pc2mac.org - Switching from a PC to a Mac

This doesn’t particularly have anything to do with switching from a PC to a Mac but is more a public service because I think it is good to spread this information as widely as possible.

If you would like to opt out of targeted ads from Yahoo or Google this can now be done at their websites. It is done by placing a special cookie on your site that tells those two servers not to place their own tracking cookies there. For Google this also include Doubleclick cookies (Google bought Doubleclick).

Since cookies are browser-specific you have to visit these pages in each of the browsers you use and opt out for each. If you already block cookies from these sites then this procedure isn’t necessary (or possible since it works by placing a special cookie in your system).

Here are the pages to visit:

Google

Yahoo

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Previously you could subscribe to a Google calendar but not sync with it from iCal the built in calendar program that comes with MacOS. That meant that you could only edit the calendar on Google but see the events both in Google and in iCal on your Mac. Now, with syncing you can make the changes in either place.

The instructions are on this google page and there’s no point in me repeating them (and if they change it’s better to have the pointer than my out of date version).

After you’ve done this and the calendars sync you might see 2 versions of your events. If you’re like me and had subscribed to that calendar, just go to the calendar under Subscriptions and Delete it.

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I recently ran into a problem with my iTunes where every time I would start it, almost immediately it would freeze: that is, I could see all my music, it was trying to download new podcasts, and the spinning rainbow wheel came up and wouldn’t go away. Going to Force Quit showed iTunes not responding.

After looking around the web for help I saw that the iTunes database can easily get messed up. One of the reasons is a “bad” podcast. Recently I had a problem with a podcast that would appear to download (I watched it complete in the download window) but afterwards it didn’t appear in the list of podcasts. I went to the website of the podcast and watched it there and didn’t think anything of it but at this point I guessed that it was causing my problem.

The solution offered on the web when this happens is to remove your iTunes database and then reimport all your music. I moved out the files and sure enough iTunes did work again. However, this solution would have required me to resubscribe to all my podcasts again and there are way more than I want to have to add manually.

So I figured out on my own a much better way to do it.

First, run the PropertyListEditor application (that comes with your Mac) and open the file: /username/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist that is under your user account. N.B. with any playing around with files like this make sure to BACKUP the original file.

Click on the triangle next to Root to see the list of cookies. Near the top of the list will be disablePodcasts and it will be set to No (meaning that you can watch or listen to podcasts). Click on the word No and select Yes (to disable podcasts). Then save the file.

Restart iTunes and it should now work but the word Podcasts will now be missing from the Library.

Bring up the iTunes Preferences (from the menu bar) and go to the Parental tab. Uncheck the Disable Podcasts box. Then go to the Podcasts tab and change the menu option for Check for new episodes to Manually. Click on OK and Podcasts should be back in your Library but now they won’t download until you update them manually.

If you are not sure which podcast is causing the problem you will have to use trial and error to find the problem by updating/downloading the podcast and seeing if it freezes again (and force quiting and restarting iTunes). In my case, I could see on the list of podcasts the one that it was trying to download (the greyed out name appeared) when it froze and that probably was the problem. This was good because it was the podcast I already suspected.

When you have found the problem podcast Delete it and then resubcribe to just that one podcast. Update that podcast to test and hopefully it will now succeed. Click on the Refresh button (in the lower right) and see that all the pending podcasts download without freezing.

Finally, go back to the Preference for Podcasts and change the Check for new episodes menu to be what you normally want. Overall, it is a bit of work but a lot less than reimporting your library and resubscribing to all your podcasts.

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Fluid is a very interesting application that will take any web page and make into a regular Mac application that lives in the Application folder and can go in the Dock. And it is free.

After downloading and installing Fluid, run it and you will see the following window:

Copy and paste (or type) the URL/web address of any web page into the URL field, give the “application” a name and then Create it. Now you have a new application that you can run like any other on your Mac and it will bring up the web page in its own window.

There are several advantages of this compared to running an application in a browser window (or tab). You can launch it easily (from the Dock, Quicksilver, Spotlight, etc.), fix it into a Space, arrange it with other windows, etc. Another big advantage is that if your browser crashes or freezes, it won’t stop the application. I am currently running a Pandora “application” and it’s nice to know that the music will continue regardless of what happens in other applications.

One other capability of Fluid is that its applications can be placed on the right hand side of the Menu Bar (these are called Menu Extras). To do this, select the application and then from its main menu (the one under the name you gave it), select the command Convert to MenuExtra SSB…, and then OK.

Good candidates for Fluid applications are those that you use a lot and have application-like functionality. These include Google Mail, Google Docs, and Basecamp. Or just pages you access a lot, like YouTube.

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You’re used to finding things in certain places on your machine but on a Mac the places are different. Here’s some help finding things. I’m going to go down the list on the left side of Windows Explorer and point out where you’ll find things in the Mac Finder.

