• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

“Squeaker” McCarthy

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Let’s finish the job.

Bark louder, little dog.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Second rate reporter says what?

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Greetings From the Mac Cult HQ

Greetings From the Mac Cult HQ

by John Cole|  October 4, 20073:13 pm| 58 Comments

This post is in: Science & Technology

FacebookTweetEmail

The brainwashing is progressing in earnest. Today I managed to do a number of things on my own- I checked my email, cut and paste to my hearts delight, downloaded and watched a few videos to make sure I had the right applications for video, and then ordered PhotoShop.

Still no luck with iTunes, but I think it may be because I don’t have an account. As soon as I figure out how to do that, I will.

No problems other than the fact that Groupwise refuses to quit when I want it to (damned Novell- there has to be room for those bastards in Gitmo). I learned what force quit does, though.

Word, for whatever reason, pops up this spammy little window that wants to convert things. I chalk that up to Bill Gates being the antichrist (see, Mac community- I am learning!).

Also, I have learned that the borg gets really, really pissy if you type MAC instead of Mac.

*** Update ***

One thing I do hate- everything downloads to my desktop, which I am ok with. However, when I click up “clean up” in the download manager, it doesn’t delete things off my desktop- just out of the download manager. That pisses me off, although I am not sure why.

And is there any way to move the dashboard and make it smaller? I really wouldn’t mind if it were just incorporated into the top part of the screen or made smaller and pushed off to the left or right.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « More Thoughts On The Republican Field
Next Post: Wide Stance 4ever »

Reader Interactions

58Comments

  1. 1.

    Bombadil

    October 4, 2007 at 3:18 pm

    Also, I have learned that the borg gets really, really pissy if you type MAC instead of Mac.

    Inside each Mac is engraved the Latin inscription, “Borges sumus. Resistere inutile est.”

  2. 2.

    Llelldorin

    October 4, 2007 at 3:21 pm

    Firefox: Choose Preferences from the Firefox menu. Click “Main” at the top of the window that appears. Next to “Save files to” click the Choose button. Select some other folder for downloads.

    The procedure is usually similar (but different in all specfics) in any other browser.

  3. 3.

    Llelldorin

    October 4, 2007 at 3:22 pm

    (It doesn’t make Firefox behave differently, but it does keep your Desktop from getting untidy.)

  4. 4.

    Jimmmmm

    October 4, 2007 at 3:25 pm

    Dashboard: put cursor on the small rule separating app icons from networks/drives icons. Size it however you wish, and feel free to move it to any side of the desktop. (I keep it on the left, because, of course, I hate America and freedom…)

    Sorry about that “you’re an iDiot crack yesterday, JC. Just having a bit of iFun.

    Good luck from a platform-agnostic.

  5. 5.

    Jake

    October 4, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    Still no luck with iTunes, but I think it may be because I don’t have an account. As soon as I figure out how to do that, I will.

    You iDork, no wonder you couldn’t get iTunes to iWork. Just go to the on-line store already. It takes a while to load (or it did last year). There is an entire support hive you can access as well. You won’t need an iTunes card until you want to buy something.

  6. 6.

    Chris

    October 4, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    If you mean the dock, there’s a preference pane that allow you to put it on the left or right if you want (mine’s on the right, because I hate America). There’s also a preference in Safari (if that’s what you’re using) to put the downloads anywhere you want, e.g. Documents->Downloads.

  7. 7.

    whippoorwill

    October 4, 2007 at 3:31 pm

    Can we have our Britney thread now, please?

  8. 8.

    Jon H

    October 4, 2007 at 3:35 pm

    Don’t look now, but everybody’s getting off scott-free for Haditha.

  9. 9.

    Billy K

    October 4, 2007 at 3:39 pm

    [shakes head in disbelief]

    You’re doing it wrong, John. Bill Gates is no longer the antichrist. That was years ago. It’s Steve Ballmer now.

    But yeah, RE: Dock, move your curse-or to the little break on the left side, then click and scale. You can’t move the dock it to the top, but you can move it to the left or right. Open System Preferences, click on Dock and go nuts. (You can also adjust the size and other stuff here).

    OK, now let me ask you a question. How many fingers do you see?

  10. 10.

    The Other Steve

    October 4, 2007 at 3:43 pm

    One thing I do hate- everything downloads to my desktop, which I am ok with.

    LOL!

  11. 11.

