If you've got a new Mac ..........

[RogerS]

you might like to think about :

USER ACCOUNTS
1) create a separate Admin account with full admin privileges.
2) create your own user account that does not have admin privileges. That way, if you do happen to stumble on a site that tries to con you into entering your admin password so that it can download nasties, by forcing you to log out and into your admin account might just give you pause for thought
3) useful to create a separate user account called Test or anything for fault-finding. Again, no admin privileges. Mac programmes rely heavily on preference files. Preference files are usually linked to individual user accounts. Sometimes they can get corrupted and the usual remedy is to locate and delete them. Having a separate Test account, though, means that you can log in as Test and see if you get the same problem. If you don't then it's most likely the preference file in your user account that's corrupted. If you do get the problem then the issue is more system wide.

TIME MACHINE
It's great. Well worth investing in a Time Machine backup drive...ideally remote to your computer..easily done over wifi or a network

SUPERDUPER
While TM is good for somethings, SuperDuper is a worthwhile additional backup program that lets you keep a copy of the system and all your files on an external firewire hard drive. So if your main machine goes belly-up then you can boot up from your external drive and mend things. Having said that if you are running Lion then all that is taken care for you....the Mac virtually rebuilds itself if you have a problem. Dream on, Microsoft !

SECURITY
If you do want to run some sort of security software then the free one from Sophos is the best one.

Anyone else feel free to add to the thread......

 

[marcros]

Roger,

I dont suppose that you have found a mac version of cutlist have you for working out how best to cut components out of sheet materials?

Mark

 

[Jacob]

Recently bought Mackeeper in a moment of extravagance - I felt that my 4 year old Macbook should need attention even though it has been consistently fault free and performed perfectly every day since I bought it. But security doesn't seem to be an issue by and large. Had a trojan or two with OS9 but nothing with osX.
Mackeeper looks good though, as if it does something useful!

 

[petermillard]

If you're a new user and a bit flummoxed by the whole thing, then I can recommend a couple of tutorials, both available from the Mac App store for £2.99 apiece. "SCOtutor for Lion" and "SCOtutor for Mac" guide a new user through OSX Lion and general Mac basics respectively, and are both written and narrated in English (as opposed to 'American', which is nice) by Screen Cast Online's Don McAllister.

My elderly parents (86 and 88) bought a new iMac a few weeks ago and were initially a bit stumped by how different it was after years of using/struggling with Vista. There are lots of tutorial videos around online (including ones from Apple) but they mostly refer to previous versions of OSX, and OSX 10.7 Lion is different enough (e.g. no 'Save As') for it to be an issue for some people.

The SCOtutorials were a big help for my folks, at least until I could give them a 'driving lesson' in person.

Oh, and if you're new to the Mac, I'd also recommend using the Help menu - it really does work, as does Spotlight search.

Cheers, Pete

 

[Harbo]

The Rough Guide to Macs & OSX is a very useful book to keep handy.
Full of very helpful tips.
The Apple Shops do teach-ins but you have to purchase your machine from them to enrol.
For those still wishing to use their favourite Windows software you can using Bootcamp, VM Fusion or Parallels.

Rod

 

[RogerS]

No 'Save As'....eeek!

Spotlight...superb...I forgot all about that as I use it all the time. I am a lazy eejit and so my Mac filing is as non-existent as that in my study. Can't recognise an item on the credit card statement for something bought on the web? Simple. Key in the value into spotlight and bingo...up it comes with the link to the mail messages relating to the purchase. Magic.

 

[JakeS]

If you've just started using a Mac and you're thinking "My, my - it's nice and all, but this Finder thing is bloody atrocious", you may want to give a look to PathFinder. 'Cause that's what I thought, and I love it.

 

[dickm]

Not quite on topic, but nice a bit from our local papr:

At the first Christmas, everyone had to return to the town of their birth to be taxed.
Now people have to return to the place of their birth at Christmas to fix their parents' computers