Desktop: hurray it’s the same name in both systems. In the Finder it’s usually the first item under Places.

Local Disk C:, D:, etc. These hardware devices are similar except they are listed by name and without the letter. The default name for the boot disk in MacOS is Macintosh HD (corresponding to C:). All the hardware is listed in the Finder under Devices.

My Documents: This is called Documents on the Mac and is usually found under Places. (Note that you can move anything into and out of the Finder by dragging it, so yours may look different.) The actual folders are located in the following places (Windows: boot disk; Documents and Settings; username; My Documents. Mac: boot disk; Users; username; Documents)

Program Files: This folder is under the boot disk (usually C:) and it is where most of your programs are found. On the Mac it is called Applications and is usually found in Places. It is actually located under the boot disk just like in Windows.

Control Panel: on the Mac you access the same functionality via the System Preferences… which is under the Apple icon in the System Menu at the top left of your screen.

Media (Music, Pictures, Movies): in Windows these are under My Documents. On the Mac they are one level higher, under the folder associated with the username (so they are brothers to the Document folder instead of children).

System Files: in Windows these are in the Windows folder under the boot disk (usually C:). On the Mac (viewing through the Finder) they are in two folders found under the boot disk: System and Library. Actually there are many other system files but you need to be using the Terminal to see them (under root: / they are the directory names that do not start with capital letters)

My Network Places: This rather confusing hierarchy of machines in your workgroup and symbolic links to shared folders is much more simply displayed in the Mac in the Shared area on the left of the Finder.

Recycle Bin: It’s called the Trash on the Mac and is not in the Finder Places by default but you probably want to access via the user interface and not the Finder anyway. It’s icon is on the far right end of the Dock.

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iMovie comes with all Macs as part of the iLife package.

One of the advantages of the Mac is the high quality applications that come with it. iMovie is a very slick, easy to use, way of assembling movies from video clips. I don’t do much video editing but I checked out the program to see how easy its user interface was for basic operations without looking at any manuals or help files.

When I first started the program it asked to search for any videos in my iPhoto library and it found all that were there and added them as clips that I could use to create movies. It is also very easy to add clips using the iSight camera built into my Mac. Another nice integration with other built-in applications is that you can add any music from your iTunes library as background for a movie. That was all very nice.

The program is very easy to use with drag and drop from the clips window into the movie project window. I’ve heard that there were many complaints from previous iMovie users that they switched from the timeline view of older versions. I’ve used other video editing programs with timelines and I didn’t find this application to be very different from those. True, you don’t see a ruler with times on it, but you do see times for all the sections you are working on. Unless you are trying to fit the movie into a specific amount of time I don’t see any disadvantage of this interface.

There are standard transitions available that are easy to add between clips. I particularly liked the different types of text that could be superimposed on top of clips which included several types of lower third text.

There’s nothing super fancy about the capabilities but I think that is a good thing for non-pros because it reduces the temptation to get carried away. As a utilitarian application I think it does a good job.

Finally, movies can be exported in a number of sizes and the program is very helpful to show which is appropriate for the different hardware on which it will be viewed. I didn’t test it on anything other than my computer monitor but I am confident that at least for all Apple hardware and software that the output will work just fine.

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In Windows you can bring up the Character Map application to select and insert special characters into documents. In MacOS there is similar functionality and I think it is easier to use.

Under the Edit menu in the menu bar in most (all?) applications at the bottom is the Special Characters… command. Select it and the Characters window will open. Select any character in that window and then click on the Insert with Font button and that character will be inserted whereever the cursor is located.

MacOS provides a very useful feature not found in Windows. If there are characters that you need frequently then you can add them to the Favorites list. With a character selected, click on the operations pull down menu in the lower left of the window and select Add to Favorites. There is a Favorites tab towards the top that will show all your favorites and you can select from them just as you would any character from the catalog.

Here’s a bonus tip: choose Glyph from the View pull down menu and then Lucida Grande as the Font. This is a motherlode of Apple characters including those from foreign languages and even the symbols used for special keys on an Apple keyboard.

Now you can enter ? ? and other non-standard symbols that can’t be entered from a keyboard into your documents.

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One advantage of having just one menu bar on your machine (instead of one per window like in Windows) is that you can embed some small programs there that are always visible and available.

The Mac Tricks and Tips website has published a list of 45 Must Have Menu Bar Applications. I would advise you not to try and install all of them (i.e. they are all not must have) but there are a number that are very useful.

From their list, I use the following: Quicksilver, istat, and caffeine.

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Walt Mossbery is one of the top tech columnists. He just published some general tips for switchers. These are pretty basic but good if you are a brand new switcher.

He points out a couple of basic Apple web pages that are very useful. These are Mac101 and Switch101. These provide a lot of tips on moving your files and environment over to the Mac plus basic setup and use.

Finally, The TUAW blog has a whole category for switchers and new Mac users, again called Mac 101. These cover a wide range of topics.

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