Ask HN: Just bought my first Mac. What should I know?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4622190

by maximveksler • 14 years ago

28 38 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Today is the first time I get to touch a MacOSX machine, on top of that I get to do it on a wonderful newly purchased Macbook Air. This after using Linux for the past 10 years. The world is shining with glowish colors of joy today.

What should I know, both practical and ethical/cultural about my newly chosen eco/techo system?

001sky• 14 years ago

prt scrn = shift+command+3

jwdunne2• 14 years ago

To print screen using a selector, CMD + Ctrl + Shift + 4

Couto• 14 years ago

To print screen a specific window, CMD+Ctrl+Shift+4+Space

jwdunne2• 14 years ago

I never really used a tool like it when I was on Windows or Linux but I find Alfred really useful, where I can press Alt + Space that brings up a simple dialog where I can type:

  app name
  find filename
  open filename

Just typing an app name will allow you to open it on pressing enter. Find will reveal the file or folder in Finder. Open will open the file.

If it doesn't recognise a name or command, it'll default to giving options to search in Google and other search engines.

Another really useful feature is typing an arithmetic expression and it being calculated for, which can then be copied to keyboard by pressing enter. I use this feature a lot.

I think there are a lot of other things I could learn about Alfred myself but it's probably my most used tool! There's also a premium version with more features but I haven't looked into it much.

I know there's Quicksilver and spotlight but Alfred is much quicker and smoother for me.

rauar• 14 years ago

+1 on Alfred. It's such a freakin' time-saver.

However I still miss the sexiness of Quicksilvers UI.

wriq• 14 years ago

Homebrew - a package manager for OSX to install all those incredibly useful applications you've been using for the past 10 years.

http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/

Turing_Machine3• 14 years ago

Absolutely.

You'll probably run across a lot of web sites recommending older package managers like MacPorts and Fink, just because they've been around for a long time.

YMMV, but I (and many others) find Homebrew superior in every respect.

ciniglio2• 14 years ago

I thought the main difference wasn't age, but that macports installs it's own version of binaries that are already on the system (e.g. python or ruby).

This means that if apple changes the binary in the OS, you don't risk breaking the dependency tree.

If there's a way to do this in homebrew, please let me know! I'd like to switch over, and this is the one thing keeping me with macports.

taligent2• 14 years ago

Before you do this.

Make sure to install XCode from the App Store and then goto XCode->Preferences->Downloads and install the "Command Line Tools".

tominated2• 14 years ago

You can install the command line tools without XCode if you download them from the Apple Developer site.

maximveksler4• 14 years ago

I did it, but I can't find anywhere what tools are being installed.

Is this documented somewhere or alternatively how can I inspect the downloaded archive to learn about its content?

gjulianm• 14 years ago

I installed MacPorts for these. What is really the difference between them?

anigbrowl2• 14 years ago

Page up/down and home/end don't work in Safari. You need to use Command+up/down and option +up/down, respectively. Ridiculous.

Turing_Machine3• 14 years ago

They work fine for me.

Edit: are you using a real Apple keyboard?

anigbrowl2• 14 years ago

I guess it's been fixed. It drove me nuts last time I had to use a Macbook, about a year ago.

eranation• 14 years ago

Was in the same place a month ago, here is what I wish someone told me.

- You can move a file, just "copy" and then press option when "pasting"

- Command + Delete is deleting a file (del on windows)

- Rename file is Enter (f2 on windows)

- Command + tab actually works as intended

- Fn + Delete = del key

- Home, End, Pg Up, Pg Dn - different, you'll get used to it

- Learn Vim and Linux, as you'll use the terminal a lot

- Installing stuff is a bit weird - dragging the icon to the Applications shortcut, dmg files basically look like a virtual "drive" that you can eject

- No easy way to maximize a window, really, you need a 3rd party app

After getting used to the little quirks, you'll get used to the stability, and speed. Windows 7 is not a bad OS, but for some reason me and my wife fight over the MacBook Air more than on my Lenovo Thinkpad...

tominated2• 14 years ago

You can use Home, End, Pg Up, Pg Dn by holding fn while using the arrow keys.

DerekL• 14 years ago

Yes, that's how you use them on a laptop or Apple bluetooth keyboard.

But the point is, on Windows or Linux, they move the cursor, but on the Mac, they scroll the view but don't move the cursor. Home scrolls to the beginning and End scrolls to the end.

On the Mac, to move the cursor by larger amounts, you combine command or option with an arrow key.

chrismiller• 14 years ago

You can maximize a window by holding shift when clicking the maximise button.

Zecc• 14 years ago

Don't press Cmd+I when you have a bunch of files selected and you want to check how much space they take. Do press Cmt+Alt+I

Turing_Machine3• 14 years ago

While many popular FOSS packages have been completely ported to the Mac's UI, there are still some packages that require X11. You can get it here:

http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/

taligent2• 14 years ago

I highly recommend iStat Menus / MenuMeters for monitoring.

