- By Dan Veaner
- Business & Technology
Print 
Dr. DigitDr. Digit 'Splains It All
| ||||
The first thing I hated was not having a right mouse button. The woman who helped me at the Mac Store actually solved this for me. She showed me just where to go in Keyboard and Mouse System Preferences to set up the secondary button. Presto! not only do I have a right mouse button, but almost all of the programs have context menus (the litle pop-up menus you see in Windows when you right click) on the Mac! Mission #1 accomplished.
I often make PDF files. Under Windows I bought a printer driver that fools all my programs into thinking the driver is a printer, but actually makes a PDF file instead. Later I found a free one. A Google search revealed a surprise: the current Mac OSX operating system can make a PDF without extra software. I tried it -- it works! Mission #3 accomplished.
Ditto creating ZIP files. OSX has a simple version of that included. I rarely need the fancy stuff, so mission #4 accomplished.
PCs have two deletion keys, a backspace key that deletes backward from the cursor position, and a delete key that deletes forward from the cursor. On the Mac there is a delete key that is the same as the PC's backspace key. That took some getting used to. And it was annoying to always have to delete backward, using the mouse to reposition the cursor whenever I wanted to delete a letter or two.
After two weeks of being annoyed I created a garbage document to experiment on and found that pressing the laptop's FN key at the same time as the delete key deletes forward. This is a two handed operation that would be much better if I could reach both keys with one hand.
Looking at pictures of desktop Macs on the Web I can see that there are two delete keys on a standalone keyboard. But they are both called 'Delete.' Isn't that 'thinking same,' not 'thinking different?' This is a wide screen notebook -- they could have made room to add a key or two to the keyboard. Nevertheless, mission #5 accomplished.
When you consider that the reason I bought my Mac in the first place was the security hole paranoia in Microsoft Vista, it is ironic that the only programs that have interrupted my work to update security holes on my Mac so far are the Microsoft Office programs. When that happened a moment ago I was not amused, because it required closing a program in the middle of my work day. And the updater windows were not well designed -- after a successful update it looked as if it wanted me to update again. And again...
One thing about using a graphical user interface (GUI) is that you are tempted to multi-task, and that means a lot of windows collecting on your desktop. As I poked around the Mac settings I found references to 'Spaces.' When I figured out what it was, I was intrigued. You define the number of 'virtual desktops' you want, and go from space to space as you need the programs you opened in each one. This takes a little getting used to, but the spaces seem to know about each other, and it goes a long way toward uncluttering my screen. It's also easy to move a program into a different space. This wasn't exactly a 'mission,' but it is accomplished!
Next Week: What I love and hate about my new Mac
----
v3i47