Posted: 5/10/2014 1:14:56 PM EDT
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Little back story. I've been wanting a new laptop. I wanted something small, light and portable. Main uses will be travel and transferring all my gopro footage and a small bit of editing. Walking around best buy today looking at everything. I said screw it and bought a Macbook Pro 13" Retina. I've never owned a iOS device other than a couple iPhones. I've maybe used a Mac 2-3 times in the past. I've built my own PCs for the past 20 some years. I just wanted to see what all the fuss is about I think. So my question is. What do I need to know about this thing? I'm posting from it now and so far I've got a basic idea on how to get around. It's just that with Windows being my goto OS for the past 20 years or so, this iOS is confusing the crap out of me so far  I'm not a Mac fanboy yet, I may never be, but this thing nice. |
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I have lost the ability to talk about computer/OS specs over the years. But, I have been using Windows since 3.0. I made the switch about two years ago, and I will never go back.
In short, it just works and works well. The firm I work at uses Windows and upgrades fairly regularly. Even the new versions of Windows are not as stable as Mac's OS. It's not even close. |
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I'm on my second week with my new Macbook Pro 15" Retina. I splurged and bought the top of the line model. I took it with me on a weeklong business trip to Alabama last week and spent a lot of time in the hotel room playing with it. It is outstanding in every way. I know exactly what people mean now when they say they'll never go back. I'm a diehard iPhone user and certified Apple fanboy anyway.
I installed Windows 8.1 using Bootcamp. I then used a program called WinClone to make a copy of the disk image. Bought an external Thunderbolt SSD and used WinClone to put the disk image onto that, then I deleted the Windows partition on the internal SSD. Now if I should ever need Windows I simply plug in the external hard drive, boot up and select Windows. 2 weeks in and other than making sure it works, I haven't used Windows at all. OP, Apple's Mac operating system is called OS X. iOS is only on mobile devices (iPad, iPhone, etc.). |
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"Finder" (the square shaped smiley face blue icon in the dock) is equivalent to windows explorer for managing files.
All your files are in your home folder. Documents, desktop, photos, music, downloads, etc. Just like windows. All your installed applications are in the applications folder. Windows uses "program files" but you never really go there to launch apps, in windows you used the start menu. In Mac OS X you can just double click the application inside he application folder. If you use it a lot, you can drag it to the dock. Be careful not to drop the icon too soon as it will move the apps to your desktop and you don't want that. If it happens, just drag it back to the apps folder. To right click, just click with two fingers or hold down the control key and click. It will pop up contextual menus just like windows. If you have a two button mouse, right click is the right button :) Launch "App Store" to find a bunch of useful apps. iPhoto for pictures Pages for word processing Numbers for spread sheets iMovie to edit movies Etc. MS Office is available if you want to pay for it, Text wrangler is a great text file editor I use safari and chrome for web browsing Mail for email Etc. |
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Quoted: I'm on my second week with my new Macbook Pro 15" Retina. I splurged and bought the top of the line model. I took it with me on a weeklong business trip to Alabama last week and spent a lot of time in the hotel room playing with it. It is outstanding in every way. I know exactly what people mean now when they say they'll never go back. I'm a diehard iPhone user and certified Apple fanboy anyway. I installed Windows 8.1 using Bootcamp. I then used a program called WinClone to make a copy of the disk image. Bought an external Thunderbolt SSD and used WinClone to put the disk image onto that, then I deleted the Windows partition on the internal SSD. Now if I should ever need Windows I simply plug in the external hard drive, boot up and select Windows. 2 weeks in and other than making sure it works, I haven't used Windows at all. OP, Apple's Mac operating system is called OS X. iOS is only on mobile devices (iPad, iPhone, etc.). So far I really do like it. It's the little dumb things that are different and yet similar. I was editing another post and went to Clt-C, Clt-v some text. Looked down and well WTF is control option command. Looked it up and copy/paste is command-c/v. Different yet similar. Its things like that is what is going to take me a bit to get use to. That and the file system. |
