ebook.
And thanks to the members of the Take Control community for their
valuable review of the manuscript.
And at last, thanks to Caroline Rose, my friend (for many years) and
editor (for the first time). Being edited by Caroline has been just the
Page 89

wonderful experience I always thought it would be. She “gets” what
authors are trying to say at both the big picture and detail levels, and
then helps them say it better. Some years ago I wrote that Caroline
was the best technical writer I’d ever known, and now I can add that
she’s the finest editor I’ve ever worked with.

Take Control: The Series
Take control of computing with the Take Control series of highly
practical, tightly focused electronic books! Written by leading
authors, edited by TidBITS, and delivered to your electronic doorstep
within moments of “going to press,” Take Control ebooks provide just
the technical help you need.
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/
You may be especially interested in:
• Take Control of Buying a Mac, by Adam Engst
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/buying-mac.html
• Take Control of Customizing Tiger, by Matt Neuburg
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/tiger-customizing.html
• Take Control of Mac OS X Backups, by Joe Kissell
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/backup-macosx.html

About TidBITS Electronic Publishing
Take Control ebooks are a project of TidBITS Electronic Publishing.
TidBITS Electronic Publishing has been publishing online since 1990
when publishers Adam and Tonya Engst first created their online
newsletter, TidBITS, about Macintosh- and Internet-related topics.
TidBITS has been in continuous, weekly production since then, and
it is the leading online Macintosh newsletter.
To stay up to date on Macintosh topics, be sure to read TidBITS each
week. At the TidBITS Web site you can subscribe to TidBITS for free,
participate in TidBITS Talk discussions, or search 15 years of news,
reviews, and editorial analysis (http://www.tidbits.com/).
Adam and Tonya are well-known in the Macintosh world as writers,
editors, and speakers, and they have written innumerable online and
print publications. They are also parents to Tristan, who thinks
ebooks about trains, ships, and dinosaurs would be cool.

Page 90

Production Credits
• Cover: Jeff Carlson, http://www.necoffee.com/
• Take Control logo: Jeff Tolbert, http://jefftolbert.com/
• Editor: Caroline Rose, http://www.differnet.com/crose/
• Editor in Chief: Tonya Engst, http://www.tidbits.com/tonya/
• Publisher: Adam Engst, http://www.tidbits.com/adam/

Page 91

Copyright © 2005, Scott Knaster. All rights reserved.
Take Control of Switching to the Mac
November 2005, Version 1.0
ISBN: 1-933671-04-1
TidBITS Electronic Publishing
50 Hickory Road, Ithaca, NY 14850 USA
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/
Take Control ebooks help readers regain some measure of control in an
oftentimes out-of-control universe. Take Control ebooks also streamline the
publication process so that information about quickly changing technical topics
can be published while it’s still relevant and accurate. Please send comments to
tc-comments@tidbits.com.
This ebook does not use copy protection because copy protection makes life hard-
er for everyone. So we ask a favor of our readers. If you want to share your copy
of this ebook with a friend, please do so as you would a physical book, meaning
that if your friend uses it regularly, he or she should buy a copy. (Use the Help a
Friend offer on the cover of this ebook to give your friend a discount!) Your sup-
port makes it possible for future Take Control ebooks to hit the Internet long
before you’d find the same info in a printed book. Plus, if you buy the ebook,
you’re entitled to any free updates that become available.
Although the author and TidBITS Electronic Publishing have made a reasonable
effort to ensure the accuracy of the information herein, they assume no respon-
sibility for errors or omissions. The information in this ebook is distributed “As
Is,” without warranty of any kind. Neither TidBITS Electronic Publishing nor the
author shall be liable to any person or entity for any special, indirect, incidental,
or consequential damages, including without limitation lost revenues or lost
profits, that may result (or that are alleged to result) from the use of these
materials. In other words, use this information at your own risk.
Many of the designations used to distinguish products and services are claimed
as trademarks or service marks. Any trademarks, service marks, product names,
or named features that appear in this title are assumed to be the property of their
respective owners. All product names and services are used in an editorial fashion
only, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use
of any trade name, is meant to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this
title.
Take Control of Switching to the Mac is an independent publication and has not
been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Computer, Inc.
Terms including Apple, Exposé, Finder, iBook, iMac, Macintosh, Mac, Mac OS,
Panther, PowerBook, and Tiger are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple
Computer, Inc.

Page 92

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