Man Plus Machine

One of the hardest parts about switching from one operating system to another is finding alternatives to the software that you are used to. The programs that previously fulfilled your needs without you noticing or caring suddenly need replacement, and you haven’t got the slightest clue where to find them. This is also one of the reasons that most people trying to switch from Windows to Linux using dualboot find themselves running back to Windows in no time. When they need to turn on their computer to do some task that is easily done in one OS but needs finding proper software in another, they opt for the easy solution. But that’s a completely different story.

New users to Mac OS X can find most of what they need in the Mac OS X section of Version Tracker. This is a huge list of software available for different platforms, but we will be focusing on Mac. The software available is listed in categories and is easily searchable. Programs are shown with some details such as description, file size, and license type. In addition, other users may have rated the particular program and you get an average rating. This rating can be for every versions of the program or just for a particular version. This makes it easy to see if some version of a program is better or worse than others.

I’d like to recommend a few programs you probably need when getting started with Mac OS X. First of all we need to get you online on one of those instant messaging systems. Adium X is what you need for that. It has support for many popular networks such as MSN, Yahoo Messenger, Jabber, and ICQ. You might also need an FTP client to manage your websites and download files from hither and dither. I recommend Transmit - a slick and easy to use FTP client that definately suits your needs. It’s not free, though; you’ll need to register after 30 days. Lastly, if you are switching from Linux, you might want a better console than the one that comes with Mac OS X. iTerm is a great terminal application. It has tabs and bookmarks and is rather customizable.

One of the things that really struck me when switching from Linux to Mac was the fact that software no longer is as easily available as it used to be. When using Linux I had access to a plethora of open source software, much of it of great quality, too. If I wanted to install some program, in a perfect world all I needed to do was to type a single command and let Linux download the source code, compile the program and install it on my system. A perfect world, because often I had to do some leg work; refine settings and dependencies, install other programs and libraries that this particular program depended on (and other programs THEY depended on and so forth). But the software was there.

When using my Mac I realize that software may not be as easily available as I’ve grown used to. On the other hand, much software is of better quality and may take better advantage of my hardware (for instance graphics drivers, wireless and bluetooth software). Actually, the other day I bought my first piece of software, namely the FTP client program, Transmit. It’s a very nice application and it’s cheap enough for me to buy it and support the developers.

Of couse I could tap into The Pirate Bay or other sites with access to pirated software and download away. However, that’s just not the right thing to do. When a great piece of software is available for $15-20, why shouldn’t I pay the price and support the people who spend hours and days building and improving this program?

Let’s not make this a discussion about pirating. In short: If you’re new to Mac OS X and need programs that do the things you need, check out Version Tracker. It has a lot to offer. Good luck!

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As part of a “Review My Blog” thing I’ like to tell you something about one of my favourite blogs, John Chow Dot Com. If you run one or more websites, you might want to consider advertising on them, and although online advertising has become far easier and more attractive lately, there is still a lot to learn. Fortunately, John Chow and his weblog is around to the rescue.

John Chow runs several websites, but I’m going to tell you something about his weblog “The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul“. Despite the title, John does more than just ramble. He has an immense knowledge about online advertising and how to gain traffic to your site. The best part is, that he doesn’t mind sharing his wisdom with others.

I first encountered John’s webiste when his (probably) most famous article, “The Internet’s Biggest Google Whores,” was on Digg.com. It was an extremely fascinating article about some of the people who make most money on advertising with Google, and it really got me hooked on online advertising. I began reading the blog on a regular basis and I have gotten quite some tips and tricks the last six months. Since I first saw this article, I’ve seen references to it everywhere. Last time was a few weeks ago on a local Norwegian webiste.

The primary advertising focus is on Google’s Adsense program, but John also covers many other advertising programs and tells us which to give a try and which to stay away from. If Google or some other advertising network change their rules about advertisement placing and colours, John will most likely be one of the first to let you know and tell you how to avoid being banned. Very useful information, especially if you’re living on the edge :-)

Online advertising is not the only subject of John’s weblog. He also writes stories about trips to various expos he’s invited to, and he likes to tell about his latest visit to some new restaurant. His family plays an important role and is a regular subject on his blog, too. Of the more technical subjects is his views on the Wordpress blogging tool. For one he has a nice list of useful Wordpress plugins (I know, I have installed some of them) and most importantly he gives us guides and pointers to getting Google Adsense going with Wordpress.

The fact that John spends a lot of time on his weblog is obvious. He updates it a few times every day and there’s almost always something to check out. Not only does he share some good business secrets and tricks with us, he also makes a list of the best and most popular articles he’s written over time. This would perhaps be a very good point for advertising newcomers to start, and it’s a fantastic resource for we more experienced to freshen up our knowledge base.