    El Cruzado

    October 4, 2007 at 3:47 pm

    Leopard does a couple things to help fix the download clutter (mostly adding an officially sanctioned downloads folder. That with stacks pretty much fixes the issue).

    Also, not sure what your problems with iTunes are.

  12. 12.

    Punchy

    October 4, 2007 at 3:54 pm

    Christ, Cole, we get it. You bought a Mac. You suck with Macs. Were the other 87 threads not good enough to get this point across?

  13. 13.

    RareSanity

    October 4, 2007 at 4:05 pm

    Christ, Cole, we get it. You bought a Mac. You suck with Macs. Were the other 87 threads not good enough to get this point across?

    Why do you hate America?

    Although most posts here are informative and/or ironic. These Mac posts have been the most entertaining I have read here yet (in my 6 whole months of reading). I will actually be sad when John gets the hang of it and there are no more Mac posts.

    Punchy…relax, there have been other threads interleaved with the Mac thread–Be well-rounded. :-)

  14. 14.

    John Cole

    October 4, 2007 at 4:07 pm

    Don’t look now, but everybody’s getting off scott-free for Haditha.

    At least we nailed that bastard larry Craig. He got away with some toe-tapping, and I WOULD HAVE BEEN PISSED.

  15. 15.

    John Cole

    October 4, 2007 at 4:08 pm

    Christ, Cole, we get it. You bought a Mac. You suck with Macs. Were the other 87 threads not good enough to get this point across?

    In case you didn;t notice, each time I post one of these- here comes the surprise- I get an answer and I fix the problem. Which means I move onto somethign else. Eventually, there won’t be any problems.

    Until I get home from work and have forgotten how to use Windows. And then the SHIT REALLY HITS THE FAN.

  16. 16.

    Billy K

    October 4, 2007 at 4:18 pm

    Until I get home from work and have forgotten how to use Windows.

    Wait…so you’re using a Mac at work, and a PC at home!? You’re REALLY doing it wrong…

  17. 17.

    John Cole

    October 4, 2007 at 4:25 pm

    Windows laptop at work, mac for video/audio editing at work.

    PC at home for babbling on the blog, playing warcraft, and downloading pR0n.

  18. 18.

    RSA

    October 4, 2007 at 4:29 pm

    And is there any way to move the dashboard and make it smaller?

    If you’re asking whether the dashboard can be configured so that it doesn’t take over the entire screen, dimming all the other application windows in the background, I don’t think that it’s possible. It would be a nice option, though.

  19. 19.

    Encolpius

    October 4, 2007 at 4:38 pm

    What are the problems with iTunes again? You shouldn’t need an iTunes store account to do anything.

    All you need is an active internet connection to get CD track names if you have that option turned on in the iTunes preferences.

  20. 20.

    wasabi gasp

    October 4, 2007 at 4:39 pm

    Eventually, there won’t be any problems.

    That’s adorable.

  21. 21.

    Billy K

    October 4, 2007 at 4:44 pm

    Windows laptop at work, mac for video/audio editing at work. PC at home for babbling on the blog, playing warcraft, and downloading pR0n.

    Fearless prediction: By this time next year you’ll be working on switching to all Mac (except maybe keeping a PC box for playing lousy MMORPGs).

    If you’re asking whether the dashboard can be configured so that it doesn’t take over the entire screen

    He meant the Dock.

  22. 22.

    S

    October 4, 2007 at 4:57 pm

    MAC is a cosmetic line. Mac is a cult or the alien in a 1988 ET knockoff created to sell Reeses Pieces.

  23. 23.

    Encolpius

    October 4, 2007 at 5:01 pm

    “Fearless prediction: By this time next year you’ll be working on switching to all Mac (except maybe keeping a PC box for playing lousy MMORPGs).”

    You can play WoW on a Mac.

  24. 24.

    Krista

    October 4, 2007 at 5:05 pm

    PC at home for babbling on the blog, playing warcraft, and downloading pR0n.

    That’s not so adorable.

  25. 25.

    scav

    October 4, 2007 at 5:14 pm

    Nah, you get geek points for being tri-lingual or better. Cranky whining for amber screen command line stuff while cursing the overhead of having a desktop at all is the ticket, provided you are seamlessly switching from control to puppy paw keys all the while ….

  26. 26.

    Alan

    October 4, 2007 at 5:26 pm

    If you hover then click and hold your mouse pointer over the faint vertical separator next to the trash basket you can move the mouse to size the Dock. If you right click, you can select “Dock preferences” where you can edit its placement. The Dock preferences can also be found by clicking the blue apple and selecting System preferences then “Dock.”

