To mac users... which are the end and home keys? Ad astra per aspera
Do you have the big one like this one or the small one like this one?
I just purchased the wired big one and am very happy with it. It's the best keyboard I've ever used in 30 years of computering.
Okay if it is anything like the American keyboard, then the home and end keys are the two keys directly above the arrow keys. So to the left of the keypad and to the right of the alpha-numeric keys, then up.
The behavior of the keys are a bit different on a Mac than on other operating systems. So if you're new to a Mac and are accustomed to different behavior, it can be changed. You may need to use the Terminal (application in utilities) and a Unix text editor (like pico, nano, or vi) to make these changes, rather then the GUI text editor.
I'm on a Windows box right now at work and cannot check my Mac at home.
The thing I find really difficult to get used to is the fact that the letters are central on the keys, on pc keyboards they are off centre. For some reason my brain keeps thinking that the letters are upside down on my mac keyboard. Ad astra per aspera
End=apple key+right arrow
Option+left or right arrow will move you one word either direction
Apple key+up or down arrow will take you to to the top/bottom of the doc or page
Check out the "keyboard shortcuts" in the 'help menu', they're incredibly helpful....
If you go to the apple icon on the upper right of your screen and click on it, then click on 'System Preferences', wait till a window opens, then click on 'international', then click 'input menu' and then click on the 'keyboard viewer' box you can enable the keyboard viewer icon on the top right of your menu (should be a little UK flag icon). Once you do this you can click on the flag and open the keyboard viewer which allows you to see in real time what the combination of keys that you push will type. All those crazy symbols that you don't need until you need them and required you to memorize an ascii code in Windows.
If you want to change the keyboard layout to another language you can do this also in the international section of system preferences. Once enabled you can use the native Mac spell checker in other languages. To open the spell check window hit 'cmd+shift+semicolon', and to change the language click on the menu there....
I don't/won't buy songs from the itunes store.
I won't buy any crap with DRM and as long as I don't then iTunes leaves me alone to use my music as I see fit.
I also use it to interface with my iPhone and it works great....
Why don't you like iTunes? Because of the store?
I don't intend to get an iphone and certainly won't be buying any ipods again or buying music through itunes. Ad astra per aspera
On the other hand, I did buy an iPhone today. I talked to an editor who was desperate for iPhone tutorials, and for a reasonably decent per-hour I can churn out a few of those, pay off the phone and the contract, and win overall.
I'd still have preferred a Nokia or something else with a real-ish keyboard, but no one wants tutorials for those.
The problem with iTunes is that it's designed to lock you into the iTunes filing system. I don't think iPhoto does that - it probably couldn't even if it wanted to, without causing outrage, horror and bad words.
But I will say my experience is that once your iPhoto library reaches a certain size (for me, as I remember, it was about 1000 photos, but it may depend on the size of the files created by your camera) you should always be taking regular backups of it, as bad things can happen.
thanks for reminding me to back them up!
i've heard iPhoto horror stories too.
oh yeah, in wales, keep 10G empty on your hard drive, and repair permissions every week or so.(in Disc Utility, in the Applications folder, in the Utilities folder), especially if you have downloaded anything from the net.
OS X needs 10G of free space to operate correctly. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
On a related note, I refuse to Mac computers, stemming from my basic and complete incompatibility with the Mac interface, a problem I've had since childhood, before Windows had been invented.
I switched from WMP to iTunes a few years ago due to the horrible shuffle system on WMP. When you'd skip a song, it would always go right back to that song after it finished the one you skipped, so I was constantly drug back to a song I didn't want to listen to at that moment. iTunes does not have that problem. All of my music is off CD's and such non-protected sources, so I've really not had the problems that some have reported. I was aware of its drawbacks before I started using it, and have been keen to avoid them.
My sister managed to lose her entire music collection from itunes too. Ad astra per aspera
If so, I'd not blame it on the tunes but on BG and his crapware...