In short, John Chow’s weblog is a very good place to keep going back to. The blog has so much information to offer especially if you’re new in the game. The downside is that he also writes a lot about some less interesting matters such as restaurants in his home town (in which I don’t live) and his family (cute, but in the long run it’s not of much interest to me…). Give it a try, though - I bet you won’t be disappointed!

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Some of the immediate “wow” effects to new users of Mac OS X are Exposé and the Dashboard. Only with the twist of your mouse or the press of a key, the desktop dims and the Dashboard comes flying in to the rescue. It’s sort of a desktop on top of the desktop with small programs (widgets) with easily available information to you. Want the weather report? You got it. The time? Got that too. Latest headlines from CNN? We can get them for you.

I’m going to guide you through a few nice applications for your Dashboard to get you started. First a small guide on how to add and configure new items to Dashboard.

Mac OS X comes with some widgets pre-installed and ready to be added to Dashboard. When Dashboard is open you can click the small “+” icon in the lower left to see a complete list of the installed widgets and activate those you might want.

We might want widgets with other functionalty than the pre-installed ones, so we need to visit the internet to get hold of some widgets that please us. The main ressource for Dashboard widgets is Apple’s own repository. Here are some hundred widgets avalable for download, sorted in searchable categories. Most are freeware, some are demos and require you to cough up the dough if you want to keep using it. Once you’ve downloaded a widget, all it takes is a few double clicks and the widget will be available in your Dashboard.

Let’s say we browsed the repository and found our way to the very interesting widget, xCuts. We download it and install it by double clicking the downloaded Zip-file which then reveals a widget. Not surprisingly, double clicking this will open the Dashboard with the new widget added, asking you to keep or discard it. We wish to keep it.

Having the Dashboard open, hovering your mouse over most widgets will bring up a small, italicized i. Clicking it will flip the widget allowing you to configure it. Some widgets have many options, some don’t have any at all.

A few neat widgets

Let me suggest some cool widgets for you to get you started customizing your own Dashboard. First of all, you just need iStatPro. This widget tells you everything worth knowing about your machine; CPU- and memory-usage, temperatures, fan-speeds and much more. And of couse it looks good too… This is a must have.

Next I’d like you to take a look at the Wikipedia widget. As a frequent user of this encyclopedia this widget brings me a little closer to the plethora of articles and general information that Wikipedia is. Looking up stuff is as easy as scratching your … neck.

While we’re at looking up stuff on the internet, why not add a widget that allows you to look up movies, actors etc. at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)? The IMDb Widget does this for you. Again, information moves closer to you.

The last widget I’d like to suggest is just an example of widgets that not nessecarily does something useful. If you have an iMac with iSight (or similar) the Mirror widget might be good for a few laughs. You can instantly check your looks without leaving your desk or searching your purse for a mirror thus saving you precious work time before that important meeting. A must have for the ladies, I guess.

These are just a fraction of the widgets available, and some are more useful than others. However, you can easily spend hours searching for and testing strange widgets that do tasks you weren’t aware you needed done.

Do it yourself

Along with the upcoming Mac OS X Leopard, Apple also releases a tool for creating your own widgets. So far you needed to familiarze yourself with HTML, JavaScript and other techniques, but now the Dashcode program does the dirty work and you can focus on the creative part. At the momen, Dashcode is only available to developers so you’ll need a developer account at Apple’s website before you get access to the download. It’s no problem, though, and it’s free.

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As a new user to Mac computers and Mac OS X there is some getting used to, especially when coming from other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and various Linux/Unix platforms. Fortunately I had an experienced Mac user helping me out and getting started and he took me under the hood and showed me some useful functions in OS X that aren’t apparent at first sight. I give you, in no particular order, the Top Three OS X Functions That Newbies Should Learn:

Smart Folders

When getting started with Mac OS X you have to get used to a whole new way of ordering your files and information. Forget about paths on a filesystem - who needs them? We leave file management to the applications and the operating system. Creating folders to hold our various types of files (letters to mom, mp3-files of heavy metal, videos beginning with the letter ‘R’) is so yesterday. Instead, welcome to the wonderful world of Smart Folders.

Smart Folders are folders that group together files based on one or more search terms instead of a physical location on the file system. This means that a file can appear several “places” on your computer, because it fulfills the search criteria of more than one smart folder. Another great feature of smart folders is that they update in real time. A smart folder can contain files and folders from everywhere you would like; an external hard disk, an iPod or even a .Mac account.
Lastly, of course, applications such as iTunes, Mail and iPhoto also have their version of smart folder functionality.

