Getting To Know Your Mac

Before I switched to Mac, I had a PC running with 3 displays. I really got used to having all that screen space and after switching I had only one display again.

Few weeks ago I got bored and put my PC up and running again. Currently I use Synergy to share Mac's keyboard and mouse with the PC, but I've always wondered, if you can move your mouse cursor over the other screen, why can't you move application windows?

I came up with a concept where there would be a software that uses Synergy and perhaps VNC-like features together. This software would trick the Mac believing that it has two displays attached when the other display would actually be a software that transfers Mac's other screen view all over to the PC with the client software.

I really don't know if this would be possible, but if Synergy is, why this couldn't be? You might know something that I don't, share your thoughts.

If you've recently switched from Windows to Mac, you might have noticed that switching applications with cmd+tab doesn't behave like in Windows.

Windows displays all open windows in the taskbar so you could browse through them with hitting alt+tab or clicking the desired taskbar button. Unlike in Windows, Mac swaps applications - not actual windows. If you have for example Mail and few emails opened in separate windows you have to first open up the mail application and then click on the email windows or access them from Window menu. You can also press cmd+shift+´ which is possibly the weirdest key combination ever.

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Password Safe SWT

Some times you have lots of passwords to remember and you need to store them somewhere. Best place for passwords ain't in Post-Its sticked to your screen or written in the corner of your morning magazine. You might think storing passwords in your cell is safe, until someone steals it. Even Excel-sheet with password protection doesn't seem so safe to me.

If you need that extra security maintaining your passwords, try Password Safe SWT, which is a clone of PasswordSafe for Windows.

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Dashboard

I remember the day I installed Windows Vista and got to the desktop for the first time. Vista has a dashboard floating around in the desktop displaying widgets such as clock, calendar, outdoor temperature, photos etc. I kept the dashboard there for a whole day until I realized it's using up valuable screen space, closed it and never re-opened.

The day I got my first Mac with Leopard, I did just what everyone else does: clicked on every icon, browsed the hard drive and examined the keyboard. When I hit the Dashboard-button I thought I had seen this before…

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TextWrangler

Some tasks require to use a simple text editor that doesn't have all the unimportant Word-like features (font styles, margins, headers, footers etc.). In most cases I don't have to add pictures of my recent holiday trip to mom's, videos complaining that I have a bad hair day or even calculations about my weight gain in previous 6 months. Just text editing, no more than that.

In Windows I used Notetab Light for many years but unfortunately they don't distribute a Mac-version. TextEdit is shipped with OS X and can be used for most tasks but if you need text editing in daily (or even hourly) basis, I really recommend TextWrangler.

TextWrangler has all the features you'll probably need:

• better support for character sets than in TextEdit
• advanced text replacement
• syntax coloring for most programming languages
• multiple document editing
• works like a charm and completely free

Give it a try.

First time I grabbed my mouse to move the cursor on my recently unwrapped Mac, I noticed that the cursor didn't behave like it used to behave in my previous life. Somehow arrow movement just wasn't so accurate, it didn't feel right.

System preferences, I thought, that would save my day. After searching under mouse preferences for some kind of a slider that could allow me to adjust the mouse settings I realized there's no such thing. "Is this what it's going to be? Do I really have to learn how to use a mouse all over again?"

I dropped the mouse and stopped for a while. As in many cases, I might not be the only one suffering from this issue. After some search engine ramble I found a solution.

iMouseFix allows me to adjust mouse acceleration or even disable it. After some testing I turned the acceleration off and got my mouse back nearly as good as it had been for 15 years. I didn't have to re-wrap my Mac and take it back to the store. Greatness.

Ps. If iMouseFix doesn't suit for you, SteerMouse might.

NetNewsWire

Using FeedReader in Windows for a long time I had to find a at least as good RSS reader for Mac. I tried the RSS feature within iMail but it was little too simple for me. I don't want to let my feeds mess around with my emails, work efficiency, you know.

I simply entered "rss reader mac" to Google and after a while I found NewsFire. After one day of "RSS reading" I was pleased with it but somehow it didn't work for me, I still don't know exactly what was wrong but it just didn't.

My all-time favorite Download.com offered me several RSS readers to choose from. One application popped up, NewsGator's NetNewsWire.

After installing I instantly noticed that NetNewsWire's layout is similar to iMail which I hugely like. I imported feeds from FeedReader using a OPML file generated by FeedReader and I was ready to go.

Really nice feature is that by registering as a user reader syncs all my feeds. So if I use the same reader on another Mac my feeds are always up to date. Also a nice feature is that if I open a feed item, NetNewsWire opens up the according website inside the reader and it even displays small thumbnails of all opened items in the sidebar. NetNewsWire started to feel my reader of choice and even more better than FeedReader.

There is only one feature I miss: delete feed items. I like to use RSS readers just like I use my email application. After reading an item I wan't to delete it to get completely rid of it. I don't want the item to appear in my "inbox" no longer, I almost never want to re-read it. Guess I just have to learn how to live with it.

Even though both readers, NewsFire and NetNewsWire, perform the same tasks they are made for, the main reason I chose NetNewsWire over Newsfire was folders: you can place RSS feeds into named folders so I you can categorize all your feeds. Simple but efficient.

Now I've been using NetNewsWire for few weeks and it couldn't be better. Currently NetNewsWire shouts that it has 700 new feed items for me to read - auch, no more spare time, eh?

After I dragged approximately 15 applications to my Dock everything I saw was a line of icons. Horrible line of icons that weren't organized in any way. I would definitely need some separators.

So I clicked my secondary mouse button on the dock and tried to find a way to add separators from the settings menu. No luck. There's no such thing.

After some heavy Googleing around I found a solution:

1. Open up your terminal
2. Paste following text into terminal (in one line)
   defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{ "tile-type" = "spacer-tile"; }'
3. Enter killall Dock

Your Dock closes and re-appears with one separator. You can drag that separator anywhere you want inside the Dock. If you want to delete a separator, just drag it outside the Dock.

Not so simple but now I can find the right icon and not spend half a day looking for it.

Note: This applies to Mac OS X 10.5.4 (Leopard)

After using PC's for almost 15 years I started to dream of switching to Mac. Over these years I've been using MS-DOS, Windows's from 3.11 to Vista and briefly some Linuxes. When I started designing websites for a living I've been mainly spending my time with Windows XP.

There's actually nothing wrong with Windows, so you can't consider me as a Windows-hater. On a good day (and with right hardware) Windows performs the tasks I want in a breeze. On a bad day… Well, you know what happens when it's a bad day.

Over the last few years almost all my friends switched to Macs. Majority of my friends often told me that a Mac just works - no pain, no lost hair - and the rest aren't complaining about their computers, they are just using them - and loving them.

Last time my Windows-based computer gave me the same disk boot error it gave me just two months earlier I decided that I've had it: I'm switching, there's no more time to waste. I hopped in to my car, drove to the local computer store and got back with my first brand new Mac, the Mac mini.

Now I've used Mac for couple of months and quite frankly I have to say that I have some mixed feelings. Everything haven't been working as smooth as I dreamed, but after all, Mac is just another computer. I'm not going back so I just better learn how to use this thing.

So, expect to read about my discoveries including hints, tips and all the other things I think you'd need when starting to use the Mac.