  27. 27.

    RSA

    October 4, 2007 at 5:34 pm

    Nah, you get geek points for being tri-lingual or better.

    Geek points are doubled when accompanied by arrogance; need to work on that. . .

  28. 28.

    Jon H

    October 4, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    So John did you get your complimentary “Welcome To The Mac Cult” passes to the Playboy Mansion yet?

    Oh, crap, that’s supposed to be a secret.

  29. 29.

    Punchy

    October 4, 2007 at 5:47 pm

    Punchy…relax, there have been other threads interleaved with the Mac thread—Be well-rounded

    Sarcasm doesn’t translate well on a blog post. I’m just pissed cuz Tim 86’d the beer blogging and I haven’t seen John’s shaved cat since….uh…./cant stop laughing.

  30. 30.

    John Cole

    October 4, 2007 at 6:06 pm

    I can already see the appeal of the computer. It is easy, for the most part 9what makes it difficult is my familiarity with windows). There aren’t any scary manuals. I had to plug two things in to make it work. Things work, the sound is good and the video is amazing. The fact that any time you have a question, you have a cult answering en masse is just an extra bonus. I was talking on the phone to one of our graphic designers in another department about some work we were finishing up, and 20 minutes later I got an email from a person had been sitting in the graphic designer’s office who had overheard I was learning to use a mac, and who was offering to come over and help me figure things out. That doesn’t happen in the PC community. You go to forums for help and generally get ignored or rickrolled.

    Within 48 hours, I completely understand why people love Macs.

    Now, the proof is whether it does what I want it to when it gets down to the AV work.

  31. 31.

    CalD

    October 4, 2007 at 6:24 pm

    Try NeoOffice (the Mac OS X port of Sun’s StarOffice/OpenOffice suite). I’ve been really happy with OpenOffice for Windows on my home machine. Opens MS Word and Excel Doc’s just fine so far and the price (free) is definitely right. Think of it, if NeoOffice works for you, you can banish Bill Gates from your Mac forever. And don’t let anyone fool you, Microsoft is still as evil as ever. One look at Vista should be all it takes to remove all doubt of that.

  32. 32.

    Encolpius

    October 4, 2007 at 6:28 pm

    For $79, you can get Apple’s iWork ’07 suite. Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, all compatible with their Office counterparts.

  33. 33.

    guav

    October 4, 2007 at 6:44 pm

    Everything downloads to my desktop, which I am ok with.

    This can be changed in the Safari preferences (or the preferences of whatever browser you are using).

    However, when I click up “clean up” in the download manager, it doesn’t delete things off my desktop- just out of the download manager. That pisses me off, although I am not sure why.

    I am not sure why either—”clean up” in the download manager is not supposed to delete files from your computer. And I imagine if it did, you’d end up deleting a bunch of downloaded files you DIDN’T want to delete. Not sure why you’ve ever want the download manager to do something like that. Any files on your desktop that you don’t want, just drag ’em to the trash and empty the trash.

    And is there any way to move the dashboard and make it smaller? I really wouldn’t mind if it were just incorporated into the top part of the screen or made smaller and pushed off to the left or right.

    I believe you mean the dock. In System Preferences, you can control where the dock is anchored, what size it is, how much the icons enlarge when you move your mouse over them, and you can even make it hide itself until you hover the mouse over the side of the screen you’ve anchored it to, at which point it springs out.

  34. 34.

    Encolpius

    October 4, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    I believe this teminal command will move the Dock to the top of your screen, but I’m at work on a PC and can’t test it:

    defaults write com.apple.dock orientation -string top

  35. 35.

    Encolpius

    October 4, 2007 at 6:57 pm

    You can move it to the right using this command:

    defaults write com.apple.dock pinning -string end

    If you totally muck it up, you can delete the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

    Log out, and then back in and it’ll be back to it’s defaults.

  36. 36.

    Randolph Fritz

    October 4, 2007 at 7:47 pm

    You don’t need the iTunes store for iTunes to play mp3s. Have you added your mp3 files to iTunes’s index? You can do this in two ways: leave them where they are, or let iTunes move them to its own directory. If you uncheck the “Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder when adding to library” option on the advanced preferences; it will leave them in place. Either way, using “Import” will add the files to the directory, and I expect they will play then.

  37. 37.

    Jon H

    October 4, 2007 at 8:02 pm

    “defaults write com.apple.dock pinning -string end”

    If you’ve put your dock on the left, then pinning it to the end like this actually pins the trash can to the bottom left corner of the screen, with the top free to move.