Spotlight

Spotlight is en easily ignored function in OS X but it is extremely handy and very impressive. It is somewhat related to smart folders since they are both based on search criteria. Spotlight helps you find files and folders on your machine in no time. Ever tried searching for a file (or worse: contents of a file) in Windows XP? It’s dead slow, yes I know, and the results are somewhat dissatisfying. Using the small magnifying glass in the top right corner of your Mac OS X desktop unleashes incredible searching power. As you type a search term, the results start popping in. Not only does Spotlight look for your search criteria in file- and foldernames, but it also searches in Mail and file contents. The results are neatly ordered and presented for your overlooking pleasure.

A nice sub-function of Spotlight is the helping hand it lends in the System Preferences. Ever wanted to change a setting but don’t know where to look? In Mac OS X you just type a search term and the settings that apply to the term are highlighted. Very handy - especially for us newbies.

Screen Shots

Every newbie wants to brag to his buddies about how cool his new stuff is and who wouldn’t brag about owning a brand spanking new iMac? I know I did. But I can’t find the Prnt Screen key! Have no fear because Mac OS X doesn’t need one (although it wouldn’t harm having one). Grab is your friend (and if you don’t know where to find it - use Spotlight!). Grab doesn’t have a window but just sits there waiting for your command so don’t wait up for it to show…

However, you can take screenshots much easier using just a few keyboard shortcuts. CMD + Shift + 3 dumps the entire screen. CMD + Shift + 4 gives you a pointer to mark up an area of your screen to copy. If you’d rather dump a specific window, press space once the pointer has changed and the pointer will turn into a camera allowing you to click the window you like. This goes for widgets as well (just bring up Dashboard before using the keyboard shortcuts). Grab will dump your screenshots to PNG files on your desktop but if you prefer dumping directly to the clipboard (for instance allowing you to paste it into some program) throw in the CTRL key as well.

Please note that it is not nescessary to start Grab before using these commands to grab screenshots. They just work!
Runners Up

Of course Mac OS X has much more to offer - these functions were just a subselection of what is available. Every user has his favourites so don’t come running saying “why didn’t you include function X?” although being a newbie myself I definately wouldn’t mind some input about other functions worth knowing of.

Some functions are more apparent than others. Dashboard and Exposé for example, are very handy tools and also some of the first to be taken into use. Automator is also worth getting acquainted to but it is also more complex than the others and I’d rather get back to this in an article for itself.

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One of the first days after I got my iMac back from service, Apple held their annual Macworld Expo. This year it was in San Fransisco and as an up and coming Mac nerd I would of couse have given my left arm for being there. Why? Because Steve Jobs gives his keynote and presents Apple’s new products and strategies.

In the past when Apple released new products I would hear about it from websites and newspapers. This time a friend and I had got extremely hyped on the upcoming keynote. Almost daily we discussed the lates Apple rumours, especially the myth-ridden iPhone. What would it be like? Would it have these and those features? Will it ever come at all? We looked forward to the kenote, that’s for certain.

I was told that the keynote is a very special event for Mac fans. For instance, during the last hour up until the keynote starts, the various Apple Stores on Apple.com are closed down for maintenance and lastly just minutes before the keynote is about to start, the American Apple Store is closed. As soon as the keynote is over, the stores are back online and ready to serve Mac fans with a loose “add-to-basket” finger and a buring credit card. I just love these little details.

As I don’t live in San Fransisco I obviously wasn’t going to be at the MacWorld Expo nor the keynote. Luckily for me and many other Mac nerds, some (many!) of the people with tickets to the keynote regularly post what Steve says and does on stage. Living in Norway, the time difference meant that the keynote would start at 6 pm Norwegian time. That was perfect for me. I fired up the iMac and my favourite web browser, poured me a jug o’ hot coffee and logged on to the different rumour feeds reporting live from the keynote. I also logged on to MSN and started a chat with my buddy just to get the last ounce of hype going.

When it finally started and the facts started rolling I almost had a heart attack. The minute the iPhone was official I almost couldn’t bear it anymore. I got more and more wound up as Steve presented the various specs, which were remarkably close to what we had dreamt of, and my fingers were tapping at an impressive rate in exchanging thoughts and reactions with my buddy. Especially the wide screen touch display was something we hardly dared dream of. And now it’s here!

As the keynote was over, it was time to come down again. I began scouring the web for more facts and reactions. The Apple Store was back online and we got access to demos and information on the new products. We hyped on for an hour or two before it all began to settle and we were able to talk to regular people again.

I felt the magic of the keynote, that’s for sure. Only being among the audience could have been better, but that might just never happen. I’m glad, though, that I got to follow the presentation of such a breakthrough device as the iPhone and now all is left is waiting for the reviews and tests before the phone is available for regular people. I really hope it won’t be a disappointment…

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