;-p
BG has a plenty to answer for, but the crappiness of iTunes isn't on his burn-in-hell list. ;)
my ipod died after two months, weak.
now i have a zoom h2, which is a great little stereo live recorder as well as flash drive WAV or mp3 recorder/player. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
I've been talking to some sound engineers with hands-on knowledge of the H2. There's a lot of handling noise, so a little tripod is essential, and the ext. mic preamps are crap apparently. But I have some side jobs where it'll make life a lot easier and pay for itself with the first one. You can't be me, I'm taken
the onboard mikes are outstanding, so no need for external. i have recorded using line in and it's fine.
the best attribute is the ability to dump WAV files straight to the puta, and v.v.
burn a cd of rehearsal in minutes! or throw it on a usb drive.
watch the sensitivity switch. high can distort easy. low is real low.
it's light, small, tough, and good on battery power, rechargeable AA's last 2-3 hrs, and it takes bigger flash drives, tho' i am happy with 2G.
sweet lil gizmo, especially at the price. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
people talk/write about not having a keyboard. when you've learned the system, it's much speedier, intelligent writing software, and the easiest path to detailed...
oh shit, i hate to get into apple discussions. the advantages are so serious, and the opposition so blind, it tears my heart.
Let me put it this way, and now i'm talking about Mac systems as well as the iPhone, but i save thousands of euros a year by not dealing with shit. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
Would you want to write and edit a thousand words on it?
The Communicator wasn't so bad for emails or sms either. It was also pretty damn convenient as an extended-form idea pad. Notepad is not an equivalent, for all kinds of reasons.
So - less of the 'blind' please. Sometimes if someone doesn't instantly love an Apple product to absolute bits, there may be good practical reasons for that.
I bow to those with far more experience, but in the world-view of unsophisticated but harried drones like me, this is a dream. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
There was a short learning curve, but I soon got to do it without looking at the screen - which is what I do to surreptitiously make notes in meetings occasionally. I prefer to go to meetings 'naked' - just face, hands and voice. Invite me into a meeting room with heads buried behind laptop screens and I'll ask them 'why didn't we do this online?' You can't be me, I'm taken
you are the media you consume.
OpenOffice.org
I also use Gimp for image editing, another open source product, instead of PS. Works great for me....
Gimp
Didn't know about OpenOffice, thanks for that tip. Ad astra per aspera
CS2 can be slow and cranky, especially when starting up. CS3 is somewhat smoother. I have a beta of CS4 somewhere, but betas make me nervous so I'm waiting for the full version before I try it out.
From what I've heard CS4 has a few nice new features, but Photoshop itself isn't incredibly spiffed up or different.
Photoshop Elements is about £80, but I could never get my brain around the Elements approach. It's like most of Photoshop, only - not.
Also, the filing system is so bad that I can't even think about it without clutching my head and making pitiful weeping sounds.
If you're unfortunate enough to get an Office2007 document (file extensions ending with 'x') you can find conversion tools on the web. In fact they are not compatible with earlier versions of Office so even if you were on Windows XP you'd have trouble and people need to know better. But of course, if they are running Vista and Office2007 they don't know better. A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
I suspect I am unlikely to really need to get MS office given how little I use it at home anyway - plus if I did need it my laptop is still fine. I got the mac mainly for photo editing. Ad astra per aspera
Is textedit part of it? Ad astra per aspera
It takes a while to open Open Office on my MacBook - you have to realise that "office productivity" software is inevitably bloatware. When I need to write a letter I use TeX. It runs way faster, looks prettier and produces smaller files. A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
the X11 box thing comes up and the textedit but none of the others. Off for the weekend soon so I'll try again when I'm back. Ad astra per aspera
I gave up on it: I use Pages generally, and I have a copy of Office '07 for emergencies.
I wouldn't bother buying Office unless I was actually having problems on a regular basis.
i dunno about the home key, but the end (i think i know what you mean) is apple (command) right arrow.
top of page is apple up arrow.
i have an imac for my music right now, it is a thing of utter beauty. (fetish alert!)
you actually have a bunch of good software on it already. wait till you see your pix up on that screen!
if it's brand new, it has leopard on it as OS, right? ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