    I have my dock on the left, pinned to the start:
    defaults write com.apple.dock pinning -string start

    so that the Finder icon is always right under the menu bar.

    I find the Dock to work best on the left – it’s a more efficient use of scarce vertical screen real estate. If I put it on the right, I find it gets in the way of using scrollbars and the resize corner, because those end up under the Dock.

  38. 38.

    Space Captain

    October 4, 2007 at 9:57 pm

    Blow iTunes away, then go out to http://www.mediamonkey.com/ and download Media Monkey. It’s free and you can do everything you would do with iTunes without any of the crappy interface problems.

    Unless of course you believe that paying .99 / tune is a good deal

  39. 39.

    Encolpius

    October 4, 2007 at 10:05 pm

    Alas, Media Monkey is only available for Windows, but I’d be the first in line if it were available for Mac since iTunes has some serious performance issues with large libraries.

  40. 40.

    Billy K

    October 4, 2007 at 11:06 pm

    Now, the proof is whether it does what I want it to when it gets down to the AV work.

    Silly ex-Wingnut! There’s a reason 90% of the A/V and design people in the world use it for just such a porpoise. Of course it delivers!

    You don’t need the iTunes store for iTunes to play mp3s.

    There’s a nice open-source mp3 player called Cog available for cheap as free if you’re not into teh iTunez.

  41. 41.

    Billy K

    October 4, 2007 at 11:08 pm

    Freakin’ Cog link didn’t make it into post.

    http://cogx.org/

  42. 42.

    The Other Steve

    October 4, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    That doesn’t happen in the PC community. You go to forums for help and generally get ignored or rickrolled.

    That’s because there are way too many windows users, and most of them are idiots who don’t listen.

    I saw this evolution with Linux close up. Back in the early days on comp.os.linux.misc there was maybe 100 messages a day, and many of them were easily answerable. But as it progressed and there were a thousand new messages a day, it was too much to deal with. People just stopped reading and responding, so you were left with a bunch of n00bs answering the questions of n00bs.

    That’s how you get situations where someone asks “I’m trying to implement LDAP in a 20,000 user environment. It worked fine in our initial testing, but once we rolled it out to 1,000 users we started experiencing deadlocks.”

    To which you will receive an answer…

    “It works fine in my basement, I don’t know what you are talking about. Quit bashing Linux!”

    Finding help in the PC community is actually easier. you use google. Someone somewhere has mentioned the problem on their blog and how they solved it.

  43. 43.

    craigie

    October 5, 2007 at 12:07 am

    “It works fine in my basement, I don’t know what you are talking about. Quit bashing Linux!”

    Sadly, that’s hilarious.

  44. 44.

    bago

    October 5, 2007 at 3:36 am

    Silly boy. Don’t you know that you conform to Mac, unless you live in soviet russia.

    But seriously, apps developed on a Mac primarily (hello adobe flash) piss me the hell off. Keyboard shortcuts? Nah. Mac users use the mouse. Right click? Nah, mac users only have one button. Scroll wheel? WTF am that?

    And as a coder Flash pisses me the hell off for all kinds of reasons. Such as a non-repositioning modal window for the find function. Or you know a relatively random window styleing, where some windows are child windows, some are parent windows without explorer taskbar handles, and some are just modal motherfucxers. Some have the UI theme applied, and some revert to standard behavior. And a single click to revert a window to shaded mode instead of, say, the doubleclick standard? Really freaking annoying! Especially when trying to move the window a small distance.

    It’s like there’s a spectrum.
    Mac – there is only the one true way to access a function.
    Windows – Use gui, shortcut keys, or command line (only with powershell) to access function.
    Linux – Write your own frickin function hook n00b! (After you compile your kernel you get to use the windowing system of your choice!)
    Micro OS – It’s not like we have enough ram to support any other hooks.

    It’s at this point you loop around the spectrum, minus the level of animations that accompany each UI input.

  45. 45.

    Randolph Fritz

    October 5, 2007 at 6:13 am

    But seriously, apps developed on a Mac primarily (hello adobe flash) piss me the hell off. Keyboard shortcuts? Nah. Mac users use the mouse. Right click? Nah, mac users only have one button. Scroll wheel? WTF am that?

    These days you can buy very nice multi-button mouse from Apple, and power users have been able to install their own (using the built-in Apple drivers) for years.

