Top 7 PC-to_Mac Switching Problems
Here are a few questions that seem to come up frequently for people who've
recently switched from a PC to a Mac. We identify the most common
hurdles, so you can clear them with ease.
1. My brand-new Mac came without a right-click mouse, so now I have to buy an external two-button mouse.
Every
Mac comes out of the box with the ability to right-click, but Apple
made it especially confusing for switchers because right-clicking is
always turned off by default. You have to make a trip to the Keyboard
& Mouse System Preference to turn it on. If your Mac came with an
Apple-branded mouse, you might not realize that you have right-clicking
ability because the right-click button is not a visible button separate
from the left-click button--it's touch-sensitive. Plus, all Mac laptops
have touch-sensitive right-clicking on their track pads as well.
2. Every time I launch Skype or Firefox, a white disk icon appears on my Desktop and disappears after a restart.
You may not have installed those applications properly. To install many Mac
applications, simply drag the application's icon (located on that
temporary white disk image, which has the file extension .DMG) to your
Applications folder. Then you can eject the white disk image by
dragging it to the trash, and it won't come back again.
3.
All my keyboard shortcuts are different on the Mac! And these Function
keys at the top don't work! And I miss the "Print Screen" button on my
PC's keyboard. How can I remember the confusing Shift-Command-4
keyboard shortcut to take a screenshot?
Most keyboard
shortcuts are the same on PC and Mac, but on the Mac you use the
Command key instead of the Control key. So, if you used Control-P to
print on the PC, you would now use command-P to print on the Mac. Even
better, you can customize almost every keyboard shortcut on your entire
Mac to whatever is easiest for you to remember. Just go into your
Keyboard & Mouse System Preference and choose Keyboard Shortcuts.
For even more keyboard control over your entire Mac experience, install
a keyboard shortcut program like Keyboard Maestro ($36,
www.keyboardmaestro.com), QuickSilver (free,
www.blacktree.com), or TextExpander ($30,
www.smileonmymac.com).
As for the function keys at the top of your keyboard, they all serve two purposes.. Click on them normally and they control the hardware
functions of your Mac, but hold down the "fn" key on your keyboard and
they act like normal function keys. You can reverse this behavior in
your Keyboard & Mouse System Preference.
4. I keep clicking on the green Maximize button, but the window still doesn't fill my screen.
We're Mac experts, and we have no idea what that green button is supposed to do. Try installing Right Zoom (free, www.blazingtools.com/downloads.html).
5. I love my Blackberry, but it won't sync to my Mac. Don't tell me to get an iPhone!
Blackberry has released the OS X Blackberry Desktop software. This will allow you to sync your Blackberry to the Mac. Click here.
6. There's not a lot of Mac software for what I want to do.
There's
outstanding Mac software available in every category that you could
possibly imagine. Some websites like versiontracker.com and
macupdate.com are even dedicated to tracking all the Mac software that
you can get for your Mac. And, if you really need to use an application that is not available for Macs, you can always run Windows on your Mac at full speed using
Boot Camp (free, built into Mac OS X Leopard) or VMWare Fusion ($80,
www.vmware.com).
7. I just bought a MacBook Pro. Are you seriously telling me that there's no forward-delete key on this keyboard?
Hold down the "fn" key while pressing the delete key and it becomes a forward delete.
* Reprinted from MacLife Newsletter Issue 75. Edited for clarify by HTHC.
