Beginners guide to Mac or How I learned to stop worrying and love the Macintosh

In light of the Mac Mini drawing new disciples into the fold and the fact that iBooks and PowerBooks are more affordable than ever, I felt that it was necessary for a beginners guide to Macintosh; or in reality, a beginners guide to OS X since OS X is, for all intents and purposes, Macintosh.

Now, all the information contained herein is as I know it, and while I try to be as accurate as possible sometimes I get things wrong. For the more learned among us, feel free to correct me if I make a boo boo.

So, first up, a short history of OS X:

Mac OS X—which according to Apple is properly called Mac OS Ten and not Mac OS "ecks" even though I, personally, think that OS "ecks" sounds better—is a mainstream POSIX compliant Unix derived operating system based on FreeBSD by way of NextStep which utilises the Mach 3.0 microkernel.

What does this mean? To most people not much. To techies and the computer intelligentsia it means that OS X has over 40 years of true and tested computer code beneath its pretty face. It also means that anyone familiar with Unix and Linux should be able to just jump right in and, after a small period of adjustment, should be able to work just as well as they did before while being able to take advantage of being able to run Photoshop and Microsoft Word at the same time as they're running their traditional Unix based software.

Again, not something that most normal people need to do, but it's nice to know that, should you want to, you can do some extremely advanced things with OS X—that for the most part can transfer over to any other Unix or Linux based OS—once you learn how.

Also, another tidbit for the more advanced users: Every Macintosh computer running OS X comes complete with a full code development environment built in for free. Full code development environment meaning full syntactical highlighting, compilers, GUI components for making professional looking apps, etc. On Windows, these types of tools must be bought separately.

So, okay, enough about that, now for the nitty gritty...

Part the first: Basic OS X Maintenance

Being that OS X is Unix based it carries something with it called "permissions". Permissions are just what they sound like; they determine who is permitted to do what to a file. If you are the only user of your machine the vast majority of your files should have their permissions set to allow you to read and write to them. If you share your machine or you are not an "administrator" then a lot of files on the computer will have their permissions so you can read them but not write to them.

Now why am I bringing this up?

Well, sometimes permissions on a file or programme can become broken and when that happens strange things can occur while using your computer. Programmes might not start up, or the system will run sluggishly, etc.

Fortunately, Apple has provided you with the tools you need to repair your permissions, and many times when something is going wrong with the computer doing so will fix the problem.

It is suggested that you repair your permissions after installing any major software and always after installing any system updates.

To repair your permissions you want to launch Disk Utility which can be found in the Utilities folder inside of your Applications folder. Start disk utility, click on your hard drive on the left hand side of the window and then click "Repair Disk Permissions".

The next basic maintenance bit is running what are called "cron" scripts. As Unix was originally designed for running servers that are up 24/7 these scripts are set to run from 3 to 5 in the morning when the computer isn't expected to be in use. If you keep your Macintosh on 24/7 you can skip this part, if you shut your Mac off or put it to sleep after using it then pay attention.

These scripts are set to run at night but you can manually invoke them by using the Terminal. The Terminal can be found in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder.

Once Terminal is open type "sudo /etc/daily" without the quotes. When prompted, type in your administrator password and hit enter. This script does some basic checks of the system to see if everything is running normally, it backs up the NetInfo database, it clears some system logs, and does a couple other cleaning type things.

The next script you want to run is the weekly script. Do this by replacing daily in what you typed earlier with weekly. This script rebuilds the "locate" database, which is a listing of every file on the computer. It also rebuilds the "whatis" database which is a listing of system commands and it rotates several log files.

The final script is the monthly script. Run it the same way as the other two, just replace daily or weekly with monthly. This is the simplest script and it generally only takes a few seconds. It tracks the logins to the computer and rotates a couple logs before restarting the syslog daemon.

Not running these scripts every so often can cause the computer to become sluggish as log files become unwieldy.

A third thing that you shouldn't have to do, but that is necessary sometimes, is clearing font caches. There's a shareware programme called FontFinagler that will do this for you. It works 10 times before needing to be activated. If you add and remove a lot of fonts or you start seeing gobbledygook when certain fonts are supposed to be activated, it's probably a good idea to clean your font caches.

Also for your convenience there are programmes you can download that will repair permissions and run cron scripts at the click of the mouse. One of these is MacJanitor which is free and only runs the cron scripts. Another is Macaroni which will run the scripts and repair permissions and do a few other things as well. For more advanced maintenance software that also runs diagnostics on the computer and it's hardware there is software such as Tech Tool Pro which is a full featured diagnostic and repair suite.