    The current finder has keyboard shortcuts for perhaps 80% of its menu operations.

    There is much less animation (and much less use of icons as verbs) in Mac OS than Windows these days.

    I mean, hunh?

  46. 46.

    gypsy howell

    October 5, 2007 at 7:16 am

    If it hasn’t been addressed earlier, forget what Encolpius says, & do this to move your dock:

    Open System Preferences pane (on the dock – square whitish icon with gray apple)
    Click DOCK icon on the top row & then select which screen position you want it on (left, right, bottom)

    I find having it on the left is most convenient, but then I’m a lefty, so YMMV.

    You can also set the size, magnification and bouncing effects in that window as well.

  47. 47.

    RSA

    October 5, 2007 at 8:08 am

    I saw this evolution with Linux close up. Back in the early days on comp.os.linux.misc

    I still read a few Usenet newsgroups regularly, but I’ve lately gravitated toward blogs because of the lower concentration of assholes. (That probably sounds incredible, I know; or maybe my presence in one realm or the other is a contributing factor).

    Mac – there is only the one true way to access a function.
    Windows – Use gui, shortcut keys, or command line (only with powershell) to access function.

    On the Mac OS there’s an application called Terminal that gives you a Unix shell. I expect that it’s comparable with powershell.

  48. 48.

    zik

    October 5, 2007 at 9:23 am

    “But seriously, apps developed on a Mac primarily (hello adobe flash) piss me the hell off. Keyboard shortcuts? Nah. Mac users use the mouse. Right click? Nah, mac users only have one button. Scroll wheel? WTF am that?”

    What? I work on a mac every day in flash and photoshop, all the keyboard shortcuts work just like on PC and I am not even going to get into the whole mouse nonsense again.

  49. 49.

    LarryB

    October 5, 2007 at 9:58 am

    Umberto Eco wrote this piece years ago, but I still get a kick out of how brilliantly he captures the religious nature of the Mac/PC divide:

    Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach — if not the kingdom of Heaven — the moment in which their document is printed.
    …
    DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

    You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It’s true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions
    …
    And machine code, which lies beneath and decides the destiny of both systems (or environments, if you prefer)? Ah, that belongs to the Old Testament, and is talmudic and cabalistic….

  50. 50.

    arnott

    October 5, 2007 at 10:02 am

    Photoshop ? have you tried gimp for mac or windows ?

    http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/

    http://www.gimp.org/windows/

  51. 51.

    wasabi gasp

    October 5, 2007 at 10:55 am

    Photoshop ? have you tried gimp for mac or windows ?

    Good call. That’ll certainly ease the swallowing of Photoshop’s price.

  52. 52.

    RSA

    October 5, 2007 at 11:37 am

    For baby Photoshop users like me, who need only a tiny fraction of its functionality, there’s also Seashore.

  53. 53.

    Chris

    October 5, 2007 at 12:05 pm

    What kind of AV work? I’m suprised it took you this long.

    I’ve worked in film and tv for years, from when digital editing was first introduced. Mac was always the preferred platform, more stable and better math processors until they fell out with AVID over hardware and Apple just went after them with Final Cut. I remember when AVID sold Discovery Channel a boatload of screaming PC based systems a few years ago, I still knew they would suck, freeze, crash – and they did.

    It started as such a racket, i must have been working on 80k workstation in the 90s. Now, with a sub-grand raid array and a power mac, you can edit and output hi def, total set up under 10 k. Off-lining on a notebook if needed.

    Final Cut is eating into AVID, and Logic is great pro-tools equivilent on the music side. Really no reason to do multimedia on a PC.

    I also agree, there ‘s no way you’ll be sticking with that PC at home, especially for Pron –
    where you are opening up yourself to a system check by a 21 year old Romanian evil genius hackbot coming in that door opened by Tera Patrick.

    As for gaming, choice is more limited but the big games like Call of Duty tend to get over to OXX

  54. 54.

    Chris

    October 5, 2007 at 12:06 pm

    What kind of AV work? I’m suprised it took you this long.

    I’ve worked in film and tv for years, from when digital editing was first introduced. Mac was always the preferred platform, more stable and better math processors until they fell out with AVID over hardware and Apple just went after them with Final Cut. I remember when AVID sold Discovery Channel a boatload of screaming PC based systems a few years ago, I still knew they would suck, freeze, crash – and they did.

    It started as such a racket, i must have been working on 80k workstation in the 90s. Now, with a sub-grand raid array and a power mac, you can edit and output hi def, total set up under 10 k. Off-lining on a notebook if needed.