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Quoted: "Finder" (the square shaped smiley face blue icon in the dock) is equivalent to windows explorer for managing files. All your files are in your home folder. Documents, desktop, photos, music, downloads, etc. Just like windows. All your installed applications are in the applications folder. Windows uses "program files" but you never really go there to launch apps, in windows you used the start menu. In Mac OS X you can just double click the application inside he application folder. If you use it a lot, you can drag it to the dock. Be careful not to drop the icon too soon as it will move the apps to your desktop and you don't want that. If it happens, just drag it back to the apps folder. To right click, just click with two fingers or hold down the control key and click. It will pop up contextual menus just like windows. If you have a two button mouse, right click is the right button :) Launch "App Store" to find a bunch of useful apps. iPhoto for pictures Pages for word processing Numbers for spread sheets iMovie to edit movies Etc. MS Office is available if you want to pay for it, Text wrangler is a great text file editor I use safari and chrome for web browsing Mail for email Etc. Thanks, that actually helps alot. |
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I've had quite a few of both OS's....and some Linux. Sticking with the mac for now w/ a 13" 8/256/i5 retina. If I were you I would bootcamp you some windows 7 or windows 8.1 just in case you need windows in a pinch. Thinking about ditching my 2010 21.5" iMac and looking for a newer 27" iMac. If you're deep in the iOS ecosystem, then running mac computers help. Still wanting to pick up a 2008 blackbook just for Nostalgic purposes, but thus far I have been pretty happy with the mac's I have owned. Prior to this rMBP late 2013 I had an Asus Vivobook SC550A w/ the touchscreen. No joke I kind of miss the touch screen. Never thought I would say that about a laptop/computer. A nice app/program to download is iStats (there is a free trial and paid version). It lets you see your temps of everything and also lets you control fan speed.
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I wouldn't bother with boot camp unless you really need windows to have direct access to video cards and such (games, auto cad, etc however a lot of those work fine in fusion).
I'd just use virtual box, VMware fusion or parallels. Virtual box is free, fusion works really well for me. A few more tips... Windows keyboard shortcuts work, just use the command key instead of the control key. They all originated from the mac anyway. :) Command c (copy) command v (paste), command z (undo), command s (save) command p (print) etc. Command q to quit (instead of alt f4) Command tab (switch apps) Command option escape (task manager to kill stuck apps) Command shift 3 or command shift 4 to screen shot Command shift 4 lets you draw a box for the area of the screen shot. Screen shots are saved on the desktop as a time stamped png file. |
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Quoted: I've had quite a few of both OS's....and some Linux. Sticking with the mac for now w/ a 13" 8/256/i5 retina. If I were you I would bootcamp you some windows 7 or windows 8.1 just in case you need windows in a pinch. Thinking about ditching my 2010 21.5" iMac and looking for a newer 27" iMac. If you're deep in the iOS ecosystem, then running mac computers help. Still wanting to pick up a 2008 blackbook just for Nostalgic purposes, but thus far I have been pretty happy with the mac's I have owned. Prior to this rMBP late 2013 I had an Asus Vivobook SC550A w/ the touchscreen. No joke I kind of miss the touch screen. Never thought I would say that about a laptop/computer. A nice app/program to download is iStats (there is a free trial and paid version). It lets you see your temps of everything and also lets you control fan speed. I was looking at the touchscreen laptops/hybrid 2 in 1s. I really liked the Asus line, I always use Asus MBs and moitors. Touchscreen and Win 8 is a great match. |
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Quoted: I wouldn't bother with boot camp unless you really need windows to have direct access to video cards and such (games, auto cad, etc however a lot of those work fine in fusion). I'd just use virtual box, VMware fusion or parallels. Virtual box is free, fusion works really well for me. A few more tips... Windows keyboard shortcuts work, just use the command key instead of the control key. They all originated from the mac anyway. :) Command c (copy) command v (paste), command z (undo), command s (save) command p (print) etc. Command q to quit (instead of alt f4) Command tab (switch apps) Command option escape (task manager to kill stuck apps) Command shift 3 or command shift 4 to screen shot Command shift 4 lets you draw a box for the area of the screen shot. Screen shots are saved on the desktop as a time stamped png file. That is a great list, thank you. Right now I have no real need to have a windows environment on this MBP. Future...I may though and Virtual box is probably the way I would go. I have a 2TB external drive that I want to be able to use between both the MBP and my main desktop. I know I can use FAT32, but I'm limited to a max file size of 4Gb. How well does exFAT work? Haven't tried it yet but it is supposed to work between OSX and Windows. I'm running Win 7 Ultimate on my main desktop. |
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Easiest thing to do is google "osx tips and tricks" and start reading.
