New To Mac's - Heres some helpful tips.

[MaDDoG]

A couple of things that I have found useful

PRAM reset - press and hold command option P and R when rebooting. Wait for 3 beeps and then release.

Mac In Safe Mode - Press power. Immediately after startup tone is heard, press shift key. Release shift key when the grey Apple appears. The restart as normal.

Repair with Disk Utility when Rebooting - Put in the install disk that came with your Mac. Press and hold C while restarting. Choose Utility from Installer menu. Click First aid Click on the triangle at the left of the hard drive select Mac OSX and click repair.

Command shift and 3 - take a snapshot of you current screen.

Repair Startup Permissions - Boot the system using your install CD. Hold down command and S keys at startup. Type in /sbin/fsck -fy and let it run
OR
Restart machine and hold the command and S key until type flows up the screen. When it stops flowing type fsck -fy and hit the enter key. You may need to do tis several times until it says system is OK without being modified. Then type reboot or exit and hit enter.

And a couple of good sites for software downloads.
http://www.pure-mac.com/
http://www.macupdate.com/

And if like me you like to cahnge your desktop wallpapers and themes.
http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details.php?id=1137

[Stretch]

Nice Maddog, hopefully some of the new Mac users will find that helpful.

[Ryan]

Good tips for new users, thanks for posting MaDDoG.

[MacHeadCase]

Excellent post MDDG! Virtual rep to you sir! (not enough members to give rep to!)

A few things to add or correct a little...

A couple of things that I have found useful

PRAM reset - press and hold command option P and R when rebooting. Wait for 3 beeps and then release.

The PRAM reset is done upon startup or boot and those keys have to be pressed at that time. It won't work if you press those keys while the Mac is running.

Mac In Safe Mode - Press power. Immediately after startup tone is heard, press shift key. Release shift key when the grey Apple appears. The restart as normal.

Actually the Safe Boot Mode is done on boot or startup with the Shift key held down. What it does is that it gets rid of some of the System's junk files and disables all Startup Items or third-party software from loading at startup. This is the equivalent of the old Disabling Extensions and Control Panels in the pre-OS X days.

But in order for this to work, you have to go passed the grey screen and log into your account so the junk files can make it to the trash otherwise, nothing is cleared from the system and it just stays there.

Then once you've logged in and you see some files in your trash, you restart normally. These files can be safely deleted.

Repair with Disk Utility when Rebooting - Put in the install disk that came with your Mac. Press and hold C while restarting. Choose Utility from Installer menu. Click First aid Click on the triangle at the left of the hard drive select Mac OSX and click repair.

Command shift and 3 - take a snapshot of you current screen.

To take a screenshot of only a part of the screen, there is the user delimited screenshot that is available by holding down the Command + Shift + 4 simultaneously. Your cursor changes into crosshairs and you just hold down the mouse button and drag the cursor over the area you want to take a screenshot of.

If you add Spacebar + Command + Shift + 4, you take a screenshot of the frontmost/active window.

Repair Startup Permissions - Boot the system using your install CD. Hold down command and S keys at startup. Type in /sbin/fsck -fy and let it run
OR
Restart machine and hold the command and S key until type flows up the screen. When it stops flowing type fsck -fy and hit the enter key. You may need to do tis several times until it says system is OK without being modified. Then type reboot or exit and hit enter.

And a couple of good sites for software downloads.
http://www.pure-mac.com/
http://www.macupdate.com/

And if like me you like to cahnge your desktop wallpapers and themes.
http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details.php?id=1137

I might add a great place for desktop pictures, if you like photography atke a looks at mandolux (http://www.mandolux.com/). There are other websites as well.

[MaDDoG]

How to burn ISO disc images
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060619181010389

And some more desktops
http://macdesktops.com/

BTW...thanks to MHC for pointing out some errors in my post. She is good!!

[MaDDoG]

how to use images as the backgrounds in Finder



1. Open Finder.

2. Go to the menu, click View and select as Icons.

3. From the menu, click View again and select Show View Options.

4. Go down to the Background section and select the Picture radio button. Click the Select button and browse to the desired image that you wish to use as the Finder background.

5. Click the Select button.

[bobtomay]

how to use images as the backgrounds in Finder



nice one - I didn't even realize you could do that.

[MacHeadCase]

When MD puts his mind to it, he's hot. :biggrin:

Ok here's a mega list of OS X keyboard shortcuts (http://rixstep.com/2/20040510,00.shtml).

[Ryan]

Great tips guys, and a great thread MaDDoG!

[MaDDoG]

When MD puts his mind to it, he's hot. :biggrin:

Ok here's a mega list of OS X keyboard shortcuts (http://rixstep.com/2/20040510,00.shtml).

Why thankyou. Heres a page I have visited many times.

http://www.apple.com/support/leopard/