Also if you run "sudo fs_usage" in the Terminal you can see what is accessing the disk. This can easily show what new app you've installed is causing problems. Likewise learn about launchctl/LaunchAgents/LaunchDaemons so you can disable startup daemons.

Big tip: Make sure to add to the Spotlight->Privacy section any folders that you don't want indexed e.g. Downloads, Bittorrent Folders, External Drives.

RollAHardSix• 14 years ago

F12 / F11 All day.

dmorgan• 14 years ago

1) Install the Homebrew package manager for your simple OSS needs (wget, haskell, ..., whatever).

2) For more involved OSS needs, instead of messing the system with tons of Pythons, Rubies, RDBMSs, etc, or using MacPorts, I would suggest running those environments in a VM (VMWare Fusion or Parallels) running Linux. It could even be headless, and you could connect to it through the Terminal. You get a development environment similar to your production setup, snapshots, etc AND a clean base system.

3) For video watching: install some "codec pack" for Quicktime (it has few built-in codecs). Also install VLC and MPlayerX. For audio, use iTunes and pay some attention to proper tagging (if your mp3s don't have it already).

4) If you start buying programs now, use the Mac App Store. You get to install the bought programs in all your Macs (if you have more than one Mac at some point), and when you clean-install your OS or get a new Mac you'll be able to download and have them installed automatically from one place.

5) Download and install XCode (this is also used by Homebrew [1]), but it will be useful for you in general if you do any programming, as it has the C compilers, headers, etc. Also install the "Command line tools" (see comment below).

6) When looking for a solution for a OS X problem, a lot of people in forums will suggest "fixing permissions" and "zapping the PRAM". Those are, 99% of the time, BS cargo-cult non solutions.

7) You DON'T need an antivirus. Just exercise common caution. It's nothing like Windows XP of times past.

8) You really DON'T need to shutdown your OS X. Maybe once in a blue moon. Just close the lid and let it sleep.

9) All OSs have problems. Especially when you include the userland programs in the possible bug space. If CPU is pegged at 100%, open "Activity Monitor" and find the culprit program and kill it. More often than not, it's Flash.

10) Check the Applications/Utilities folder. Lots of useful stuff in there.

11) Learn about the "defaults" command. You can use it to enable many hidden options and customizations from the command line.

12) If you like fine-tuning and customizing, get familiar with the /Library and ~/Library folders. It's where a lot of programs keep plugins, themes, settings, etc. There is a defaults [11] command to make the ~/Library folder visible in the Finder (normally it's hidden from the average user).

13) Check the Automator for application automation (also: Applescript). You can a lot of stuff with it, if you like these kind of things.

14) Read Siracussa's Ars Technica Mountain Lion review. All of it. And maybe a book, like Mountain Lion, the Missing Manual. You'll learn a lot of things that you will otherwise pick up randomly after months of using OS X.

15) Some apps to check: Alfred (must have: launcher), Evernote (note taking), iA Writer (distraction free writing), Skitch (image capture / annotations, though current version is botched), Fission (barebones audio editing), Pixelmator (bitmap image editor), Reeder (RSS reader), Little Snitch (must have: application firewall), Tunnelblick (VPN), Transmit (FTP/SFTP/S3 etc), Unarchiver (compression archive handler), VMWare Fusion (virtual machine host), Sublime Text 2 (programmers' editor, if you're not into Emacs/Vim/IDEs). For simple multimedia needs, check the iLife programs. For work needs, iWork programs are quite capable, though not as much as MS Office. Adobe home user programs (Photoshop and Premier Elements) are available for the Mac too.

16) Avoid HAXIEs and APE (cross-OS hijacking system used to attach extension functionality to applications). Not very stable, and not really needed. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haxie ).

17) If you go with Apple's way, you get more integration between your OS X programs.

E.g. if you're using Mail.app instead of Thunderbird and iPhoto instead of some third party photo manager, then, while you write a new email, you can select pictures in your iPhoto library to attach, from a built-in image picker in Mail.app. Same for iLife and iWork apps. E.g you can select, through Keynote, a song from your iTunes library to be use in your presentation. Personally, I use mostly Apple's apps, but prefer Chrome to Safari and Lightroom to iPhoto/Aperture.

18) Some things that might give you problems, from time to time: - Spotlight indexing (when you add lots of new stuff from an external disk to your primary disk, or when it's stuck on a corrupted file, etc). You can turn it off and on for specific disks and folders. - Flash using 100% of the CPU. Kill it from activity monitor, or kill the tab.

19) I personally tend to prefer installing new major OS X versions from scratch. It's easy to port over your old files, mails, and settings from a backup. That said, updating also works fine. YMMV.

20) Use something like Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper! for bootable, incremental, backups of your startup disk. Time Machine backups are handy too, but not bootable.

21) Have fun.

maximveksler4• 14 years ago

Highly useful. Many thanks.

Writing this response is the first productive thing I do with a Macintosh. To me it's somewhat inspiring and sad that my virgin user experience on a Mac, having clicked on Safari because it's the only thing that looked familiar, was the memorial video being shown today[1] on apple.com for 1 year since Steve Jobs death.

