m@c madness, for dummies.

It will come as no particular shock to any of you, dear readers, that I've been a lifelong Mac fan. (In fact, I count at least 9 of you as my converts...) Call it either my early-adopter enthusiasm or my nonchalant expertise, I've found myself sending out "so you're a new mac owner" emails periodically over the past few years. As our beloved iTunes turned 5 years old yesterday, I thought it might be fun to share the current programs and features that continue to perpetuate my Apple love (and every college student in America).

1. Leopard: Hopefully you have it. Then, when you have problems, I can screenshare with you or do fun voodoo iChat sharing madness. Love it. No really, it has a hundred-zillion great little features that will change your life. Mostly, Quicklook (press the spacebar in the Finder and open pretty much ANYTHING (or a few things) quickly). Time Machine is a godsend (use it!). Stacks are cool (try putting your applications folder there). I could go on for hours, but I'll save some of the specifics for a few other posts. Watch the guided tour if you're unfamiliar with all the gems.
   
2. Firefox vs. Safari: I was actually a diehard FF guy until recently, where Safari finally has been getting its act together. (Just use both, so if something is acting funky in one browser, switch to the other.) Google Browser Sync in FF has kinda changed my life. It's great for any of you with work or multiple computers, regardless of platform.)
3. Most Google Products: I'll write about this more later, but I use 'em all. GMail, Calendar and Notebook are no-brainers.
   
4. NetNewsWire: a really great, free RSS aggregator, which only drives my 8zillion blog overindulgence insanity. You can even sync your feeds across multiple computers, access the combined feed stream from online or your iPhone, so you've got your complete, up-to-date unread blog list handy anywhere, anytime. (If you're on a PC or don't want programs, go with Google Reader.)
5. Screenshots: I use these constantly. Snippets of a screen. Bills. Whatever.
   
1. Apple+Shift+3 = entire screen. The file should be on your desktop afterwards as Picture 1 or something. If it's not .jpg you can adjust that using this or even better, using that.
2. Apple+Shift+4 = lets you select the screenshot area.
3. Apple+Control+Shift+(3 or 4) = copies the screenshot to the clipboard so you can paste it into whatever you're working on, like Mail (skips the step that saves it as a file on your desktop).
6. iChat vs. Adium: This is another one I've flipped on post-college. I was historically a huge Adium fan, as it let me combine pretty much every chat program under the sun (and multiple accounts) into one program, while allowing super-customizability on the visuals of the program. Since then, iChat has caught up on its featureset, I've grown bored of AIM (you can add GTalk (Gmail Chat) to iChat), and file transfer / video chat is just so much more seamless on iChat.
7. Preview and Text Edit: Put both of these standard Mac programs into your dock. On mac, you can just drag files to the program you want them to open in, saving you time. It's fantastic. Don't want to open a picture in iPhoto? Just drag it to Preview to open it.
1. Preview has probably become the best upgrade to Leopard... it's got great image format conversion, built-in cropping, adjust (pixel) size function (you can even select a bunch of pictures and change them all), and some really great PDF management (ever want to combine a few pages of one PDF with a few pages of another?). Especially handy since I've started blogging.
2. Text Edit is great for stripping out any zany formatting that may copy over with a copy-and-paste text blurb (choose 'Make Plain Text' from the menu), any simple HTML needs, simple lists and text or pretty much anytime you just need to jot something down without dealing with waiting for Word to open.
   
8. Sizzling Keys: Add-on program that lets you set hotkeys to change to the next iTunes song (like mine is set to Apple+Enter) and so on. Shows a fun little popup with cover art as well. Quite customizable. There are a bunch of programs like this.
   
9. Dashboard Widgets: I'm sure you're well-aware of these, but I use 'em constantly: checking a quick calendar view, what time it is in London, the weather, and even to track my packages. Don't be afraid to use multiples (ex: weather/time in a few cities).
   
10. Flip4Mac: Plays all windows media video files in QT on your mac without any separate programs, and it's free. (This is especially helpful for #12 below...) If you need a separate one for DivX stuff, try this.
    
11. Handbrake: A simple program that has some great pre-saved encode settings that will easily rip a DVD to iPod or iPhone video for fun travelwatching. Or try using "Apple TV" format and get a well-rounded encoding so you can send that Netflix DVD back even though you haven't watched it.
    
12. Front Row: A mac standard product. One of my favorites. I use it for my parties to play tunes. It's fun to watch any iTunes video / podcasts / movies you've got that way, too. Oh, and it's a fun way to peruse all the Apple movie trailers. (Front Row is like Apple TV without the Apple TV or TV, necessarily.)
1. If you have your other videos (ahem) in your Movies home folder (or simply make an alias (right click // or ctrl+click if you don't have a 2 button mouse) to your "special" videos folder and put that in there. Then Front Row will play pretty much everything (use Flip4Mac above to be sure). Alright, yes, I'm talking about porn. Then make use of your handy Apple Remote... Trust me. It'll change your life.
   
13. Transmit: If you need an FTP program, for some reason.
14. iWork Suite: Infinitely better than Microsoft Office... it's just a tad of a learning curve to figure 'em all out.
15. Print to PDF: Probably one of the best built-in Mac functions ever. Need to send someone something as a PDF? (Like your resume.) Just go to File > Print, and choose "PDF" on the bottom left. Use Preview to combine PDFs, or remove pages from an existing one.

That should be enough to get you started (or fill in some gaps) for now. I'll be adding to the macinstruct series in the next few weeks. Let me know if you have any Mac-specific woes. (If in doubt, a quick Google search for a problem or need will result in a Mac solution or filler program to help you out.) Got any favorites you don't see here? Leave 'em in the comments.

Related articles:

• The entire m@ macinstruct series.
• Freestreaming Audible Goodness.
  
• My m@mega-media setup
• The wonders of gmail and other googleprods (coming soon.)

// Photo: cocoia.