    Final Cut is eating into AVID, and Logic is great pro-tools equivilent on the music side. Really no reason to do multimedia on a PC.

    I also agree, there ‘s no way you’ll be sticking with that PC at home, especially for Pron –
    where you are opening up yourself to a system check by a 21 year old Romanian evil genius hackbot coming in that door opened by Tera Patrick.

    As for gaming, choice is more limited but the big games like Call of Duty tend to get over to OXX

  55. 55.

    Susan Kitchens

    October 5, 2007 at 2:54 pm

    About Downloading and “Clean Up”

    I suggest you make a folder on your desktop, call it Downloads. Then, in your browser preferences for where to download stuff, select that download folder. It all goes in there, straight away, no need to clean up.

    “Clean up,” in the case you mentioned, is a matter of tidying icons into perfect align-with-grid positions, not (sigh) mind reading and knowing which of the downloaded items is treasure and which is trash and appropriately disposing only the trashworthy ones. (Geez, mon! it’s only a computer!)

  56. 56.

    nadezhda

    October 5, 2007 at 5:19 pm

    I, too, am a relatively new Mac convert. I’ve found that a number of John’s issues can be solved by digging fairly deeply into System Preferences (drop-down menu under Apple Icon or in Finder, Applications/System Preferences).

    I switch back and forth between a MacBook (with Microsoft wireless keyboard when at home) and PCs, so I’ve set up the Mac command keys to work like the PC keyboard (e.g. CTRL key=Apple command function). That allows me to rely simply on muscle memory to use common shortcuts like CTRL-X and CTRL-V. I have a two-button mouse with scroll wheel set up to work on the Mac just like the PC mouse (e.g. right click for context menus). If you have a laptop, the Mac Trackpad can also be set to produce right-click-like action.

    Investing a bit of time in getting the keyboard and mouse to work the same on the Mac and PC will eliminate much of the aggravation in transitioning between the two systems. I rarely have to remind myself which system I’m working on.

    The Dashboard (widgets such as weather, clock, calculator) doesn’t have to be displayed. You can hide it and then use Exposé to bring up the Dashboard by moving the mouse to the corner of the screen you specify. Exposé screen corners can also be set, frex, to display the desktop, or to show all open windows minimized, or to display selected Dashboard widgets you use all the time, centered in the screen. Again, System Preferences is the place to look for the Dashboard and Exposé settings.

    Just to clarify, since there seems to be some confusion in this thread — the Dock isn’t the Dashboard. The Dock is where you can put icons for regularly used apps, plus it displays active apps that aren’t permanently set for the dock. To keep an icon (app) permanently displayed in the Dock, right-click the icon of an open app and select keep in Dock. The right click gives you other options for managing the app (frex open on login). I keep my Dock always displayed on the right side of the screen, with the icons quite small. But there are lots of display options for the Dock, including hide. Again, go to System Preferences or the drop-down menu under the Apple Icon.

    Most individual apps also give you many options for customizing display, shortcuts, default directories, etc. Each app has its own Preferences menu in the main drop-down menu for the app.

  57. 57.

    Surabaya Stew

    October 6, 2007 at 1:01 am

    Ah, another convert! Welcome to the club Mr. Cole.

  58. 58.

    Emms

    October 6, 2007 at 11:28 am

    My personal preference for the dock (see system preferences: doc under the apple menu) is for maximum magnification and at the bottom check on the box “automatically hide and show the dock”. give you a little more real estate and less distraction and the animation is cool. The applications that want attention have to jump up into view from hidden like little jack russell terriers.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • different-church-lady on Repub Enablement Open Thread: The NYTimes Has *CONCERNS* (Apr 1, 2023 @ 1:36pm)
  • rikyrah on Repub Enablement Open Thread: The NYTimes Has *CONCERNS* (Apr 1, 2023 @ 1:35pm)
  • smith on Repub Enablement Open Thread: The NYTimes Has *CONCERNS* (Apr 1, 2023 @ 1:35pm)
  • scav on Repub Enablement Open Thread: The NYTimes Has *CONCERNS* (Apr 1, 2023 @ 1:34pm)
  • Ohio Mom on Repub Enablement Open Thread: The NYTimes Has *CONCERNS* (Apr 1, 2023 @ 1:32pm)

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Seattle Meetup coming up on April 4!

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Classified Documents: A Primer
State & Local Elections Discussion

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!