If you are transitioning from Windows, OSX has read-only NTFS support out of the box. If you want read/write support, Paragon NTFS works well. As a general rule I avoid the App Store and download software straight from the vendor, for a couple of reasons. If you are ever stuck on an older version of OSX in the future, you're out of luck if you need to download your app again. Hope you saved a copy. Also, apple's sandboxing policy forces some apps to have features removed to be listed on he App Store. Go get the fully functional version from the vendor's website. |
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Funny you mentioned this. I just bought my 13" macbook pro (retina) 2 days ago. Was a little unsure after walking out of the store, but after playing around with it for a couple of hours, I can honestly say I will never go back to a Windows/PC Microsoft piece of garbage ever again. Windows 8 was the final nail in the coffin for me. Once you go Mac, you won't go back! |
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Quoted:
[ I have a 2TB external drive that I want to be able to use between both the MBP and my main desktop. I know I can use FAT32, but I'm limited to a max file size of 4Gb. http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ Buy this and leave the drive formatted NTFS. |
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I learned how to use a computer on a Macintosh. I grew up using 95, 98, 2000 (cause life is too short to safely remove hardware, right?), XP and Vista. For my high school graduation my parents got me a 13" MBP. It'll be 4 years old at the end of the month. I have no intent on replacing it. Now, I have 2 other laptops that see regular use now too...but the MBP is by far the best.
Apple's customer support is by far the best (coming from a guy who's been a HP business class resale/repairsman). First month I had the laptop, the HD failed. The next day I had a 320 GB upgrade from Apple (apparently they had gotten a bad batch of 250 GB drives). 3 months later, I upgraded to 8 GB of memory. 14 months after that I pulled the unused optical for a 120 GB SSD. After having the computer for 2.5 years, the battery went bad on me (extended Apple Care is worth it) and it was fixed one trip to the Apple store later. That's far fewer problems (and the issues were resolved 14 times quicker) than I've ever had with a PC. I've been extremely happy with my MBP. It has served me well in college and the only thing I've ever missed Windows for is for software written by Motorola (that's why I keep a XP toughbook and 98 machine around). I can't even navigate Win 8...I've tried and just can't do it. I'll definitely buy another Mac when I feel the need to replace the one I have. iMovie is great for GoPro videos. In fact, unless you're dealing with 3D, don't even bother with using the GoPro Cine Studio. Do it all in iMovie. I've got Office 2011 on mine. I don't use it much. The only programs I use for school are Matlab, Mathematica and AutoCAD (all which have Mac versions). My most used programs are Safari, Mail (it's an excellent mail client), Terminal, iMessage, and iMovie. |
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Spent the past few days playing with this thing. Have to say I'm loving it. I wouldn't say it's better than my Win machines yet. It's different. Better in some ways, no so much in others. That could be attributed to still learning the OS though. Had one major issue with it yesterday. Connect to my home WiFi. 5G band. Network preferences would show me as connected but loading a website would time out like I didn't have a internet connection. I would reset the connection and it would work for about 5 min and then stop loading web pages. First though it was a router/modem issue. I brought out my tab and a Win laptop and they didn't suffer the same problem. I did end up finding a solution and it's working again. Had to delete a folder (/library/Preferences/System Config) and do a PRAM and SMC reset. That irritated me a bit seeing as how this thing is only a couple days old. But, it could have been my fault too. I was messing around with it, trying to connect to a network drive to run Time Machine. Which worked but performance is poor. It's time for a NAS box anyway. Conclusion so far. I'm loving it and already considering replacing my wife's laptop with a Mac. Her HP laptop is on it's last leg. Thinking of a MB Air for her. I won't be replacing my Desktops with Macs just yet though. |
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I've been on OSX for a few years now. Always disliked Finder.
I bought a program called Path FInder a few years ago and never looked back. The layout is very customizable. YMMV I use Just Looking for photo viewing. I like it better than Preview, allows you to click through photos in a folder easier. I only use iPhoto to back up my iPhone pictures. AppZapper is great for deleting programs. It's not free, but worth the money. Open program, drag .app file to it, it shows what it will delete file wish, then does it. No extra files clogging up space. I have Windows 7 in a VM Fusion partition. It's nice to have on occasion when I still need Winders. Parallels is great too. |