Help this switcher please.

[drseuss9311]

So I finally put my $ where my mouth is and made my last tech purchase with my heart and now i've got a 14" iBook G4 (i carry it with me everywhere!)

So far I've got my own firefox loaded on here.

But not much past that... I saw on macosxhints a script for checking your battery and set that up as a bash script to run from the script menu writing the output to a txt file on the desktop with the date in the filename.

The next thing I'd like to do is get a good media player similar to the media player classic that's being develped on sourceforge.
(side question about quicktime: is there a way to save clips that are embedded in pages? the context menu option has been greyed out)

So besides recommending media players what other things do I not know about this fabulous piece of modern technology????

Also: are there any other boards worth signing up for? (i've also signed up for macnn.com today)

And to make this post a bit longer I'll add a little anecdote:

My biggest concern about making the switch was mouse related. So I did some reading up on how macosx handles the multibuttoned mice. Apparently there's a lot of info out there saying don't worry all will be okay when u plug in that 'ibm compatable' mouse into a mac. However it wasn't all good reviews and I was anxious to plug in my wireless usb scroller mouse. (you see i've become addicted to opening/closing links/tabs with my middleclick/rollerbutton) Well to make a long story a little shorter I plugged the little bugger in and it worked just as quick as if it had come with the laptop from apple. The middle click did not work (probably a blessing in disguise) because of a bug in firefox, so I got a recent build (from trunk i believe) and was off and running. I wonder how many other mac bugs had been fixed. (so if you're annoyed by some bug in firefox check up with a recent build ... i'm still amazed at how easy it is)

So... I've made the switch, now what?

PS: I'm also looking for a text editing app (was fond of UltraEdit on Win and please don't recommend CLI editors unless you are willing to come over here and personally teach me how to use VIM or emacs).

Also: Can anyone suggest some lines of 'attack'/discussion with my windows centric friends who are totally cool with *nix, but just can't seem to get away from windows becuase that's all they know (and they know a lot of it!)

So i'm sure i'll have more questions, but just let me thank y'all in advance for any and all help just in case I forget later.

[nixgeek]

Regarding the text editor issue, you could use TextEdit which is actually a decent text editor on Mac OS X. As for CLI editors, I find pico to be very simple to use. Justr pull up a terminal and type "pico" and you'll see how easy it is.

I'm sure there are others that are vastly better than TextEdit, but as for stock GUI editors it can't be beat.

[Satcomer]

A GREAT media player is VLC. There is also mPlayer.

Now, Firefox is OK and all but if you want a Mozilla project that is updated more often, written for OS X and totally faster and IMHO better, then try Camino. You can even try the nightly build. The source page for Camino is here.

[symphonix]

Welcome, drseuss9311. Looks like you've got a lot to talk about there.

Text Editors: BBEdit is the most full featured, and has a lite version for download. Try out SubEthaEdit, too - it's pretty standard, but has the unique feature of allowing multiple users to edit the file at the same time! For reading large blocks of text (such as if you're reading a book in TXT format) install Tofu, more a text viewer than an editor.

Media Players: You'll want VLC and MPlayer first, as well as QuickTime and Microsoft Windows Media Player for Mac (Yes, It is called that). You'll also want some codecs and tools. 3ivX, DivX Doctor2, etc ...

Cool tools: Have a look in our forum category for the Useful X-Hack contest, there's dozens of reviews of cool tools and hacks for you to try. Also check out Fink for all the geeky unixish stuff you could ever want.

As for ammo to use against your Windows friends, well, you'll start to learn quickly. What other system allows you to edit a webpage in DreamWeaver or GoLive directly from the file on the server? What other system allows you to compile and run dozens of languages, such as C, C++, Java, Python, Perl/CGI, Objective-C all out of the box, without spending any extra money? What other OS has no viruses in the wild? What about Expose, GarageBand, iPhoto? What about being able to plug in a friends digital camera, printer or scanner and use it without needing to load any drivers?

[cying]

Originally Posted by drseuss9311

......

Also: Can anyone suggest some lines of 'attack'/discussion with my windows centric friends who are totally cool with *nix, but just can't seem to get away from windows becuase that's all they know (and they know a lot of it!)[/i]

........

Hmmm, where do I begin?

As an example of what I call "AOR" (Arrogance of Redmond), I recently had to swap out a small hard drive with a larger one on an older WinXP machine. As many Windows users know, you really really want to boot off of C: since many software goes to C: to find things. But somehow, without my doing anything on purpose, my boot volume became some drive letter other than C: I started digging into how to change that. All the usual Windows commands failed. None of my Windows gurus can help. Finally I found this:

