Complete Mac Newbie - where do I start?

[kayleighkustard]

Hello iMore,

I've just purchased my very first MacBook Pro (after years of dreaming of buying one!) and as a windows user for life I have no idea where to begin. I have literally just unboxed it and set it up and I'm aimlessly staring at the screen wonder what I do with this beautiful piece of machinery. I need a sort of Mac 101 if you like, I have searched the internet and nothing has been very helpful so far.

I will welcome any advice, tips, tricks, app suggestions etc..

Thanks
KK

 

[Just_Me_D]

The information via the following link is invaluable, in my opinion.

Apple - Support - MacBook Pro - New to Mac

 

[Fausty82]

I can also recommend an excellent book from David Pogue entitled OS X Mavericks: The Missing Manual.
OS X Mavericks: The Missing Manual: David Pogue: 9781449362249: Amazon.com: Books

I bought the Lion version when I made the switch to OS X... found it to be very informative and helpful.

 

[Algus]

Hmm, I have just made the switch within the last week myself. Actually I believe my beautiful new Mac Mini has been on my desk for exactly a week! So far...

Launchpad is your friend!

The OS comes with a lot of great software out of the box. Music player, photo app, video app, etc. For basic computing needs you are probably already covered. I'd check most of them out. I actually installed Chrome right away but after playing with Safari, I realized I vastly preferred Apple's browser. I'm giving up syncing with my laptop but I already was using a different browser on my Android devices so it wasn't the end of the world.

If you use an external mouse: Apple Icon>System Preferences> uncheck natural scrolling. It may be more natural but years of using a Windows machine prevented me from being able to adapt to the scroll button working in reverse lol

Finder>Preferences>General - from here you can toggle whether you want your hard drive visible on the desktop. If you're used to rooting around the drive from Windows, you will probably like having the icon right in your face

These were things I did right away. You will also have to disable some security features if you plan to start installing apps that don't come from the App Store. There is a keystroke for executing apps that aren't properly signed. Ctrl + click IIRC. I had to use this while I was getting my Basilisk II emulator set up so I could run Mac OS 7 stuff

Boot Camp - this is pretty glorious if you want to use Windows software. Make sure to get the Boot Camp utilities (the app prompts you to install them to your thumb drive) and install those from inside Windows to get everything working. Boot Camp is a very elegant method of dual booting that bypasses having a boot menu like GRUB and lets you easily switch which OS you will boot to from either partition.

 

[kayleighkustard]

Thanks, I've heard about that book Fausty, perhaps it will be worth me buying it. Thank you for your advice. I doubt I'll be using BootCamp.. I hated windoze!

 

[BBGary]

The information via the following link is invaluable, in my opinion.

Apple - Support - MacBook Pro - New to Mac

Nice support page.


Sent from my iPhone 5s using iMore Forums mobile app

 

[Just_Me_D]

Nice support page.


Sent from my iPhone 5s using iMore Forums mobile app

Yes sir, it is....

 

[Algus]

Yeah, it's amazing how much crappier my Mac Mini is when I boot into Windows (apparently 5400 RPM HDD is only trash on an MS OS??) but Medieval II: Total War...I require it. In large doses. The Holy Land doesn't invade itself. Guess I should have just bought a Mac Pro and VMed Windows so I wouldn't have to waste time booting into it lol

 

[BBGary]

Yeah, it's amazing how much crappier my Mac Mini is when I boot into Windows (apparently 5400 RPM HDD is only trash on an MS OS??) but Medieval II: Total War...I require it. In large doses. The Holy Land doesn't invade itself. Guess I should have just bought a Mac Pro and VMed Windows so I wouldn't have to waste time booting into it lol

I'm using Oracle VirtualBox software to run Win7 as virtual machine whenever i need it.

 

[anon(4698833)]

Jump in and just get one...that is what I did so long ago, having no idea what I was getting into...and having only been exposed to Windows computers before then. It took a few days to understand where everything was, but OS X is intuitive, and it makes learning an entirely new system a very simple process.

 

[Fausty82]

Jump in and just get one...that is what I did so long ago, having no idea what I was getting into...and having only been exposed to Windows computers before then. It took a few days to understand where everything was, but OS X is intuitive, and it makes learning an entirely new system a very simple process.

+1

As the Nike ad says, "Just do it."


Sent from a galaxy far, far away via Tapatalk.