mac stuff

Quick OS X tip

marco:

In any file- or folder-choosing dialog (Open, Save As, etc.), pressing ⌘-D selects the Desktop.

peterwknox:

Honestly - I have mp4 videos on my Mac, so how do I have them converted so I can put them on my iPhone? I used to use videodora on my PC, but now what?

OK. I’ve been trying different things (thanks Corey & Craytonc) and I’ve settled on iSquint. Looks like it’s working!

Re: The Mac Pro

marco:

Me:

[The Mac Pro] is, by far, the most amazingly fast, spacious, capable, and well-designed computer I’ve ever used.

Casey:

I have no doubt that’s a nice machine, and I am certainly glad his all-too-familiar, all-too-painful wait is over. That said, can one of the Fanbois explain to me what makes Apple computers any better than a PC set up by an intelligent user?

I think I’m qualified to answer this because, as you know, I was a great Windows user. I maximized Windows’ potential for many years, having only switched to Macs in 2004. I was such a good user that I didn’t even run antivirus software because I hated the performance penalties. I was just smart about how I used it.

Let’s start with hardware. Sure, it’s cheap, but PC hardware is crappy. It’s badly designed, it looks tacky, quality control sucks, and it flakes out too often. I can’t even begin to count the hours I spent in high school and college screwing around with my (or my friends’) PC hardware, trying to get custom hardware combinations to work properly together. And just try to find a PC case that looks decent and is comfortable to work in.

The software world is much more divided. The quality of OS X, and its third-party software, absolutely blows away anything on Windows. The difference is huge.

Mac software follows design principles that you rarely see in Windows:

• Incredible attention to detail
• Simple, clean interfaces
• Justified, focused feature design (no “kitchen sink” apps)
• Respect for the user’s time (no stealing focus, no unnecessary prompting)
• Respect for the user’s intelligence (no “we’re protecting you from this choice”)
• High quality (if it says it will do this and work this way, it will)

These principles are everywhere: from OS X itself and Apple’s other applications to the third-party shareware and freeware communities.

The attention to detail is particularly amazing. I recently tried a Windows Smartphone, and it was clear that nobody at Microsoft had ever actually used one of these. Apple hardware and software engineers will take great pains to ensure that a screw is centered or a form field positions the cursor to require the least user effort.

Admittedly, I haven’t used a Mac for more than about 10 minutes in as many years, but I’m failing to see what a Mac can bring me that I can’t accomplish for half the cost with an equivalent PC, and Ubuntu or the Linux distribution of your choice?

Cost isn’t as ridiculous as many people assume. Most Apple machines are very competitively priced with similarly specced PCs. But Apple’s specs only match the high end of most manufacturers’ lineups.

The Mac Pro ($2800) is very reasonably priced for an 8-core Xeon workstation. The MacBook ($1100) is very reasonably priced for a midrange consumer notebook.

It’s not that Apple machines are expensive — they just don’t have a low end.

I get (from what I can tell) just as bulletproof a machine, on great hardware (I use a ThinkPad), without the Apple tax, and with 90% of the eye candy thanks to Compiz Fusion. What makes a Mac so much better?

You can put visual effect layers on top of Windows or Linux, but it’s just painting a turd. Instead of ordinary frustration and time-wasting, you get pretty frustration and time-wasting. (And that’s subjective — personally, I find Vista’s Aero and the Linux “eye candy” add-ons to be garish, ugly, tacky, and completely missing the point.)

We don’t use Macs and Mac software because of the eye candy. We use them because of the design. Design and eye candy are very different — design is a combination of how it looks, what it does (and doesn’t do), and how it works.

Use a Mac for 6 months, and you’ll wonder why you ever used anything else.

Power user setup on OS X

marco:

Casey Liss just got his first Mac. (I guess I won this.)

Note to Windows readers: This post is full of the little squiggly “⌘” symbol found on the “Apple key” on the keyboard. Windows’ Unicode support is half-assed, so if you can’t see ⌘this⌘symbol⌘ or if it shows up as question marks or boxes, oh well. You’re probably already skimming over this post anyway because you’re angry that someone on the internet is writing about Apple again and their computers are for hipsters with too much money and how could they charge so much for looks and you got such a good deal on that 9-pound Windows laptop with the blue LEDs and you hate Macs except that you last tried them in 1995 when they truly did suck and you’d get one now if you could afford it but you don’t want to admit that but don’t worry you’ll change your mind and buy one anyway in 6 months.

Casey, welcome to the addiction! Here are some quick tips for power users getting started on OS X for the first time.