<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;223188>

You just have to read it as a Mac user and you won't know whether you should laugh or cry. Since 1984, the boot volume of the Mac can be any drive. And the drive can be named anything. I named my drive "My Computer" just to make my Windows friends feel at ease. Today, you can even boot off of your Firewire attached iPod! After 20 years, Windows will finally allow you to give your hard drive (volume label) a name besides C: But it must also have a drive letter (one of 26!!!) I routinely back up servers and workstations by CarbonCopyClone (donationware) and if disaster strikes, I can boot off of my firewire backup on ANY mac hardware and it will run. Recently, I have an OSX 10.3.8 image from a Blue&WhiteG3 (hardware is at least 6 years old) which I was able to boot off a brand new Mac Mini and it ran as my backup server. You can do the same with iBooks and G5 iMac's. Don't even think about imaging windows onto different hardware. Even if you can defeat XP's Activation nightmare, every Windows system has different drivers for different motherboards and peripherals. Go to any support site like Sony Vaio or HP and look at the mess of drivers you have to install for each and every model of PC you own. My 60GB iPod has an image of OSX with my apps and email setup that I can boot off any recent (last 4-5 year old) computers made by Apple and it has my desktop set up, all my preferences set up, my Ethernet settings, PPP dialup settings. I know it is not that difficult to program. And Microsoft has had 20 years to watch what Apple has done. Why can't they do it? Answer: They don't give a damn about their users. Some 20-something programmer in Redmond decided, "They don't need to boot off of anything but C:"

Another example is Network setups. For at least a decade, my Mac laptop has settings for several static IP subnets, and DHCP settings. Apple calls it Location these days. On Windows, the only "innovation" in XP is that you don't have to reboot if you change your TCP/IP settings. You can only change it manually. Windows will not offer to remember your settings between your office LAN and your home LAN. I see Windows users all have pieces of paper where they write down all the TCP/IP settings. And one typo and they are screwed. Sure, for $$, you can buy 3rd party utility that will let you set up multiple TCP/IP settings. But again, it is not rocket science. Some kid in Redmond decided that since he can get away with one static and one DHCP, why can't the rest of the World? If you need more, just change them manually and write down your settings. Don't bother us. We have security holes to patch.

Anyone who has to use both platforms will appreciate Apple's programmers and hate Windows programmers with a passion. You know they are not stupid. They are basically equally educated from the same schools. But Redmond instills arrogance into everyone they hire so they turn what would be good programmers into "we don't care if you like us" programmers.

I can tell you like command line. WindowsXP was supposed to get you away from DOS. But simple things like running ping or nslookup and until recently, just finding out your TCP/IP IP address required reaching the Command Prompt! You will soon learn that you can forget command prompts and do everything with GUI on the Mac.

Why is it that on the Mac, you can use a GUI in Control panel to tell you machine to reboot when power is restored. Yet on a 2005 Windows machine, you have to interact with a 1980s vintage BIOS to set that?

Why is it that you can hold down the option key when you boot up a Mac and tell the OS which bootable volume to use to boot up and in a 2005 Windows, changing the boot sequence requires the user to go into BIOS? What is worse is different motherboard uses different F-keys to initiate BIOS. What is even worse is that many BIOS doesn't have USB driver. So, if you only have a USB keyboard, which works just fine for XP, you cannot change the boot sequence if you OS is sick and you want to boot off of a removable drive that is not set up ahead of the C: hard drive. You have to borrow someone's PS2 Keyboard so you can get into the BIOS!!!!

I cannot count how many hours I have spent helping friend with Windows networking. So you need to have a name for your "workgroup". Of course, XP Pro and Win98 defaults to WORKGROUP (as does MacOSX's Windows Networking). But XP Home defaults to MSHome. Now, if this is such an important parameter to get computers to see each other, why isn't it in a prominent place where users and see it and change it? Good luck finding this vital piece of information. Then in Win98, you can set up a password to protect your computer on a network. In XP, good luck figuring out how to achieve the same thing. The only thing that seems to work is to open up your computer to everyone or no one. Why does it have to be so difficult? Why can't Microsoft offer at least a Win98 "option" so it is no more obscure than Win98? Apple filesharing just works and has been working for well over a decade. It has moved from LocalTalk to Ethernet and Appletalk to Appletalk IP and now totally TCP/IP. All that without the users even knowing everything has changed under the hood.

You got more time? Try to install a printer on Windows and then try to install the same printer on MacOSX. I can go on and on and on....

You will love the Mac.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to argue with a Windows "guru" on these points. Not only will they make up excuses for Redmond, they will actually try to convince you that it is "good" to have drives name with single letters of the alphabet in 2005! Your best path is to enjoy your Mac and offer symphathy and encouragement to your windows friends when they tell you their next horror story about how they have to spend 2 days re-installing Windows when their computer suddenly slows down to a crawl and they can't figure out what was wrong with it.

Charles

[andychrist]

Originally Posted by drseuss9311

(side question about quicktime: is there a way to save clips that are embedded in pages? the context menu option has been greyed out)

To save QT movies you would have to upgrade to QuickTime Pro.

[Lt Major Burns]

which is apples way of being stupid. full screen? not a problem sir, on any other media program, but for ours, yes, that's right - $29.99 please...

one thing i can't live without now is xTunes ( www.pol-online.net ) - a remote for itunes that comes up in the same way as the brightness/volume control displays when you press command-space - very useful, and one of the best remotes

btw does any body know of any better remotes? xTunes is (almost) perfect, but needs improvement

[ex0dus]

Originally Posted by andychrist

To save QT movies you would have to upgrade to QuickTime Pro.

I think that you can go to the file menu in Safari and do a save as.....

works for me anyway