This feeling of sheer admiration is greatly reinforced by the pushback of a thought that a past generation of great man (Being 29 myself) was here to creatively pioneer the core culture values for us to build upon. I have just recently learned about Apple and Steve, reading Walter Issacson point of view. I found that honestly understanding how and mostly why Apple was build is an easily traceable path to enable one to learn to admire the actions and mostly the philosophy behind the company and behind Steve Jobs. Reading http://www.folklore.org also gives it's magical touch of a time that once was.

So thank you for your wonderful experience tips. Your assumption for this macbook is correct it will be used as a tool to making software, I hope to build something useful and fun for the world.

Will Have Fun, thank you for the suggestion :)

Maxim.

[1] http://movies.apple.com/media/us/stevejobs/stevejobs-memoria...

maximveksler4• 14 years ago

Regarding arstechnica:

John Siracusa's now 11 years on going project of documenting each new release of OSX is awesome. Guess that reading them front to bottom can tell and interesting evolution story and reading them bottom to top can be an efficient method to building missing pieces fast.

  http://arstechnica.com/apple/2001/04/macos-x/
  http://arstechnica.com/apple/2001/10/macosx-10-1/
  http://arstechnica.com/apple/2002/09/macosx-10-2/
  http://arstechnica.com/apple/2003/11/macosx-10-3/
  http://arstechnica.com/apple/2005/04/macosx-10-4/
  http://arstechnica.com/apple/2007/10/mac-os-x-10-5/
  http://arstechnica.com/apple/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6/
  http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7/
  http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/07/os-x-10-8/

pkamb• 14 years ago

Hotcorners for "Show Desktop" and "All Windows Exposé"

D3• 14 years ago

Only that you made a horrible mistake.

awfabian2• 14 years ago

I got my first Mac about 1 year and 4 months ago. I've been pretty happy with it. My fallback plan was just to install Windows or Linux on it. To me, the worst case scenario was that I was over-paying for some decent hardware. As it turns out, I never needed to exercise the backup plan.

bdunbar• 14 years ago

Install iTerm2.

It's a much better terminal emulator that Terminal.

maximveksler4• 14 years ago

Thank you for this wonderful tip.

ciniglio2• 14 years ago

I know that as programmers/hackers, we're supposed to never use the mouse, but the biggest thing that I've recently started to appreciate with macs is how good the drag and drop system is.

Some examples:

- If you want to open a file with a certain application, drag it to that application in the dock.

- If you want to send a url to your friend, drag the url onto the mail app.

- If you want to get a folders path in the terminal, drag the folder into the terminal window.

- If you want to move a file into a folder in finder, hover over that folder for a few seconds, and you'll see a new window spring up with the contents. You can navigate deep trees quite quickly, without needing to know where you're going at the outset (did I want to put this in Personal/ or in Vacation Photos/?)

This behavior has really spoiled me, and is probably the thing I miss the most when I need to use Windows for more than a few hours.

harnhua• 14 years ago

Often I need to create user guides and demo videos for products, and the screen capture features help a lot.

To capture:

- the entire desktop: Command-Shift-3. (Automatically saved as a PNG file on your desktop)

- part of the desktop: Command-Shift-4

- specific application window: Command-Shift-4

Add Control to these shortcuts to place the screenshot on the clipboard. Also try the bundled Grab utility for more related features.

unvs• 14 years ago

I use Vagrant (http://www.vagrantup.com) as a development environment, so I don't have to pollute my OSX installation with dozens of server packages, environments etc.

Other programs I use every day:

1) Sublime Text 2 - great editor

2) caffeine - prevents your mac from dimming or going to sleep when watching a screencast/movie/etc

3) f.lux - Warmer color temperatures and lower brightness as the day progresses, nice for working evenings

4) Alfred - program launcher.

5) BetterTouchTool - extra gestures for your trackpad or magic mouse. I use this all the time.

ssylee• 14 years ago

Watch this: http://www.nevblog.com/mac-shortcuts-watch-this-if-you-use-a...

phracktl2• 14 years ago

You should know that ever since the departure of SJ, Apple has been determined to emulate MS software quality assurance principles

First things first - Upgrade to Snow Leopard from Mountain Lion.

Then set up Bootcamp to install a decent OS like Win7

;-)

phracktl2• 14 years ago

OK, only halfish-joking But "It just works" isn't so true anymore. Mac apps - Safari, iLife, iWorks - are mostly weak or broken. Updates are like Windows - in the Gb's and constant.

Also, I'm embittered as the demise of the 17" MBP leaves me nowhere to go in Apple's future portable line-up. (Dont get me started on MacPro!)

For dev work: as others have said sort out XCode, grab Homebrew, iterm/dterm/total terminal

For web stuff look at Bitnami stacks/vm's. Aslo tools like sublime, Fake, codekit, charles http

CyberFonic• 14 years ago

Install Linux on it. That's want Linus did to his.

Ask HN: Just bought my first Mac. What should I know?

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