Part the second: Basic OS X for new users

I'm going to assume that new users are previous windows users so to that end listen up: OS X does not utilise a registry!

When programmes need to tell the system how to deal with them and any associated files they generally place a preferences file into a special directory designed just for preferences. What does this mean for you the end user? This means that, first of all, when you uninstall a programme you don't have to worry about stray crap filling the registry and keeping it as a huge file. This also means that if you need to edit a programme's information that all you have to do is find it's preference file instead of searching through HKEY_USER_SYSTEM/WIndows/Current Version/Run/blah blah blah in the registry editor.

Now, preferences files are not without their problems, but they're far fewer than those involved with the Windows registry and are usually easy to fix. Preferences files can sometimes become corrupted, especially when they're read and written to a lot. When this happens sometimes a programme will begin to act strange; I know if the Finder preferences become corrupted, sometimes the Finder will start to run the processor at 100 percent causing the computer to be very sluggish.

Luckily fixing these problems is generally done in a few easy steps: find the preference file for the programme by searching for the name of the programme from any finder window and looking for any results that come up with a "plist" extension. Once you find the preference file for the wonky programme you click and drag it to the trash and then empty the trash. Once you restart the programme you'll have to set things back to the way you had it, but your problems should be fixed. In the case of finder acting wonky you should restart after emptying the trash.

Another cool thing about OS X compared to Windows is how you install and uninstall most programmes. Generally it's as simple as clicking and dragging the programme out of the CD ROM or a disk image downloaded from the web, and then plonking it into your Applications folder. Uninstalling is generally as easy as dragging the file from your Applications folder and into the trash.

If you want to be a little more thorough with uninstalling a file you can do a find for any other files and folders it may have placed on the hard drive which brings me to the Finder's...um...finder.

Every finder window has a little search box in the upper right. This is fine for normal searches, but when you need something a little more advanced you need to use the Find option under Finder's File menu...or when Finder is the active application you can hit command-f. This brings up a dialogue with lots of options for advanced searching. It's here that, if you're really dead set on uninstalling every part of a programme, you can search for invisible files and then once they're found you can drag them to the trash and be rid of every single part of whatever programme has vexed you enough to require you delete every part of it put on your computer. You can also search for specific types of files, or you can search just for folders, or for files that were made by a specific programme, etc. It's very handy when the normal search just doesn't cut it.

Another thing new users will run into is the common use of disk image files. OS X has built into it the ability to open and mount several forms of disk image files. When disk images are mounted they're treated by the system as if they were a second hard drive.

THe most common disk image file a Mac user runs into is a "dmg" file. Chances are any software you download from the internet will be contained within a dmg file, which itself is sometimes contained with in a sit, zip, or tar.gz file.

To use a dmg file, one simply has to double click on it. As the system is opening it a dialogue box will pop up telling you that it is verifying the image file. When the box disappears you'll notice that you have a new icon on your desktop that looks like a white external hard drive—sometimes you'll run across custom icons, so they don't always look like this, but they do about 99 percent of the time—which should be named something similar to the file you just downloaded. If you double click on that you can now see the contents of the dmg file and do whatever you wish to them. Some dmg files allow you to read and write to them, others allow you only to read, and others may have encryption on them that requires the use of a password to open them.

It has been suggested that instead of using OS X's "File Vault", which will encrypt your entire home folder so only those with the password can access it, that one create an encrypted dmg file and use that for any files they wish to keep safe. It certainly does save space and you won't suffer from the performance hit you get from using File Vault.

If you wish to create your own dmg file all you need to do is open up Disk Utility. Click "New Image" at the top of the window and then from there you can set up your new image as you wish.

If you create an encrypted disk image, or do pretty much anything requiring a password on OS X, the system will generally ask you if you wish to save your password to the "Keychain". The Keychain is where all important passwords are stored so that you don't have to type them in again when they're needed. Of course, if you're concerned about security, tell the system that you do not want to save the password to the Keychain, though you will have to input your password everytime it is needed.

Other things to note on OS X...unlike windows, most times when you close a window you are not actually closing the programme the window belongs to. There is a method to the madness, however. Programmes that utilise multiple windows always stay open until you actively quit them because you might not always be done using it even if you've closed all active windows.. Programmes that use only one window will often completely quit after closing the window because you're most likely done with that programme when you close the window.

System Preferences, which is already on your dock from the factory, is a programme that quits once you close it's window. System Preferences is a also where you can set pretty much every major thing on the system to your liking.

