Last time around, you received your new Mac and switched it on for the first time, and I left you on something of a cliffhanger where OS X had just started up properly and you were now ready to roll. Its time to talk about making your machine into a usable tool.
There are two things your need to know about before we proceed. The first is the Dock. You can see the Dock at the bottom of your screen (default) or elsewhere if you have moved it. What does the Dock do? If you are familiar with the Windows taskbar, then you’re about halfway there. The Dock shows the icons of the applications you have open (also note, that unlike Windows, we are talking about applications not windows) so you can click the icon to swap to that application. But it is also your quicklaunch menu as well. Quicklaunch is maybe something you aren’t familiar with on Windows – it isn’t enabled by default, but I’ve found it to be the single most valuable aspect of the Windows interface. Quicklaunch sits in your taskbar somewhere (I have mine set so that is occupies a second row on the taskbar, and the tasks go to the top row, but that is personal preference), and provides quick and easy access to the shortcuts you need to launch your most frequently used applications. The Dock on OS X provides the same thing, so what you are left with is a list of icons for applications you want quick access to, which also doubles as a list of which applications are currently running (by providing a small arrow underneath the applications). If an application isn’t in the Dock as a quicklaunch style item, it appears at the right hand side of the list while it is running and disappears when you close it. There are two ways (that I know of anyhow) to add items to your dock. The first is to grab the application’s icon from the Applications folder (more on this later) and drag it to the dock – rather than move it, OS X understands that you want to create a Dock shortcut to this item. The second way is if the application is running, click and drag the icon that is in the dock to a position further to the left. This seems to be a spirit crushingly boring paragraph, but familiarity with the Dock is really essential to getting comfortable with OS X.
Another thing that is essential to getting comfortable with OS X is understanding the way it handles programs. I won’t go into as much detail here since a lot of people’s eyes glaze over when you start talking about PATH variables and whatnot. Put simply, if it is a program, it should live in the Applications folder. Think of this like Windows’ Program Files, only more sophisticated. OS X combines all the files for a program, and the executable for the program into one nice neat icon, which is generally what is stored in the Applications folder (sometimes it is stored in its own sub-folder, but I’m not a particular fan of that since it looks ugly). If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty you can right-click (or control click, or however else you bring up the context menu) and click for the package contents to see the files it contains, but for 99% of people, that isn’t necessary.
OK, so now you know where you want to put a shortcut application to programs (or folders even) that you use a lot. And you also know where OS X is keeping your programs. The first thing to do with your brand new Mac is to take a look at what programs have come preloaded. Its an unfortunate truth that even Apple preloads crap onto their systems before sending them to you. For instance, you will probably find that you have a trial version of MS Office. Now a trial version is little use to anyone, and now that there are decent Open Source alternatives, there is no reason to give MS the satisfaction of buying or even trying their product. So the first thing I’d suggest is removing that. Ah, but how do you uninstall things under OS X? Easy, just drag it into the trash bin that is shown in the dock. And poof, its gone. There are maybe a couple of other things you can afford to lose from your Applications folder, but if you aren’t sure about something, leave it alone. So continuing the theme, lets go install an Office substitute that is free. My choice here is called NeoOffice, which is an OS X version of the Open Office suite (there are technical reasons why it is called something different, but they aren’t massively important). You can get the latest NeoOffice from here. If you aren’t sure whether you want PPC or Intel, the chances are that if you bought your Mac during the last 6 months or so, you want Intel, so whenever you get that choice, go for the Intel. This is going to download a DMG file – a Disk Image. Once you have it down, double click it, and it will appear in your finder window as a new hard drive. Sometimes it might automatically bring up a window with instructions. What these will usually tell you to do is to grab the program file, and drag it into your Applications folder. Now unmount the DMG file from your system by clicking the eject button next to its name in the Finder, or dragging its icon on the desktop to the trashcan, which should also change to be the eject button. Once it is ejected, you can move the DMG file to the trash since you don’t need it anymore. Now lets say you want to set NeoOffice up so you can launch it quickly. Go to your Applications folder, find the NeoOffice icon, and drag it to your Dock. Note that it didn’t move, but that icon is now in your Dock too. Clicking it launches NeoOffice, and then using the menubar at the top of your screen you can choose to start or open a new document.
You’ve just uninstalled a program, then downloaded and installed a new program, and set it up so you can access it from the Dock. You’ve taken your first steps on the road to becoming a Mac Power-User. Next time around I’ll be covering some tips and tricks you maybe didn’t know about OS X that will make Switching just that little bit easier.