Mac Tips/Tricks

[Beccaberry]

Hello fellow users!

As many of you know I work as the Technical Coordinator (among other things) for our school. This year we transitioned our entire campus to Mac's. While this has been INCREDIBLY exciting for me, it has been a steep learning curve for many of my "pc only" teachers. Some of them were quite resistant to the change and have not yet embraced all the many wonderful things that a mac can offer, so I've decided to try and "sell" them a bit more. We're having tutorials on iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto etc, and I take a few minutes each day to share a little tidbit with them about a special feature/fun/interesting thing the Mac's can do.

So that got me to thinking. I am BY FAR no expert, but I know some of *you* are. So I thought I'd ask you, what is you're favorite tip/trick/nugget of info regarding the Mac?

For instance, I didn't know that:

• The Mac equivalent of CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up a system tasks profiler for force quitting unresponsive tasks is CMD-OPTION-ESC. You can just select the frozen application and hit Force Quit. If a program is completely frozen, it will appear in red text.

I am sure that there are LOADS of other things I've yet to discover, and with all the new converted Mac users around here, I thought perhaps it could be a fun thread for them as well...

So then, go ahead and show off...you know you want to!

[catrancher]

Becca,

I've got the same issues constantly with my DW. She's a... ummm... technologically challenged (shall I say) retired teacher so I share some of your pain .

Check out these Apple support pages if you haven't already. They're a treaseure trove of information for switchers!

Switch 101

On Windows I used to...

Tom (... who'd love to have your job!)

[Beccaberry]

Tom,

PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT!!! Thanks so much...I've seen the first one, but not the second one, so it's INCREDIBLE helpful! I'll use it A LOT in the upcoming months!

-Rebecca (...who, quite frankly, would sometimes GIVE you my job...and the teachers along with it )

[josh.p.]

I can't think of anything not covered by those articles! But just give them all a secrets acount, they'll soon be converted to the way of the mac :P

[catrancher]

Becca,


Don't know how much you know about Macs or how many Macs (and what kind) your school has, but here's a list of stuff you "may" be interested in. In no particular order:

1. The command line can be your friend! See this page for a reference of all the Mac OS X commands. Things like "defaults" can be especially usefull for admins!
2. Did you know that Qucktime X player now has the capability of capturing video from either an attached web cam or the built in iSight camera. It also can capture video of what you're doing on your screen! Makes it incredibly handy for a teaching video or podcast creation!
3. How many Macs do you support? Have you seen Apple Remote Desktop? If not, you need to.
4. Got Mac OS X server? If so, Podcast Producer can be your new, best friend!

These are just some more random thoughts I came up with. If you already know about them... great! If not... well, it's something else to think about.

Tom (... I my Mac!)