Some settings that I recommend for new users are as follows:
In the Expose settings set hot corners for Expose's use. I use the upper left corner for all windows, the lower left for programme windows, the upper right to start my screen saver, and the lower right to show my desktop. Believe me, after using Expose for a while you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

If you're on a laptop you'll want to take a look at the Energy Saver settings. When the Energy Saver is set to "automatic" your system will not run as fast as it can. Normally automatic is the best choice, but when you do need the extra speed, like when playing games, you'll want to set this to "highest performance". Other default settings are equally as self explanatory.

Under Keyboard & Mouse I recommend enabling Clicking under the trackpad preferences for laptop users, and under the Keyboard Shortcuts preference I recommend enabling "Turn on full keyboard access" which allows you to use the tab button to manoeuvre through menus and forms.

Should you ever wish to share files with other computers on a network, or if you wish to share files with people over the internet you'll want to open the Sharing preferences. Turning a Macintosh into a web or FTP server is as simple as clicking a button. It's under the Sharing preferences that you can also change your computer's name.

If you wish to share your computer with other people you'll want to check out the Accounts preferences. Here you can add and remove users, you can set their system privileges, and you can also tell the computer which programmes you wish to load at start up or login. Automatic login and "fast user switching"—which lets you switch between accounts on the computer without having to log out of them first; open programmes and documents will still be open when switching back—can also be set here.

Well, unfortunately, that's about all I can think of right now. It's just some basic stuff and I can't really think of anything else important. Just remember that the red button at the top of every window closes it, the yellow button minimises it to the dock, and the green button maximises it or sizes it to fill the content. Um...programmes can be added to the dock by dragging them onto it, and they can be removed by dragging the icon off of the dock. Folders can also be added to the dock on the right hand side just before the trash can. For those with one button mice, holding down the control key before clicking is the same as right clicking. When you're clicking and dragging a file, hovering over a folder will open the folder and if expose is activated, hovering over a window will bring that window to the front.

And that's all I have for now.

Glad I could help.

I see people asking all sorts of questions like this on the Mac communities on Livejournal and I figured with the new Apple boards here that it might be handy to have something that people can link back to when basic questions are asked.

Well, I believe I covered installing and uninstalling in my writeup...you just, for the most part, drag the app to the applications folder to install and then drag it to the trash to uninstall. Unlike on windows, pretty much all Mac apps are self contained only leaving a few extraneous files in other places of the computer that are harmless.

You don't need Antivirus on a Mac currently. The only reason to get an antivirus programme for a Mac is to catch windows viruses before being able to pass them on, but otherwise they cannot affect the mac.

512 is enough, though OSX likes a much as it can get. Newegg has good prices on gig sticks which will bring you up to 1.25 gigs should you decide to buy one, but for now 512 should be fine.

You're welcome Ref, and thanks Eskimo.

Welcome, glad I could help.

I should go through one day and update it a bit to take Tiger and the Intel switch into consideration.

Windows is considered to be an Application Based OS. Each application is it's own container that only contains windows related to that app. That's why when you minimise, say, Photoshop, all the Photoshop windows go with the main window. Now, if you close all the windows within the main Photoshop window Photoshop stays open but it's still completely separate from every other window on the computer.

OS X is Document Based, meaning the desktop is considered to be a literal desktop. Figure you have a couple multipage letters that you're writing. On a real desk you can shuffle those pages around and they can be under and above and around each of the other pages. OS X is like that. Every window on OS X, while they might belong to a separate application, are all just scattered on the desktop like pages in a letter.

Because OS X is Document Based programmes don't have container windows like in Windows. This is because the software figures the user might need to use it again so it stays active until the user takes steps to actively quit it (which can be done in several ways, the two easiest are command+w while the programme in question is active or by right clicking it's dock icon and selecting quit).

Now, when a programme on OS X only contains one window, such as the System Preferences, the programme assumes that when you close that single window that you're done with the whole programme. If there are no other windows you can invoke the closing of the main window means you're done with whatever you were doing.

Does any of this make sense?

Personally, I kind of prefer the way Windows does it because if you're doing a lot of stuff at once you can easily become inundated with windows, which before the invention of Exposé involved minimising or moving windows all over the desktop to get to the one you wanted. Now that there's Exposé things are markedly better, but it's still very possible to become deluged. Luckily, when this does happen, you are also able to hide every window in an application all at once until you want to get at them again...no constantly having to hit minimise to get to the window at the very bottom.

Welcome