System Preferences that you probably want:

• Appearance: Place scroll arrows: At top and bottom
• Desktop & Screen Saver: uncheck Translucent Menu Bar
• Dock:
  • Adjust the size as you see fit. Smaller is generally better.
  • uncheck Magnification
  • Disable the “glossy” angled-shelf dock if you intend to keep it on the bottom (I like mine on the left side)
• Keyboard & Mouse: (under Keyboard Shortcuts) Full Keyboard Access: All controls
• Sharing: Here you can enable Apache (Web Sharing) or SSH (Remote Login) if you want.

Shortcut keys that are your new best friends:

(Note: Command == Apple == ⌘. And in menu shortcut-key descriptions, ^ is Ctrl, up-arrow is Shift, and that weird slanty-dashy symbol is Option.)

• ⌘Q: quit entire application
• ⌘H: hide entire application
• ⌘M: minimize current window (not entire application)
• ⌘W: close current window or tab (not entire application)
• ⌘X/C/V/Z: cut/copy/paste/undo, just like Windows
• ⌘-comma: application preferences
• ⌘-tab: Switch between entire applications
• ⌘-tilde: Switch between windows of the current application
• ⌘N: new window
• ⌘T: new tab

Generally, most common Control-and-single-letter Windows shortcut keys map directly to the ⌘ key with the same letter on Macs (X/C/V/Z/P/A/S). You have to get used to using your left thumb instead of the pinky for the modifier, but you’ll find after a bit of time that it’s actually far easier to reach.

It may take a little while to get used to the distinction Apple makes between applications and windows. You can close every window of some apps, but they still remain open (as long as that dot’s below their icon in the Dock) unless you Quit them (⌘Q). And Alt-Tab (⌘-tab here) doesn’t work like Windows because it goes through applications, not windows — and ⌘-tilde goes through windows of just the current application.

Oh, and you probably want to install Quicksilver, move Spotlight to a different shortcut key, and bind Quicksilver to ⌘-space.

Good/Free Mac Software

marco:

Casey is about to join the addiction and needs some help with software choices.

Multi-protocol IM. I think Adium is the answer, but I’m open for alternatives

Adium is the standard. Use it. But please don’t use ugly visual settings.

Easy DVD Backups. I think I’d heard that Handbrake was good. I’m looking for something like DVDShrink.

Handbrake is the best tool I’ve ever seen to convert DVDs to AVI/MP4/M4V. But it won’t do a DVD-compatible MPEG-2 .VOB recompress like DVDShrink. I’m sure that’s possible on OS X, but I’ve never wanted to do it, so I don’t know which program does that.

But do you really still want DVD transcoding? If you have an Xbox 360, a PS3, a modded original Xbox, or an Apple TV, you can just play the MP4/AVI files from your computer directly onto your TV.

I was completely into DVDShrink and DVD piracy back when it was new (2002), but I haven’t burned a video DVD in about 2 years now. I have no reason to.

Browser. Is there really any reason not to use Firefox?

Sure, there are reasons. Safari is much faster, far less buggy, maintains a better native interface, and integrates better with the OS.

But Firefox’s shortcomings aren’t severe, and Firefox has those extensions that everyone loves. I use Firefox, but I waffle sometimes and switch to Safari for a few days. They’re both excellent browsers.

Virtualization. Most people I know with Macs swear by VMWare Fusion. Does anyone use Parallels that wants to weigh in?

I use Parallels, but only because I bought it before Fusion came out. I’ve seen Fusion, and from what I can tell, they both share most of the important features.

Parallels is buggier, but usually adds cutting-edge features first. VMware’s release schedule is more conservative, but their implementations tend to be more stable and mature.

I don’t suggest leaving Parallels running all the time on a MacBook. It’s a massive resource hog.

The only reason I launch Parallels anymore is to test websites in IE. It’s great for that. But you shouldn’t be using too much Windows software — you’re not just switching for the pretty eye candy, you’re switching for the excellent Mac software ecosystem.

The only significant reason for most people to use Parallels is for Microsoft Office. The Mac versions suck, and the Windows versions under Parallels/VMware are actually much faster than the Mac-native versions.

Network/CPU Monitor. I like to be no more than a glance away from some feedback on network usage (as in, how quickly am I currently uploading/downloading) and CPU usage. That feedback can be graphical, but I need something. A dashboard widget seems reasonable for this, but is there anything that exists in the upper-right area, where the clock is? What is that area called anyway?

It’s called the menu bar. You want MenuMeters.

I also suggest:

• TextMate: the best programmer’s text editor out there
• Soulver: insanely useful calculator/spreadsheet hybrid